It has become increasingly frequent in recent years to include more people of color in history of psychology courses. This is sometimes a difficult challenge for teachers to meet, however, because of the relative lack of resources (apart, of course, from Robert Guthrie’s excellent book, Even the Rat was White). I recently discovered, however a website called African-American Pioneers of Psychology.

The site appears to have been in operation for the past two years, and is the work of Charles I. Abramson, Roy Barnett, Jr., and Caleb W. Lack of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK. It features brief biographies (and often photographs) of about two dozen African-Americans who have made important contributions to psychology, from pioneering comparative psychology Charles Henry Turner (1867-1923) to the social psychologist whose work helped to launch the US school desegregation movement, Mamie Phipps Clark (1917-1983).

Abramson, who led the team that built the site, is Regents Professor of Psychology at OSU. He has published numerous articles on the teaching of psychology and won a number of important awards for his teaching. His research is focused on neural mechanisms of learning, particular in invertebrates. Among his teaching interests is the history of psychology.