A virtually self-educated and a powerful independent thinker, Clifford Black is a scholar, an historian, a connoisseur of information, and a master of “learning to learn”.  He is a brilliant speaker and an excellent facilitator of the Socratic method of thinking and learning.

At an early age, Black understood the value of self-development and the ability to “think outside the box”.  Always a quick study and an avid reader, he had an insatiable desire to learn.  He attended the public schools in Chicago, and graduated high school at W.F. Branch High school in Newport, Arkansas.  He attended Mississippi Valley State College in Itta Bena, Mississippi and Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where, in the tradition of J. A. Rogers, Carter G. Woodson and other scholars who disagreed with accepted doctrines and teachings, he challenged much of what appeared to him as erroneous and inferior schools of thought.     

Black is the developer of the Intu Education Psionic Learning Program.   He is the author of two discourses on violence, and a play, entitled “By Blood Only”, about the philosophies of deceased leaders and scholars among African peoples.  His two books, both “Learning to Read” and the “Alphabet are highly successful and valuable tools for teaching reading and language. 

Among major achievements Black has facilitated reading and Learning to Learn classes for the renowned Piney Woods School in Piney Woods, Mississippi and the Hyde Park Academy in Chicago, Illinois.  Black’s Memphis experiences include teaching classes at the Institute For African American Youth, Memphis Urban League, Goodwill Homes and Community Services, INROADS, Booker T. Washington High School, Yo Memphis, YO Memphis Charter School, Lemoyne-Owen College Community Development Program, Heritage Early Childhood Program, Families of Incarcerated Individuals, and the Memphis YWCA.  Black also has made Psionic Learning presentations for a host of organizations including, the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, the African American Male Task Force of the Congressional Black Caucus, the University of Tennessee Health Works Program, the Southern Education Foundation of Atlanta, the Tennessee Office of Minority Health, National Black Caucus of Teamsters, Upward Bound, and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.  He currently facilitates “Wednesday School” class at the Memphis City Schools Training Center. 

A frequent speaker at national and community meetings, on education Black states, “How does one expect a child to learn if in fact he or she is taught that –A- means apple and –B-means ball?  Absolutely Ridiculous!!”  University of Memphis Radio Program on Education, 1999.  In Violence in the Promised Land, 1995, Black states, “The choice between a chaotic and confused environment or a purification process that can result in an intelligent people will be the deciding factor in the solution to the violence equation”.   He has developed a self-styled approach to culture and race.

From Wole Soyinka, Nietzsche, Spinoza, JA Rogers, Alvin Toffler, to Malcom and Fanon, Cliff Black is an authority on many subject matters originating in history, religion, and philosophy, and their connections to current global affairs.  A resident of Memphis, Tennessee, he is at home with audiences of all ages and ethnicities.