Septima Poinsette Clark

The “Queen Mother” or ”Grandmother”

of the civil rights movement in the USA

Civil rights activist

• One of the great heroes of the civil rights movement

• A powerful example of the issues southern African-American educators faced in the years before it was ruled unconstitutional to have separate schools for blacks and whites

Early teaching career

• 1916 : Charleston would not hire black teachers in its public schools

• Had to leave home to earn a living• Was hired as a teacher at a school on Johns

Island, off the coast

(returned in 1947)

Early engagement in civil rights

• 1918: Activists campaigned to get black teachers hired in black public schools

• Septima and many others went door-to-door, getting thousands of signatures on a petition

• 1920: a success: -the school board changed its policy-black teachers began to teach in the

Charleston schools for blacks

Julius Waties Waring

• Federal Judge assigned to the US District Court in Charleston (1942-1952 )

• From upper-class family• Married an aristocratic girl from

Charleston• Friends with both SC senators

(who expressed racist views…)• Was expected to protect the

”southern way of life”

A change of opinion

• But, he changed:

“You know, a judge has to live with his conscience. I would sit in the courtroom, and I would see men coming in that I knew were decent men, and they were considered bums and trash because they were black. And I would see white men that I knew were bums, and they were considered gentlemen. I just couldn’t take it any longer.”

• Declared equal salaries for otherwise equally qualified black and white school teachers

Primary vote exclusion

• SC a one party state at the time: the Democrats• A private club intentionally designed to exclude black

voters from participation• Black South Carolinians were allowed to register to

vote, but were almost universally excluded from voting in the Democratic Party primaries

• 1944 Supreme Court decision: blacks got the right to vote in primaries

• But: still not in the south…Primaries = important in the election of the American presidential candidates

• 1947: Judge Waring ruled that blacks must be permitted to vote in the next primary

• Whites warned that blood would be running…• Judge Waring went publicly and threatened to

jail them for life if so• An unusually quiet primary…

• Made Judge Waring very unpopular among whites

Primary vote exclusion

Elizabeth Waring

• After the divorce from his southern wife, Judge Waring married Elizabeth Avery from Detroit: a “Yankee”… (not popular in SC!)

• Septima Clark asked Judge Waring’s wife to hold a speech at the next black Ys meeting

• Septima and one other woman personally went to their house and asked her

• Elizabeth was more than willing toY = Young Women’s Christian Association (separate for black and white women)

Difficulties…

• The newspaper got hold of it• Hell broke loose…• Obscene phone calls• Threats• Judge Waring advised Septima to have men at all

the lights in the hall, to prevent the KKK from turning out the lights… (a common KKK procedure)

KKK = Ku Klux Klan

A brave woman

• But it went well• Elizabeth Waring had her speech printed in

the paper, word by word: she was highly critical of Charleston and

of the South, especially of the treatment of blacks

The Warings

Black and white resentment

Black resentment:• The black Ys pressured Septima Clark to sign a letter to

the newspapers saying the Ys would not let Mrs. Waring speak…

• But Septima would not sign it

White resentment:• The Warings were terribly harassed and persecuted by

whites• Their friends abandoned them• No whites would socialize with them• Judge Waring had to be guarded day and night

Friendship with the Warings

• The Warings started inviting blacks to their house

• Septima went (after thorough considerations)• Met a lot of important white people who

would listen to her civil rights advocacy• Septima’s first friendship with anyone who

was white• She in turn invited them to her place

Black resentment

• Many people of both races did not believe that the races should mix

• Many blacks disapproved of her going to the Warings and most did not go themselves

• Frightened neighbors: ”As long as Septima Clark have them white

people [the Warings] coming to her house, we’re gonna always have trouble.”

The Warings had to move

• 1950: moved to NYC (never went back)• Too difficult and dangerous in Charleston:

e.g. a block of cement through their living room window

• A laugh from their grave in Charleston 1968: his retirement money given to the College of Charleston for a black student to live on

the campus (not used until 1976…)

Brown v. Board of Education

1954: Segregation in public schools ruled unconstitutional

• Background:– Five lawsuits for desegregation of public schools

collectively tried– Briggs v. Elliott = the first case (chronologically and

alphabetically, and in the USA cases are heard alphabetically), in Summerton, Clarendon County

Clarendon County

• Mid-1940s in Clarendon County: only white students provided with buses

• Long, often dangerous distance to walk• Black parents purchased a bus themselves (400 $: an

immense sum)• Needed a driver, maintenance etc: expensive…• When the bus broke down: frustration!• A decision was made to proceed with a legal resolution

through the NAACP

NAACP = National Association for the Advancement for Colored people

Result: Pearson v. the State of SC

• In 1947 the NAACP (by Thurgood Marshall) filed a case over equal access and facilities for blacks and whites (Pearson v. SC state)

