Oral History Interview with Septima Poinsette Clark, July 25, 1976. Interview G-0016. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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Abstract
Septima Clark was a teacher and citizen's education director for the Highlander Folk School and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She also worked with the South Carolina Council on Human Relations, YWCA, and American Friends Service Committee. This interview covers her childhood in Charleston, South Carolina, and her family's efforts to survive poverty and racial prejudice. Her mother was a washerwoman reared in Haiti, and her father was a former slave on the Poinsette plantation. Her first job as a teacher on John's Island from 1916 to 1919 led to her early activism with the NAACP, her friendship with Judge and Mrs. Waring, and her work with the Charleston YWCA. She married Nerie David Clark as an act of rebellion against her parents, but she chose not to remarry after his early death. She attended college in Columbia, returned to Charleston in 1947, and lobbied for the first local credit union to serve black workers. After she lost her teaching position in 1956 due to her NAACP membership, she worked for the Highlander Folk School encouraging voter registration and education. The SCLC hired her to form education programs, but her plans for increasing community involvement, protecting the labor rights of black teachers, and educating black voters were often ignored because she was female. The interview ends with her thoughts on why she started receiving more recognition for her work in the mid-1970s.
Excerpts
Clark's father remembered watching other slaves get whipped without any negative emotional reaction
Clark's mother criticized slavery and segregation more than her father did
Parents found ways to encourage segregated play in an integrated neighborhood
Clark's mother tries to maintain middle-class standards
All of the children in the Poinsette family worked to bring in enough funds
Clark learned from her father's optimistic approach to problems
Marraige and social affiliation crucial to Charleston community
Black students protest when Charleston school officials fired the white teachers to bring more black teachers
Charleston NAACP lobbies for the hiring of more black teachers
Clark develops more tolerant religious views in her adult life
Social activism would make remarriage difficult
Clark persists in presenting her ideas to prejudiced Charleston mayor
Successful campaign to start credit unions in Charleston for black workers
NAACP drops lawsuit on behalf of black teachers fired for their membership
Clark risks violence to encourage South Carolinians to vote
Male SCLC leaders tend to ignore the contributions of women leaders
Clark encourages community initiative more than other leaders in the SCLC or SNCC
Black women grew accustomed to hiding their feelings and opinions from black men
The legacy of slavery may have made black organizations less inclined to praise activists like Clark
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Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
Subjects
South Carolina--Race relations
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)
Trade-unions--Officials and employees--Southern States--Education
Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tenn.)
Women civil rights workers
African American civil rights workers--Georgia
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