Albert Sidney Beckham (1897–1964) was the first African American to hold the title of school psychologist.
[1][2] He was a pioneering African American psychologist specializing in educational psychology and made significant contributions to the base of knowledge about the racial intelligence score disparity.
[2] At the age of fifteen, Beckham enrolled at Lincoln University and was a fellow student of Francis Sumner, who would become the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology.
[4] Beckham's scholarly work largely focused on education; however, he also conducted studies on topics such as albinism, narcolepsy, race attitudes, and life satisfaction.
Beckham spent most of his life fighting against discrimination of African American children, and hoped to use scientific research to bring equality between the races.
Horacce Mann Bond, Herman Canady, Martin Jenkins, and George Sanchez, who set out to debunk Francis Galton's theory of eugenics, which suggested that whites were intellectually superior to African Americans.
[6] Beckham's research into this field found that the largest influences on intelligence were socio-economic background and the child's environment.
[7][8][9] Working in Chicago, Beckham had access to a large population of African American children.
It was Beckham's belief that with the correct therapy, and an early behavioral diagnosis many juvenile children could have been helped from having any criminal record.
Beckham also goes on to state in one of his publications, that juvenile delinquency could be severely reduced if individuals went off of scientific research rather than perceived stereotypes.
His works also included groundbreaking research on church-neighborhood-school relationship, which benefited American youth.
[10] Beckham married Ruth Winifred Howard in 1934 and the couple moved to Chicago, where they lived until 1987.
A study of intelligence of colored adolescents of different economic and social status in typical metropolitan areas [Doctoral dissertation, New York University].