{"id":61,"featured":0,"modified":"2025-01-23 22:53:51","latitude":32.7881277218474025403338600881397724151611328125,"longitude":-79.932821859351037119267857633531093597412109375,"title":"Activism : Pay Equalization and Septima Clark's Home, 1929-48","address":"17 Henrietta Street
\r\nCharleston, SC 29403","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/7cb895376a5830642f03a08f6646c458.jpg","creator":["Julia Eichelberger","Committee on Commemoration and Landscapes"],"description":"Purchasing a house on Henrietta Street in 1948 was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for the fifty-year-old Septima Clark. Since childhood, she\u2019d wanted to give her parents a more comfortable existence. Clark would not have been able to buy this home, however, if court decisions in the 1940s had not changed South Carolina\u2019s practice of paying Black teachers far less than their white counterparts. While in Columbia, Clark participated in the movement for pay equalization which would ultimately give her the opportunity to triple her salary.
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\r\nBefore the movement succeeded, Clark supplemented her income by occasionally teaching evening classes in Columbia, a job that made her more adept at teaching adults to read and write. She taught in Richland County\u2019s progressive Adult Schools program and, at Fort Jackson, worked with Black soldiers who could not sign their own paychecks. Her professional skills were also enhanced by an organization for Black teachers, the Palmetto State Teachers\u2019 Association, whose members shared ideas and practical techniques. Moreover, PSTA believed in teaching students to become active citizens\u2014informed participants in local governments. This was a bold and visionary attitude in a time when few Black South Carolinians were able to vote. When Clark attended large meetings of the PSTA, as she later recalled in her memoir, \u201cwe teachers had a visible demonstration of our importance, of what we already were; it didn\u2019t take much to imagine what we might be.\u201d
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\r\nMost PSTA members, like many other Black professionals in Columbia, would not risk their jobs by protesting against state laws. But Clark eagerly supported the NAACP when it challenged the state\u2019s practice of paying lower salaries to teachers who were Black. The PSTA and others did not believe the NAACP campaign for salary equalization could succeed. Clark, however, went door to door recruiting new NAACP members, trying to convince community members and colleagues that they should pursue the issue.
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\r\nIn a 1940 case (Alston vs. School Board of Norfolk), federal courts had ruled that \u201cseparate but equal\u201d institutions must actually be equal. However, in South Carolina in 1942-43, white teachers\u2019 average salary was twice what Black teachers earned ($1091 vs. $538). Clark helped document some of these inequities in Columbia. \u201cI was able to get some affidavits from both white and black teachers about salaries and show the discrepancies.\u201d In 1943, the NAACP sued the Charleston school board. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall argued for the NAACP; C of C graduate Harold Erckmann represented the school board. The Federal Judge hearing the case was C of C graduate J. Waties Waring, a prominent Charlestonian. He surprised everyone by ruling that the city must equalize its teachers\u2019 salaries.
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\r\nIn another NAACP lawsuit in 1945, Waring ordered Richland County to set a new salary schedule to equalize pay. In response, the state created a rating system for teachers based on their years of education and score on a state exam. Many Black teachers objected to the exam, which they felt might disadvantage teachers who hadn\u2019t had a chance to complete college or graduate school (in that era, a teacher\u2019s license did not require a college degree). Clark, who had earned a licentiate of instruction, but not a B.A., from Avery Normal Institute, had been taking additional college courses, which helped prepare her for the state teachers\u2019 exam. She had earned a B.A. (1942) and an M.A. (1946), and she\u2019d received strong professional development training in the Columbia schools where she worked. She scored high on the exam, tripling her salary.
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\r\nClark\u2019s political activism, along with hard work and talent, increased her earning power. Although not wealthy, she could now afford a house for her Charleston family. As a child, when her father \u201cdidn't have money enough to buy a number of things that we needed, he would talk about how he hated that.\u201d Clark's mother often told her children about wearing nicer clothes before she had children to support. \u201cI can remember her singing those blues so well, talking about the things that she had, she'd never have anymore. She hated it very much. But she did get to the place where she could have everything that she wanted. . . . I bought a house and I had it repaired, down on Henrietta Street, and the night that we had the opening, oh, she was most jubilant. . . . And she just threw her arms around me and said, \u2018Nice, nice to do this.\u2019\u201d Clark had added a downstairs bedroom and bathroom so that her mother \u201cwouldn't have to climb steps. . . That's what I did when I was able to. . . . She was too happy, but I was hoping that my father could have been alive. I would have liked for him to have been there at the time. But he was gone.\u201d ","sponsor":null,"subtitle":null,"accessinfo":null,"lede":"The Clark family lived on this block of Henrietta Street for decades before Clark could afford to buy a house. Living in Columbia, Ms. Clark developed skills as a teacher-activist and participated in the NAACP\u2019s pay equalization campaign. As a result, her salary grew, enabling her to buy her family a home.","website":null,"related_resources":["

Eliot Wigginton.<\/span> Refuse to Stand Silently By: An Oral History of Grass Roots Social Activism in America, 1921-1964.<\/span><\/i>Doubleday, 1992.<\/span><\/p>","

Katherine Mellon Charron. <\/span>Freedom\u2019s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark.<\/span><\/i> University of North Carolina Press, 2009.<\/span><\/p>","

