Which Doll is Prettiest?

In the 1940s, two black psychologists who were married to each other, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, were instrumental in the civil rights movement, conducting important research about the effects of race and segregation using experiments that were called “the doll tests.”

The doll tests consisted of placing a white doll and a black doll in front of black children and asking them to choose the doll they thought was the prettiest, nicest, and other “best” qualities. Overwhelmingly, the black children chose the white dolls and said it was because they were the most beautiful.

The data…