When the roll call of civil rights icons is delivered, Septima Poinsette Clark should not be omitted. She might be only a footnote in many historical accounts of the movement for social justice, but for the more informed among us, she was an important activist who was fully committed to teaching and training others in civil disobedience in the fight to end racism and discrimination.
Clark is perhaps best remembered for her years at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tenn., where she tutored a number of notable activists, including Rosa Parks. Her instruction and techniques, mainly under the guidance of Myles Horton, the school’s founder, are what made Clark so in demand by other organizations and freedom fighters, none more notable than Ella Baker, who wanted Clark’s approach as part of the programs and operations at the emerging Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Born May 3, 1898, in Charleston, S.C., Clark knew firsthand the oppressive impact of segregation and even vestiges of slavery from her father, Peter, who was a house servant for a noted politician. Clark’s mother, Victoria, was very strict in her rules and regulations for her children, hoping to prepare them for a better life than hers. But the rebel in Clark was soon evident, even in school, where after several remonstrations she was turned over to an elderly woman in the neighborhood for home schooling and grooming.
After attending high school at the Avery Normal Institute, she could not afford college so she took a state exam and began teaching on John’s Island at 18. From 1916 to 1920, she taught alternately at Promise Land School and Avery. Finally, while attending college on a part-time basis, she earned her BA at Benedict College in 1942 and received her MA from Hampton Institute in 1946. Once again, with degrees in hand, she returned to the classroom, mostly on John’s Island, where she began to perfect her innovative teaching methods in reading and writing, ostensibly utilizing a Sears catalog.
One of the things she began to notice was the disparity between the pay allotted to Black and white teachers, and that motivated her to join those demanding equal pay for Black teachers. This activism was the conduit to her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. She was familiar with the NAACP from her early years, but there was no branch of the organization on John’s Island. During her teaching experience in Charleston at the Avery Normal Institute she became more acquainted with the organization and became a member. Almost immediately she was among the leaders in the drive to allow Black principals at Avery and in the Charleston public school system.
As with most of her endeavors, Clark quickly gained notice for her tireless advocacy and keen understanding of the social and political issues. She withstood a number of troubling moments during her political maturation—losing her first child was the biggest obstacle to overcome. Her husband, Nerie David Clark, who she had married in 1920, died of kidney failure in 1925. Her association with the church helped her during these personal challenges as well as bolstered her spiritual awakening.
In 1929, she settled in Columbia, S.C., and began some 17 years teaching and researching, particularly on the history of Booker T. Washington High School in the city where she was a teacher. It was during this period that she completed her degrees that ultimately enhanced her classroom prowess. The arrival of the Great Depression took its toll on the nation and Clark’s personal status, forcing to send her son to live with his paternal grandparents.
While earning her higher educational degrees, Clark was taking summer classes at Columbia University and at Atlanta University, always interested in improving her education and her personal accomplishments. By 1954, she became active with the Highlander Folk School and was soon conducting literacy classes based on her past experience in South Carolina; in the school’s progressive outlook and interracial student population, she prospered. When she recruited her cousin, Bernice Robinson, to assist her in the classroom, her reputation as a creative educator increased.
From this popular initiative grew the Citizenship Schools, which combined literacy, civil disobedience tactics and the assertion of one’s rights as a citizen no matter the circumstances. Once the concept was adopted by the SCLC, with an impetus of registering voters, more than 700,000 African-Americans were registered before 1969.
For her significant efforts, Clark was the first woman elected to the board at the SCLC. But it wasn’t easy being a woman thrust into the midst of Black men; their chauvinism was often unrestrained. “I can remember Reverend [Ralph] Abernathy asking many times, why was Septima Clark on the executive board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” she said in an oral history interview in 1976. “And Dr. King would always say, ‘She was the one who proposed this citizenship education, which is bringing to us not only money but a lot of people who will register and vote.’ And he asked that many times. It was hard for him to see a woman on that executive body.”
Clark believed that women being treated unequally was “one of the greatest weaknesses of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Several other organizations benefited from Clark’s service—the YWCA, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and a number of health welfare agencies in the state of South Carolina. After she retired from the SCLC in 1970, she served two terms on the Charleston County School Board. Among her many honors and citations was a Living Legacy Award bestowed on her by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and an American Book Award for her second autobiography, “Ready from Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement” (Wild Trees Press, 1986). She was also the recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award (1970) and the Drum Major for Justice Award (1987).
Clark was 89 when she died December 15, 1987. She is buried at Old Bethel United Methodist Church Cemetery in Charleston.