A LOOK BACK: KAPPA HISTORY
Martin D. Jenkins, Ph.D.
Lifelong Educator, College President and a Pioneer in the Field of Educational Psyschology
By Kevin Scott, Grand Historian
A round the turn of the twentieth century, so- ciologists and politicians were examining the preposterous and long-perpetuated notion by many Whites that the Black race was intel- lectually inferior and therefore did not deserve full rights and equal opportunities that their White counterparts enjoyed. This stereotype had been ingrained into the fabric of the United States since its founding and was a principal justification for the institution of slavery. The broad-brush typecasting against the Black race cast a wide net of oppression and discrimination that created a negative disparity in education, employment opportuni- ties, violations of fundamental human rights, and limited financial resources for Blacks. Through his achievements and academic studies, Dr. Martin D. Jenkins’ empirical research results disproved the perverse and irrational no- tion that Blacks were less intelligent than Whites. From Engineering to Education Martin David Jenkins was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on September 4, 1904, where he attended racially segre- gated public elementary and middle schools. He subse- quently attended racially integrated Wiley High School, from which he graduated in 1921. Initially, Jenkins sought to follow in his father’s footsteps, David Jenkins’, a prominent civil engineer. The elder Jenkins was the first Black person in Indiana to become a bridge contractor. The younger Jenkins attended Howard University and graduated with a B.S. degree in Mathematics in 1925. While attending Howard University, Jenkins was initiated into Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity through the Xi Chapter in 1922. Following graduation, Jenkins worked with his father constructing bridges. Fate called Jenkins to seek a career in education. From 1930-1932, Jenkins taught at Virginia State College for Negroes (now Virginia State University). He obtained an A.B. degree from Indiana Teachers College (now Indiana State University) in 1931. Jenkins was bestowed M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University in 1933 and 1935, respectively, where he was a university fellow. He was among the first Black Americans to have this honor
Martin D. Jenkins, Ph.D.
unpublished, it is a highly cited work among educational psy- chologists. It was among the first to focus on Black children of superior intelligence. Jenkins focused his study on Black children from the United States. He sought to examine if Black children could score in the 1% of White children, which would be an IQ of 130. And if a child had an IQ of 140 or above, they were deemed gifted. At the time, there were 16 studies done in which Black children possessed an IQ of at least 130. Out of those 16 studies, 12 of the Black children had IQs well over 140. The evidence was indisputable that Black children were just as intel- ligent, if not more intelligent, than their White peers. This was a substantial breakthrough in the study of Psychology. He worked with his mentor, Dr. Paul Witty, and co-authored “The Case of ‘B’ - A Gifted Negro Girl,” a descriptive case study that observed a nine-year-old girl from Chicago whose Stanford- Binet IQ score measured at 187. This study further provided the foundation for research that analyzed Blacks of significantly high intelligence. Concentration as an Educator/Administrator Jenkins subsequently became the Registrar and Professor of Education at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina (now known as North Carolina A&T State University), Greensboro, North Carolina (1935-37) and Dean of Instruc- tion at Cheyney Training School for Teachers (now known as
conferred by Northwestern University. Attention to Educational Psychology
Although Jenkins’ dissertation, “A Socio-Psychological Study of Negro Children of Superior Intelligence,” went
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