John Henrik Clarke; Activist, Professor

John Henrik Clarke never got around to writing his life story, which encompassed some of the more turbulent periods in American history.

But time will not forget the former history professor who died at the age of 83 Thursday at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City after a heart attack. A pioneer in urging African and African American studies at Hunter College, where he taught from 1968 to 1985, he developed most of the department’s curriculum. He taught at a number of other schools, including Cornell University.

Clarke is remembered as someone who put the forgotten history of Africa back into the textbooks, and gave an analysis of history that wasn’t mainstream, said John Branch, director of the Afrikan Poetry Theater in New York City and Clarke’s friend of 20 years.

Descended from a family of sharecroppers, Clarke was born in 1915 in Union Springs, Ga. He left Georgia in 1933 and went to Harlem.

His political and community activism began quickly, when Clarke opposed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s. Later, he became a close friend of black activist Malcolm X.

Clarke was instrumental in drawing up the charter of the Organization of Afro-American Unity in the 1960s, said Andre Elizee, an archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research Into Black Culture in Harlem. And Clarke helped to forge a link between Africans and African Americans.

Clarke studied history and literature from 1948 to 1952 at New York University and later at Columbia University.

During his career, Clarke edited or wrote 27 books. His editing work included the classic “American Negro Short Stories” in 1966. He was the subject of a documentary film, “John Henrik Clarke: A Great, Mighty Walk,” narrated by Wesley Snipes.

He is survived by his wife, Sybil Williams-Clarke.