Inez Beverly Prosser, teacher and school administrator, was the first African-American female to receive a Ph.D in psychology.
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Inez Beverly Prosser was born to Samuel Andrew and Veola Hamilton Beverly in San Marcos, Texas on December 30, 1895. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was a waiter. Prosser was the eldest daughter and second eldest of eleven. The family moved between several cities early in Prosser’s life, most likely because of the lack of educational opportunity for Blacks in rural Texas during the 1900s. Eventually they relocated to a small town called Yoakum, Texas. To contribute to the household, Prosser started a college fund to support her younger siblings’ education. Of the eleven children, all graduated from high school and six went on to earn college degrees (Warren, 1999, 12).
Not much is known of her life before college, however her education track record provides insight as to what type of student Prosser was. For Prosser, who always had her mind set on college the opportunity came when her brother decided that he wanted to get married instead of continuing his education. This soon to be two-time valedictorian did not let her parents down. She graduated from Yoakum Colored High School in 1910 and completed her two-year teacher certification at Prairie View Normal College (now Prairie View A&M University), again at the top of her class in 1912. Upon graduating, Prosser taught in Texas segregated school system for several years but soon returned to get her Bachelor’s of Arts in Education from Samuel Huston College in 1924. Prosser soon received several awards and embraced the opportunity to continue her education. She went on to receive a master’s degree in educational psychology from the University of Colorado and finally, she became one of the first Black woman to earn a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati in 1933(Winegarten, 1996, 4).
Prosser held various notable positions between her successive degrees. Before continuing on to get her bachelor’s degree, she taught at several schools throughout Texas. In 1912, she taught at a Black elementary school for two years. Then, became an assistant principal at Clayton Industrial School in Manor, Texas, before accepting a more long-term position at Anderson High School. Throughout her time at Anderson, she taught English and coached for the Interscholastic League, an organization that sponsored events for Black high school students throughout the state. It was in Anderson that she would meet her future husband, Allen Rufus Prosser, an elevator operator in a department store. They soon married on June 4, 1916 in Austin (Warren, 15). Racial hindrances of the past began to resurface and intensify at Anderson High School. When one of her colleagues asked the principal about the disparities in pay between White and Black teachers, she was told that, "it didn’t cost as much for Negroes to live as it did for whites" (Benjamin et al., 2005, 53). While at Anderson, Prosser resisted the mistreatment and injustices toward Black faculty and students. Under these circumstances she earned her BA while her husband earned his high school diploma.
Prosser went on to finish her master’s degree at the University of Colorado because during the 1920s, graduate school for African-Americans in Texas was unlikely (Benjamin et al., 48). Nonetheless this time the University’s attitude towards students of color was described as a "passive egalitarianism in a racially segregated society" (Hays, 1996, 9). At the University, Prosser took several courses that were particularly relevant to her master’s thesis whose subject areas include mental tests, tests and measurement, and research methods. Her thesis, "The Comparative Reliability of Objective Tests in English Grammar", was to "investigate the reliability" of four kinds of English grammar test (using the standards proposed by the National Education Association) (Benjamin et al., 35). Her four test types included true-false, multiple choice, completion, and matching questions. All test covered the same subject areas and difficulty levels as well as comparable numbers of factual and reasoning questions (Benjamin et al., 36).
Upon receiving her master’s degree, Prosser left Anderson High School in 1927 to accept a position as a faculty member at Tillotson College, a Black college in Austin. At Tillotson, she not only displayed her teaching and leadership skills but truly dedicated herself to the educational and psychological development of Black students. At Tillotson, she was given the opportunity to organize a series of lectures from 1929 to 1930, which even featured a lecture by George Washington Carver. Overall, Prosser was at Tillotson College from 1921 to 1930, serving as "Dean, Registrar and Professor of Education. [6] pg. 10 Her influences extended well beyond the classroom walls or administrative offices. Prosser was eventually transferred to another dual teaching and administrative position at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi. Even as Dean and Registrar of Tougaloo College, Prosser accepted the position as Principal of Tougaloo High School. Her career took an important turn when she applied for and was awarded aid from the General Education Board (established by John D. Rockefeller in 1902). In her application, she noted, "I am interested in that type of research which will lead to better teaching in elementary and high schools" (Benjamin et al., 49). She received $1,000 to apply towards another year of graduate studies (Benjamin et al., 49).
