{"id":67,"featured":0,"modified":"2023-06-08 20:57:17","latitude":32.78442460000000124864527606405317783355712890625,"longitude":-79.9381149394589414214351563714444637298583984375,"title":"Belonging: College of Charleston Honors Septima Clark, 1978-2020s","address":"Cistern Yard
\r\n66 George Street
\r\nCharleston, SC 29424","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/732ff0a2dabfcb6375faaaaa62340bbd.jpg","creator":["Julia Eichelberger","Committee on Commemoration and Landscapes"],"description":"In the Cistern Yard in 1978, the College of Charleston presented an honorary doctorate to a woman whose father had been enslaved by one of its trustees. \"I cannot describe how I felt when they notified me of my nomination to this honor,\u201d Clark told a reporter. \u201cIt was like being Cinderella. . . just after she puts on her glass slipper. After all, this is the same college the campus of which I have passed so often, not being allowed to enter it as either a student or a teacher.\u201d
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\r\nConferring this honor upon Clark was one of the College\u2019s efforts to undo its past practices of exploiting and excluding African-descended people, practices that dated back to the institution\u2019s beginnings. Wealth derived from enslaved people founded the College, starting with the first bequests the College received in 1770. Historic Randolph Hall was built using enslaved labor. For most of its history, the College had excluded Black citizens from its classrooms. In the 1940s, Avery students, including future State Representative Lucille Whipper, had written the College to request applications, but were told they were not eligible to apply to this public school supported by all taxpayers. In 1949, the city of Charleston sold the College to the Board of Trustees for one dollar so it could become a private school and continue excluding Black students. In the 1950s and 1960s, some students, including Frank Sturcken, protested, but the College did not accept Black students until 1967.
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\r\nIn 1972, to support Black students, President Ted Stern hired Lucille Whipper to work at the College. The first Black faculty member, Owilender Grant, was hired in 1972; the second Black professor hired was Eugene Hunt, an Avery graduate who had previously taught at Burke High School, where he supported students who participated in the Charleston civil rights movement. Professor Hunt developed the College\u2019s first African American studies courses in the 1980s. He also worked, along with Lucille Whipper, to establish the Avery Research Institute for Afro American Culture in 1985. This 1860s building, where Septima Clark had studied and worked in the 1910s, was restored as the Avery Research Center and opened to the public in 1990. Clark\u2019s papers are now housed there.
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\r\nClark passed away in 1987. A few months later, the College named the Septima Clark Auditorium in her honor. Despite this institutional recognition, many twenty-first century College of Charleston students were unfamiliar with the legacy of the activist who was born at 105 Wentworth Street, on the College\u2019s campus. Some of the College\u2019s Teaching Fellows, studying Clark in Professor Jon Hale\u2019s Foundations of Education class, were shocked there was no marker at Clark\u2019s birthplace. These students raised funds and submitted paperwork necessary to install a State Historical Marker on the site, where it was unveiled in 2018, on Clark\u2019s 120th birthday. Grandchildren in attendance recalled their years with \u201cMama Seppie.\u201d Charleston\u2019s Poet Laureate Marcus Amaker read his poem, \u201cMovement\u2019s Mother.\u201d
\r\nCharleston\u2019s poinsettia
\r\nwas a warrior woman
\r\nwho blossomed
\r\ndespite an unholy city\u2019s
\r\nunsettled winds.
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\r\nThe Avery Research Center has now digitized many of Clark\u2019s papers. Some are featured in an online exhibit on the College\u2019s Lowcountry Digital History Initiative. Philanthropist Linda Ketner created a scholarship named for Clark and Esau and Janie Jenkins in 2022. The College installed a permanent exhibit on Septima Clark\u2019s life in the Septima Clark Auditorium in 2023, linked to this online tour, so that more students would know of Clark\u2019s achievements and their links to the College and surrounding neighborhoods.
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\r\nDr. Clark once wrote, \"We need to be taught to study rather than to believe, to inquire rather than to affirm.\u201d In this spirit, the College strives to teach students to think for themselves.
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\r\nRacism and systemic inequities continue to damage American society, a century after Clark\u2019s activism began. In 2015, a young white supremacist massacred nine members of the Emanuel AME church, steps from the site of Clark\u2019s old Henrietta Street home. In the wake of the massacre, Google commissioned a 2016 study by the Avery, which documented significant disparities between Black and white residents\u2019 income, health, education, and housing.
