Francis Cecil Sumner : The Father Of Black Psychology Essay

Francis Cecil Sumner: The Father of Black Psychology Francis Cecil Sumner helped to pave the way for me to be able to major in child psychology. I chose to write about Francis Cecil Sumner because of the renowned work he did and the social and cultural contributions he made to psychology. He worked tremendously hard to succeed in the field of psychology, and it is even more admiring that he did this in a time when the United States was overall callous, uncaring, and hostile towards minorities. Sumner became the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology, he overcame racial and discriminatory adversities, and he made lasting contributions to the field of psychology.

Background & Education
To begin, Francis Cecil Sumner was born on December 7, 1895 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Lillian and David Sumner (Thomas, 2011). Sumner moved quite a bit as a child, going to elementary schools in Plainfield, New Jersey, Norfolk, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. (Thomas, 2011). His father was homeschooled and made the decision to homeschool Sumner in place of ng to secondary school (Thomas, 2011). At age 15, Sumner took a written test for admission into Lincoln University, the first American university for African Americans, since he did not have a high school diploma (Sawyer, 2000). He graduated magna cum lade with a B.A. in English from Lincoln University at age 20 (Titcomb, 1997). In 1917, he received his second B.A. degree in English from Clark University (Thomas, 2011). After…