40 Fun Facts About Septima Poinsette Clark

Septima Clark's father was born enslaved on the plantation of Joel Poinsett, the first US minister to which country?

Mexico is where Joel Roberts Poinsett found the red-leaved plant now called the poinsettia and sent samples home. Peter Poinsette, Clark's father, was born enslaved on his plantation.

Which activist took Septima Clark's 1955 workshop at Highlander Folk School months before making headlines in Alabama?

Rosa Parks said Clark's teaching gave her courage. That December she kept her seat on a Montgomery bus, and a citywide boycott followed.

Septima Clark lost her teaching job in 1956, after 40 years, for refusing to resign from which organization?

The NAACP was the target of a 1956 South Carolina law barring city and state employees from civil rights groups. Clark refused to quit, and the dismissal cost her a pension too.

When police raided Highlander Folk School in 1959, Septima Clark was arrested on which charge, later dropped?

Possessing whiskey was the charge, soon dropped as false. The raid interrupted an interracial workshop, and officials padlocked the school.

Teaching at night on the Sea Islands, Septima Clark helped adults learn to read using which everyday publication?

The Sears catalog was one of the everyday materials she built her lessons around. Later classes practiced on voter registration forms, driver's license exams and checks.

Two decades after Charleston dismissed her from teaching, Septima Clark won election to which local body?

The school board that had let her go gained her as a member. South Carolina's governor then restored her pension, declaring the 1956 dismissal unjust.

Which piece of American currency shows Septima Clark marching beside three students carrying books and a flag?

A dollar coin in the American Innovation series carries the scene. South Carolina chose Clark for its design, in which two girls hold the books and a boy the flag.

Which kind of space object, discovered by astronomer Eleanor Helin, was officially named for Septima Clark in 2019?

A minor planet is now designated 6238 Septimaclark. Helin spotted it from Palomar Observatory in 1989, and it waited 30 years for its name.

At a 1956 dinner honoring the newly fired Septima Clark, most of her sorority sisters refused to do what?

Pose with her for a photograph was something only three sorority sisters would do. The rest feared losing their own jobs if they were seen beside her.

Septima Clark worked on a 1945 South Carolina case for equal teacher pay alongside which civil rights lawyer?

Thurgood Marshall went on to become the first Black justice of the Supreme Court. The suit won equal salaries for Black and white teachers.

Septima Clark's mother, Victoria, was raised and taught to read as a girl in which Caribbean country?

Haiti gave Victoria Poinsette a view of life outside American segregation. Back in Charleston she worked as a laundrywoman and vowed never to be anyone's servant.

After passing her teacher's exam at 18, Septima Clark took her first classroom job in which coastal community?

Johns Island gave her an overcrowded rural school by day and adults to teach at night. It is the largest of South Carolina's Sea Islands and lies just outside Charleston.

Highlander Folk School, the interracial center where Septima Clark ran workshops, stood in the hills of which state?

Tennessee revoked the Monteagle school's charter in 1961, claiming it was run for profit. That closure is why Clark's program moved to the SCLC.

Which co-founder of Highlander Folk School hired Septima Clark full time as director of workshops after her 1956 firing?

Myles Horton modeled Highlander on the folk high schools he had visited in Denmark. He and Clark later recommended handing her program to the SCLC.

Septima Clark recruited which cousin, a beautician with no teacher training, to lead the first citizenship class?

Bernice Robinson threw out the children's primers and taught from canned-goods labels and paperwork. After three months, 80 percent of her class registered to vote.

Which Sea Island bus driver, once a student of Septima Clark, taught his passengers to read on the ride to Charleston?

Esau Jenkins lost a local election because so few Black islanders could register to vote. With a seed grant from Highlander, his rolling school became a permanent class.

Septima Clark's citizenship schools were built to help Black Southerners overcome which barrier to registering to vote?

Literacy tests made applicants read and interpret parts of the Constitution before they could register. Clark's classes paired reading lessons with citizens' rights.

Martin Luther King Jr. often referred to Septima Clark by which admiring title for her grassroots teaching?

Mother of the Movement was King's phrase for her. Clark still found that most men in his organization did not respect women much, though she thought King valued their place.

Which U.S. president presented a Living Legacy Award to Septima Clark when she was in her eighties?

Jimmy Carter honored her in 1979. A year earlier the College of Charleston had given the once-dismissed teacher an honorary doctorate.

Septima Clark's second memoir, Ready from Within, won which literary prize in 1987, the year she died?

