In the 60's the resurgence of Black Nationalism and its Black Power expression encouraged Black caucuses within traditionally white oriented professional institutions. In 1968 the association of Black Psychologists (ABP) was founded because of the criticism of the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA was said to have a limited vision and an unconscious cooperation of the racially prejudiced character of American society. In the 1970s the first publications in the area of Black psychology appeared. They felt that; "Black psychologist.have finally broken the symbolic relationship with white psychology." (Pg. 443) Black psychology has set forth new definitions, conceptual models, and test theories that come from the heart of the Black experience. The history of the Association of Black Psychologist (ABP) indicate the development of divergent but overlapping schools of Black psychology, these schools are the traditional, reformist, and radical schools.
There are three major schools of thought; I will discuss each thought and its major contributors. The traditional school is classified by its vigilant and reactive position, its lack of solicitude/concern for the advancement of Black psychology and its continual collaboration with the Euro-centric model (with minor changes). The schools concern with altering white attitudes, and its being fundamentally significant without offering substantive correctives. The major contributors to this field are; Kenneth Clark, William Grier and Price Cobbs, and Alvin Poussaint. K. Clark was the first and only Black man to be president of the APA, he established himself with the citation of his work on the destructive effects of segregation by the U.S. Supreme Court in its historical Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. W. Grier and P. Cobbs are most popular for their work Black Rage; it proposes some of the basic contentions of the traditionalist school.