Prosser arrived at the University of Cincinnati as a candidate for a PhD in Educational Psychology in 1931. She arrived at a time when there was a research program that "focused on African Americans in different school environments" (Benjamin et al., 47). The general consensus in the department at this time was that "all-black schools with black teachers could best provide the skills black students needed to survive in a society where most faced limited opportunities…segregated schools, by insulating black students from white abuse, were crucial to the formation of black identity and could become unifying community centers. (Benjamin et al., 47). Prosser’s dissertation on The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools became an important text for issues relating to education, reform, social development, racial identity, and other prominent topics related to segregation (Guthrie, 1976, 18). It was a "companion study" to Mary Crowley’s 1931 dissertation, "A Comparison of the Academic Achievement of Cincinnati Negroes in Segregated and Mixed Schools" (Benjamin et al., 49). Prosser’s interest in the topic, "grew out of a desire to determine objectively, so far as possible, the degree of truth in the often repeated statement that the Negro child develops superior character traits, more racial self-respect, and a greater concomitants of a well-rounded education when he is placed under the direction of Negro teachers during his formative years" (Prosser, 1933, 70). She took Crowley’s research a step further by considering the demographics of the student body in the schools as well. The purpose was:
(1) to measure vocational interests, leisure interests, social participation, emotional or neurotic tendencies, social distance, ascendancy-submission, overstatement, introversion-extraversion, and general personality adjustment…, (2) to ascertain the difference, if any, that exists in these traits, and (3) to determine whether one of the other of these schools is better fostering growth in personality in so far as it can be determined by the available techniques (Prosser, 24).
In her dissertation, Prosser argues that racial injustices and feelings of isolation have damaging effects on the psyche of Black children. The effects are even more detrimental with the standards of living as it applies to socioeconomic status. Given that her sample size was small (64 students), Prosser refrained from making absolute suggestions. She argued that school selection should be based on the student’s personality, as some do well in integrated schools while others benefit from segregated schools. (Prosser, 25). She believed that most Black students receive a more balanced curriculum, affection, support, and family-school consistency in segregated schools. She also noted that segregated schools not only provided job opportunities, but also "a more nurturant environment" for Black teachers as well as students (Benjamin et al., 53).
Prosser was one of the key figures in the debate on how to best educate Black students. Arguments made in her dissertation were used in the 1920s and 1930s in the debate about school segregation. Her dissertation "examined personality differences in black children attending either voluntarily segregated or integrated schools and concluded that black children were better served in segregated schools" (Prosser, 148). As a Black female psychologists, Prosser’s voice was crucial during her time and now because the voices and this histories of Black Psychology and Black Psychologist has been absent from the narratives of mainstream American psychology. Although her dissertation research remains unpublished, her work appropriated by other researchers were used in the debated leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1954, which argues that segregated schools were inherently unequal, thereby mandating integration in the nations public schools (Benjamin et al., 53). Her works on the educational and identity development of Black students were not only influenced by her teaching and administrative experience, but by her only experiences at a "colored" school in Texas.
While Prosser is frequently referred to as the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in Psychology, others believe that Ruth Winifred Howard (1900–1997) was the first. The distinction depends on how one defines a psychologist. Those who argue that Howard, earning PhD at the University of Minnesota in 1934 is the first African-American woman to earn a PhD, hold the view that a psychologist is someone who earned the degree within a psychology department. In Prosser’s case, although her "dissertation research was in psychology, her doctoral mentor and other members of her committee were psychologists, and much of her coursework was in psychology" she is often denied her well-deserved title. The distinction not only lies between these two women however, as holding the view that psychologists must earn degrees within a psychology department would disqualify not only many of the first and second generations of American psychologists, but also the rising number of contemporary psychologist who have not earned degrees from psychology departments (Benjamin et al., 43).
In 1934, she was killed in an automobile accident near Shreveport, Louisiana (Benjamin et al., 59). Students, family members, friends, colleagues, and those who appreciated her dedication to improving the primary, secondary, and higher education of Black students mourned her loss. Prosser’s early death (one year after she received her PhD) prevented her from building a rapport as an academic writer.