Katherine Mellon Charron. \u201cSeptima Poinsette Clark.\u201d in South Carolina Women: <\/span>Their Lives and Times<\/span><\/i>. Ed Marjorie Julia Spruill, Valinda W, Littlefield, and Joan Marie Johnson. Athens: UGA Press, 2012.<\/span><\/p>","

Septima Clark with Cynthia Stokes Brown. <\/span>Ready From Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement, a First-Person Narrative.<\/span><\/i> Africa World Press, 1990.<\/span><\/p>","

Septima Clark with Jacqueline Dowd Hall, July 25, 1976. <\/span>Interview G-0016.<\/span><\/a> Southern Oral History Program Collection, University of North Carolina.<\/span><\/p>","

Septima Poinsette Clark, <\/span>Echo in My Soul<\/span><\/i>. Dutton, 1963.<\/span><\/p>"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/7cb895376a5830642f03a08f6646c458.jpg":{"id":613,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Site of 17 Henrietta Street. 11 Henrietta Street is visible at the left of the photo. ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/7cb895376a5830642f03a08f6646c458.jpg","description":"Septima Clark\u2019s family lived on Henrietta Street for much of the 20th century. They rented their home until 1948, when Clark was finally able to afford to purchase it. The house, which no longer exists, was located on property that is now the parking area for Emanuel AME church, one of the churches the Poinsette family attended. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/33acc7c3c12f907a371cf06607983823.jpg":{"id":584,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"\u201cNegro Teacher Files Salary Petition\u201d ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/33acc7c3c12f907a371cf06607983823.jpg","description":"In 1943, the NAACP filed suit against the Charleston school district on behalf of a Black teacher at Burke Industrial School, Malissa Theresa Smith. She and other Black teachers had not received the 15 salary percent increase that the General Assembly had authorized for all teachers. This article quotes Smith: \u201cRousseau said, \u2018He who would be free must strike the first blow.\u2019 I believe as ardently in that doctrine as I do in the concepts of democracy and God himself.\u201d College of Charleston graduate Harold Erckmann, attorney for the school district, helped them identify legal grounds to fire Smith three months later for being absent without \u201cproper permission.\u201d | Evening Post (published as THE CHARLESTON EVENING POST) \u2013 June 24, 1943 \u2013 page 1 "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/d62f53afbf9c3f0f5227a326ae4905f8.jpg":{"id":583,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"\u201cCourt Refuses to Dismiss Negro Teacher Suit\u201d Newspaper article ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/d62f53afbf9c3f0f5227a326ae4905f8.jpg","description":"After the Charleston school board fired the first teacher who sued them for equal pay in 1943, another teacher, Viola Louise Duvall, became the next plaintiff in 1944. The NAACP had initially asked Eugene Hunt to be the plaintiff, but decided against this because they feared Hunt might be drafted sooner by the local draft board in retaliation. (Decades later, Hunt became an English professor at the College of Charleston.) NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall represented Duvall and College of Charleston graduate Harold Erckmann represented the school board. The judge, another C of C graduate, Waties Waring, surprised everyone by ruling in favor of the NAACP. | The Charleston Evening post, February 10, 1944, page 1. Charleston South Carolina. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/1ceba56f0ff1e9e6b2468f7240da6cd0.jpg":{"id":523,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Hampton Institute, VA commendation for successful studies. 1944 in Septima P. Clark Scrapbook. ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/1ceba56f0ff1e9e6b2468f7240da6cd0.jpg","description":"Commendation for successful studies at Hampton Institute, 1944. Having earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in 1942, Septima Clark was now pursuing a master\u2019s degree. | Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/ff294dd21542e175eae066245d4b110d.jpg":{"id":585,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"\u201cNegroes plan further suits in pay dispute\u201d ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/ff294dd21542e175eae066245d4b110d.jpg","description":"In 1945, the NAACP filed another lawsuit on behalf of Columbia teacher Albert N. Thompson. Septima Clark, a member of the Columbia NAACP, collected affidavits from Black and white teachers that documented the differences in their salaries. Judge Waties Waring decided in the NAACP\u2019s favor, decreeing that Richland County had to set a new merit-based salary schedule that would apply to all teachers regardless of race. The article quoted the president of the NAACP who noted that Black citizens were now \u201cmaking the supreme sacrifice\u201d in war but were not being treated equally. Beside the article is a photograph of a Black citizen who was serving in the Pacific. | Evening Post (published as THE CHARLESTON EVENING POST) \u2013 April 5, 1945 \u2013 page 15 "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/8b16d687c0e0ac6cf9a096de3a63c4d1.jpg":{"id":599,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"SPC with graduating class at Hampton Institute ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/8b16d687c0e0ac6cf9a096de3a63c4d1.jpg","description":"Clark with classmates at Hampton University, where she completed her master\u2019s degree in the summer of 1946. South Carolina had developed a rating system for teacher\u2019s salaries that paid teachers more if they had a master\u2019s degree and scored high on a state exam. By meeting these criteria, Clark was able to triple her salary. | Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/fab3a4e3bb8df4a4f57a6729bca35821.jpg":{"id":522,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Color photograph of Septima P. Clark's house at 17 Henrietta Street. Pictured left. MAP ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/fab3a4e3bb8df4a4f57a6729bca35821.jpg","description":"Purchasing this house at 17 Henrietta Street in 1947 was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Clark. Having tripled her earnings during her years in Columbia, she was far from wealthy, but could finally afford to purchase this home for her family. | Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. "}}}