Septima Clark was an amazing, innovative teacher. Despite the intense segregation in South Carolina, she used her creativity to teach hundreds of Black children and adults to read and write. But still, something was bothering her. What was it?
Clark knew there were countless good, Black teachers, but they couldn’t get hired in public schools to teach Black children. And the rural schools that did hire Black teachers often paid far less to teach higher numbers of children.
So Clark made a decision that would change the course of her life and countless others. She decided to work with the NAACP to get jobs and better pay for Black teachers. Eventually, some Black teachers did get hired in public schools, but Clark was about to pay a heavy price for her activism.
Clark had to give up her racial justice work or lose her job, effective immediately! The choice was easy: she quit her job. But her incredible story doesn’t end there.
Clark helped create over 800 “citizenship schools,” where adults learned reading, writing, and state government election procedures. Now Black people would have more control of educating Black children and over the laws that affected their everyday lives.
Clark understood one thing: if voting and educating ourselves wasn’t so important, then white supremacy wouldn’t be working so hard to prevent us from doing them!