Early Life and Education
Born on January 1, 1915, in Union Springs, Alabama, as the eldest child to sharecroppers John (Doctor) and Willie Ella (Mays) Clark, he renamed himself John Henrik (after rebel playwright Henrik Ibsen) and added an "e" to his surname Clarke. Counter to his father's wishes for him to be a farmer, Clarke left Alabama in 1933 by freight train and went to Harlem, New York, where he pursued scholarship and activism.
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