Septima Poinsette Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 03, 1898 |
| Died | December 15, 1987 |
| Occupation | National Association for the Advancment of Colored People Teacher |
Biography
editSeptima Poinsette Clark was an African American educator and civil rights activist in South Carolina.She was one second of eight children that born in Charleston, South Carolina. His father who was former slave, Peter Poinsette, and his wife Victoria Warren Anderson [1]. Her parent's life experience had shaped and influenced her ways which helped her change other's perspective and habits. She attended to public school and worked to earn money so she can attend to the Avery Normal Institute which is a private school for African Americans.[2] Institute had became part of College of Charleston which is Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture. She married to Nerie Clark in 1920, but her husband died in 5 years later from kidney failure.
Teaching and Early Activism
editSteptima taught students the importance to have the power to vote. Rosa Park was one of her student, who helped start the Montogomery Bus boycott.[3]. NAACP stands for National Association for the Advancment of Colored People. Their goal is to ensure the political, education, social, and economic equality of rights of all person and to eliminate race-based discrimination. [4] She worked with Thurgood Marshall on a 1945 case that was about equal pay for white and black teachers led by NAACP in Columbia, South Carolina. [5] In 1947, she went back to Charleston to take another teaching job however, in 1956 She was fired from her job because South Carolina decided to make it illegal for anyone who still belong to civil rights group to have jobs. She was hired by Tennessee's Highlander Folk School to teach there. She was soon later directing a Highlander's Citizenship School program. In 1961, the Southern Christian Leadership conference adopted the program that Septima was sponsored by.[6] After the program was adopted, she joined the SCLC as its director of education and teaching. While she was director, about 800 citizenship school was created.
References
edit