The American Book Award went to Clark and editor Cynthia Stokes Brown, who shaped the book from Clark's own spoken recollections.

Wild Trees Press, first publisher of Septima Clark's memoir Ready from Within, was co-founded by which novelist?

Alice Walker co-founded the small press in the 1980s with Robert Allen, a senior editor of The Black Scholar. It issued Clark's book from Navarro, California, in 1986.

Which 1962 autobiography did Septima Clark write with LeGette Blythe about her life and her Highlander years?

Echo in My Soul earned a book review from Martin Luther King that July. It mixes her life story with her views on Jim Crow laws.

South Carolina gave Septima Clark its highest civilian honor in 1982, an award that carries which name?

The Order of the Palmetto is awarded by the state's governor. Clark received it from the state whose 1956 law had ended her teaching career.

Septima Clark finished her bachelor's degree in 1942 at which historically Black school in South Carolina's capital?

Benedict College fit around her job. She took classes in the morning, taught from noon to five, and went back to class in the evening.

Septima Clark earned her master's degree through summer study at which historically Black school in Virginia?

Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, awarded the degree in the 1940s. She had also spent earlier summers at Columbia University in New York.

In 1937 Septima Clark spent a summer at Atlanta University studying under which renowned Black scholar?

W. E. B. Du Bois was teaching at Atlanta University that year. Clark shared his view that education was the surest road to civil rights.

Which future mayor of Atlanta helped Septima Clark supervise the SCLC's citizenship schools during the 1960s?

Andrew Young came to the program through Highlander and moved with it to the SCLC. He later served as a congressman and as ambassador to the United Nations.

Septima Clark recalled which close aide of Martin Luther King Jr. asking many times why she sat on the SCLC's board?

Ralph Abernathy found it hard to see a woman on the executive body, Clark said. King always answered that her program was bringing in both money and voters.

Which organizer came to Highlander to see if Septima Clark's classes could fit the SCLC's Crusade for Citizenship?

Ella Baker was Clark's good friend, and both women bridged the gap between an older generation of leaders and the students of SNCC.

From 1961 Septima Clark trained citizenship teachers at Dorchester, a former academy campus near Midway in which state?

Georgia's Dorchester Academy dormitory is now a National Historic Landmark, a status earned partly through its tie to Clark. Trainees went home from it to open their own classes.

Septima Clark was an active member of which historically Black sorority, founded at Howard University in 1908?

Alpha Kappa Alpha's Charleston chapter, Gamma Xi Omega, later made her its president. Her personal papers are kept at the College of Charleston.

Septima Clark's public friendship with which white federal judge in Charleston was partly blamed for her 1956 dismissal?

J. Waties Waring had opened South Carolina's all-white Democratic primary to Black voters. Shunned by Charleston society, he and his wife left for New York in 1952.

Septima Clark trained as a teacher at which private Charleston school, now the name of a Black history archive?

Avery Normal Institute charged tuition that her parents sacrificed to pay. The research center on its old site now holds Clark's personal papers.

Septima Clark took her pupils door to door with a petition that won which change in Charleston's schools in 1920?

Hiring of Black teachers became legal in 1920, a year after Clark joined artist Edwin Harleston and former congressman Thomas Miller in petitioning the legislature.

Nerie Clark, whom Septima Poinsette met in Charleston around 1919, had spent World War I as a cook in which service?

The Navy had made him a wardroom cook. Her mother disapproved of the match because he came from North Carolina, which made him a stranger in her eyes.

Septima Clark taught from 1929 in Columbia, South Carolina, at a high school named for which Black educator?

Booker T. Washington High School hired highly trained teachers from across the country. Clark completed her own college degree while on its staff.

The first citizenship school that Septima Clark helped launch met out of sight in the back of which kind of business?

A grocery store on the island hid the class from the white community's gaze. By 1961 there were 37 such schools on the Sea Islands and nearby mainland.

Short of chalkboards, Septima Clark and her students sometimes wrote lessons on which improvised material?

Dry cleaner bags stood in for a chalkboard when a classroom had none. Clark built her lessons from whatever students already handled in daily life.

Septima Clark was buried in 1987 at Old Bethel, her beloved Charleston church of which Protestant denomination?

Methodist church work ran alongside her activism, and she was an active member in both Columbia and Charleston. She died that December at age 89.

Septima Clark's work in citizenship education won her which honor, the SCLC's highest award?

The Drum Major for Justice award recognized her pioneering work in citizenship education and interracial cooperation. Joseph Lowery, the group's president, cited it in her eulogy.