1898-1987 · Educator & Civil Rights Activist

Septima Poinsette Clark was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1898, the daughter of Victoria Anderson of Haiti and Peter Poinsette, who grew up enslaved on the plantation of Joel Roberts Poinsette. Clark earned a teacher's certificate from The Avery Institute. Because Americans of African descent were not allowed to teach in Charleston city schools, Clark taught for three years in black schools on rural John's Island. She received her BA from Benedict College and her MA from Hampton Institute. In her long teaching career, Clark always championed the cause of civil rights.
In 1956 Clark was fired from the Charleston school system for being a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She then taught adult education at the Highlander Folk Center in Tennessee. She established schools for illiterate adults. In 1957 she began her model "Citizenship School" on John's Island, teaching African Americans how to read so they could pass voter registration tests.
A training supervisor for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Clark empowered others in the growing 1960's Civil Rights Movement. The indomitable Clark worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., who called her "the Mother of the Movement". She was with King when he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Clark



retired from SCLC in 1973 and returned home to Charleston where she stayed active in educational and civil rights issues. The recipient of numerous honorary awards, this "drum major for justice" died in 1987 and is buried in the Old Bethel United Methodist cemetery. The fountain at Liberty Square is named in her honor.
"The greatest evil in our country today is not racism, but ignorance. I believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than to believe, to inquire rather than to affirm." ~Septima Clark, 1975

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Septima Poinsette Clark 1898-1987
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