Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Psychologist: Francis Cecil Sumner

BIPOC Psychologists: Francis Cecil Sumner
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Background information
The title of "Father of Black Psychology" is often given to Francis Cecil Sumner. In 1920, he made history by becoming the first African American to get a doctorate in psychology. After finishing primary school, Sumner taught himself and completed his college education at the age of 15, where he eventually became the class valedictorian (American Psychological Association, 2022). During his academic career, Sumner was educated in various fields, including philosophy, English, modern languages, Greek, Latin, and psychology. During World War 1, Sumner was called up to serve in the military and was forced to put his PhD studies on hold. After he had finished serving in the military, Sumner worked on completing his dissertation, which was titled "Psychoanalysis of Freud and Adler" (American Psychological Association, 2022).
Sumner’s Contributions to Psychology
It was important to him to gain knowledge of racial prejudice and to advocate for educational equity. As a result, "race psychology"—the study of how to recognize and remove racial discrimination in the administration of justice—was his primary area of concentration in psychology (American Psychological Association, 2022). He intended to challenge the prevalent Eurocentric approaches to psychology during his day. Sumner was critical of how the educational system handled African Americans. His beliefs were consistent with those of W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington (Weber, 2018). Within the university's framework, Sumner believed that the psychology department ought to be autonomous from both the school of philosophy and the school of education. Aside from “race psychology,” Sumner also researched color and vision, as well as the psychology of religion. His work, "The Mental Hygiene of Religion," was presented during the International Congress of Religious Psychology (Weber, 2018). In the world of academics, he was one of the very first to contribute to the disciplines of psychology, religion, and the administration of justice all at the same time.
Research paper summary
In his work, “Psychoanalysis of Freud and Adler or sex-determinism and character formation," Francis Cecil Sumner discusses sex determinism and the concept of character formation. Every person has a dual nature, one that is masculine and one that is feminine; they are mental, if not bodily, pseudohermaphrodites. There is always one dominant sexuality and one recessive sexuality in a bisexual ensemble. It is because of this dominating sexuality, whether masculine or feminine, that is more noticeable in uniqueness. It is also why common vernacular speaks of a person as male or female without considering the more profound complexity of human nature. In his paper, Sumner argues that there is no such thing as an absolute male or female but only approximates and that people are dual, both exhibiting feminine and masculine characteristics (Sumner, 1922).
Applying the Mendelian principle to the phylogeny of the sexes demonstrates the two sexes evolved from a common ancestor and provides a plausible explanation for the existence of heterologous secon...