Edmund W. Gordon

Psychology professor Edmund W. Gordon was born on June 13, 1921 in Goldsboro, North Carolina to Edmund Taylor Gordon Sr. and Mabel Ellison Gordon. He received his B.S. degree in zoology from Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1942 and his B.D. degree in social ethics from the Howard University Graduate School of Religion in 1945. Gordon also earned his M.A. degree in social psychology from American University in Washington, D.C., in 1950 and his Ed.D. degree from Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City, New York, in 1957.

In 1952, Gordon and his wife, Susan G. Gordon, founded the Harriet Tubman Clinic for Children in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City and he served as clinic director until its closure in 1959. Gordon also worked as a psychologist for the Department of Pediatric Psychology at the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn from 1952 to 1959. In 1954, Gordon also worked alongside psychologists Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie Clark on the U.S. Supreme Court for Brown v. Board of Education case. Gordon was then hired in 1965 as the Project Head Start director of the Division of Research and Evaluation n Washington, D.C. In 1968, he became the chair of the Department of Guidance at Columbia University’s Teachers College, making him the first African American person to be offered a tenured position at Columbia University. Gordon also taught at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, the City College of New York, and other higher education institutions. In 1970, Gordon founded the Institute for Urban and Minority Education. His publications include Compensatory Education for the Disadvantaged: Programs and Practices (1966) and Education and Justice: A View from the Back of the Bus (1999).

During his career, Gordon received numerous awards and honors, including the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service to Education from Columbia University in 1993, the Relating Research to Practice Award from the American Educational Research Association in 2010, and the John Hope Franklin Award from the American Studies Association in 2011. Gordon also received honorary degrees from Yale University in 1979, Brown University in 1989, and Howard University in 1998. Gordon and his wife were inducted into the Rockland County Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2006. Columbia University named its Harlem campus the Edmund W. Gordon Campus of Teachers College in 2005. In 2021, Gordon became the first Honorary President of the American Educational Research Association.

Edmund W. Gordon was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 13, 2023, July 20, 2023, September 11, 2023, and November 30, 2023.