• Dismissed because the house of one of the plaintiffs allegedly belonged to two school districts, and therefore had no legal rights in Clarendon…(an excuse to avoid the matter…)

• Resulted in stronger efforts:The case was continued with a broadened perspective: the entire education system (not just transportation)

1949: Briggs v. Elliott

• Harry and Eliza Briggs: the first to sign the new broadened petition

(hence the name: Briggs v. Elliott)• The number of plaintiffs increased to over 100

Countered by whites:• The names of the plaintiffs were published on the

front page of the paper: had to leave the state… (harassment, no jobs, were “frozen out” etc)

Loss, but dissent

• The plaintiffs lost• But a dissenting opinion by one of the three

judges (Judge Waring…) encouraged them to appeal to the Supreme Court:

”Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”

(a phrase later adopted by the 9-0 unanimous decision of the federal Supreme Court in 1954 to reverse the lower court's ruling)

Result: Brown v. Board of Education

1954: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka:Segregation unconstitutional in public schools

• The second of the five cases was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

• No one was more surprised than the Briggs petitioners that their desperate lawsuit had altered the course of history

The Highlander Folk School

• Near Chattanooga, Tennessee• A place where blacks and whites could meet and

discuss civil rights together (in SC separate meetings would have to be held)

• 1954: Septima’s first visit

• Later directed workshops herself there• Trained leaders who in turn would go back to

their home communities and train their people

Rosa Parks

• Rosa Parks was working with the youth group of the NAACP in Montgomery

• 1955: Rosa Parks attended one of Septima’s school desegregation workshops at Highlander

Septima Clark and Rosa Parks at Highlander Folk School, 1955.

Rosa Parks

• Made the Freedom Train come to Montgomery and let her NAACP youth group go through it (Dec 1949)

• But Rosa parks was reluctant to talk about it: feared for her job and life, plus very shy…

(Click here for the Langston Hughes poem ”Freedom Train”)

The Freedom Train: a democracy lesson in a federal train: the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence etc

Montgomery bus boycott

• 3 months later, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus (Dec 1, 1955)

Rosa Parks in the front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Dec 1956, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal on the city's buses

• Triggered a one year bus boycott by blacks• Result: segregated buses illegal

Reprisals: dismissals

• Response in SC to the 1954 Brown decision that separate schools for blacks and whites were illegal:

the schools passed out questionnaires requiring teachers to list their memberships

in civil rights organizations• Unlike many other blacks, Septima was a NAACP

member• She refused to lie and listed her membership

Result: dismissal

• 1956: the SC legislative passed a law: no city or state employee could belong

to a civil rights organization(a systematic campaign to wipe out the NAACP)

• Septima was dismissed • She also lost 40 years of pension

(not restored until 1976)

Too fast, too early

• Signed 726 letters to black teachers who were fired: ”If whites could belong to the KKK, then surely blacks could belong to the NAACP.”

• 26 answered• 11 of the 26 agreed to confront the superintendent

along with her• Only 5 actually did…

• Her conclusion:Other blacks were afraid and not as ready as her to fight: she pushed them too hard too early…

Septima left the South

• Septima Clark forced to leave for 20 years:• unable to get a job in SC• black teachers would not be associated with her

any longer: feared losing their jobs as well

• Went to work at Highlander Folk School, where she prepared to open Citizenship Schools (literacy and citizenship workshops that played an important role in the drive for voting and civil rights)

Citizenship Schools

• 1957: first Citizenship School on Johns Island(pedagogically developed by Septima Clark)

- 14 adults were taught to read and write- Aim: enable them to register to vote

• A personal approach to encourage black adults to become literate:

- Do you want to read the letter your daughter sent you from NY?

• Focus on everyday situations and legal issues that were of importance to them daily

• Trained ordinary people to act

Death and legacy

• Active in the struggle for civil rights until her health declined in her final months

• In her opinion, watching from the sidelines was never an option

• Provided a model of how to bring about change

Some awards

• 1979: awarded a Living Legacy Award by President Jimmy Carter

• 1987: her second autobiography Ready from Within: Septima Clarkand the Civil Rights Movement won the American Book Award

Main sources

• Briggs v. Elliott. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briggs_v._Elliott (Accessed: 3/1/2011)

• Brown, Cynthia Stokes (1990). Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement: Ready from Within. Trenton: Africa World Press.

• Freedom Train. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Train (Accessed: 2/25/2011)

• Brown v. Board of Education. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education (Accessed: 3/1/2011)

• Rosa Parks. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_parks (Accessed: 2/25/2011)

• Wellington, Darryl Lorenzo (2004). Ambiguous Legacy: Summerton, South Carolina, and Briggs v. Elliott. http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=343 (Accessed: 8/22/2008)