“C” is for Clark, Septima Poinsette (1898-1987)

“C” is for Clark, Septima Poinsette (1898-1987.) Educator, civil rights activist. Born in Charleston, Clark attended Avery institute and completed its teacher training program in 1916. Her first job was to teach at Promise Land School, an overcrowded and underfunded rural school for African Americans on Johns Island. In 1919 she was one of several Black Carolinians who successfully petitioned the General Assembly to permit Black employment in Charleston’s public schools. In 1956 she was dismissed from the Charleston County School System for refusing to disavow membership in the NAACP. Clark is credited with the creation of the “citizenship school” model, which ultimately engaged thousands of ordinary people in literacy and political education throughout the South. By the early 1960s, Septima Poinsette Clark had earned a reputation as “Mother Conscience” to hundreds of workers and community organizers.