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\r\nIn May 2020, after George Floyd and other Black citizens were murdered by law enforcement, protestors in Charleston and the nation took to the streets, calling for Black lives to be valued. Septima Clark would have supported these protests and other efforts to make American society more equitable. \"I just tried to create a little chaos,\u201d she said of her activism. \u201cChaos is a good thing. God created the whole world out of it. Change is what comes of it.\"
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\r\nChange can be chaotic and frightening. It can disrupt habits and traditions that seem unchangeable. But visionaries like Clark can inspire us to overcome our fears and our complacency. If we continue to study and inquire, as Septima Poinsette Clark did before us, we too can find ways to transform and heal a troubled world. ","sponsor":null,"subtitle":"Honoring a Visionary","accessinfo":null,"lede":"C of C, which once excluded Black citizens, awarded Clark an honorary doctorate in 1978. It now safeguards her papers at the Avery Research Center. Dr. Clark\u2019s life provides lessons for the College and inspiration for all who work for justice and equity.","website":null,"related_resources":["Allen-Taylor, Douglass. \u201cSeptima Clark: Teacher to a Movement.\u201d Safero. N.d. http:\/\/www.safero.org\/articles\/septima.html.<\/a>","Amanda Kerr, \u201cAlum\u2019s 1951 Speech on Desegregation Inspires New Oratorical Competition.\u201d The College Today, September 21, 2018. https:\/\/today.cofc.edu\/2018\/09\/21\/alums-1951-speech-on-desegregation-inspires-new-oratorical-competition\/<\/a>","Amanda Kerr, \u201cC of C Professors Paved the Way for a More Diverse Faculty.<\/a>\" The College Today. February 24, 2017.","Avery Research Center. \u201cAveryites in the Charleston Movement.\u201d Avery: The Spirit That Would Not Die. Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, May 2017. https:\/\/ldhi.library.cofc.edu\/exhibits\/show\/avery\/averyitescivilrights\/communityadvocates<\/a>","\u201cHistory of the Avery Research Center.\u201d https:\/\/avery.cofc.edu\/about\/history-of-avery\/<\/a>","Katherine Mellon Charron, Remembering Individuals, Remembering Communities: Septima Clark and Public History in Charleston.<\/a> Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, February 2017.","Kyra Kuhar, \u201cA Tribute to Septima Clark: The Greatest Living Charlestonian.\u201d Charleston Post and Courier, 1978.","Marcus Amaker, \u201cMovement\u2019s Mother.\u201d https:\/\/marcusamaker.com\/septimaclark\/ Soundcloud recording<\/a>","Patricia Williams Lessane and John White. \u201cThe State of Racial Disparities in Charleston County, 2000-2015. \u201d http:\/\/avery.cofc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/The-State-of-Racial-Disparities-in-Charleston-County-SC-Rev.-11-14.pdf<\/a>","Septima Clark Papers. Avery Research Center, College of Charleston. https:\/\/lcdl.library.cofc.edu\/content\/septima-p-clark-papers-ca-1910-ca-1990\/<\/a>","Tony Jackson, (C of C Class of 2022). \u201cThe Black Experience: Dr. Eugene Hunt.\u201d<\/a> Podcast. January 3, 2022 ."],"factoids":[],"files":{"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/732ff0a2dabfcb6375faaaaa62340bbd.jpg":{"id":622,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Cistern Yard at night, 2020s.","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/732ff0a2dabfcb6375faaaaa62340bbd.jpg","description":"Cistern Yard, 2020's. Septima Clark was awarded an honorary doctorate here in 1978. | The College Today"},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/bb3ccd5cbff551d5c5971f8c40a750f0.jpg":{"id":570,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Color photograph of Septima P. Clark with James B. Edwards, former President of MUSC, College of Charleston Founders Day ceremony. ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/bb3ccd5cbff551d5c5971f8c40a750f0.jpg","description":"Septima Clark and James B. Edwards, former President of MUSC, at College of Charleston\u2019s Founders Day ceremony in 1978, when the College of Charleston awarded Clark an honorary doctorate. | Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/5991a0147432be68eed1d33127d47a0d.jpg":{"id":619,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Septima Poinsette Clark and guests exit Cistern Yard after she receives an honorary doctorate on Founders\u2019 Day, 1978. ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/5991a0147432be68eed1d33127d47a0d.jpg","description":"Septima Poinsette Clark receiving honorary doctorate | Avery Research Center"},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/0c6a688319aa07e1e7a8476948d89d13.jpg":{"id":568,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Color photograph of Septima P. Clark and her grandson, Nerie David Clark, Jr. at Septima P. Clark Day Care Center inaugural ceremony. 1978. ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/0c6a688319aa07e1e7a8476948d89d13.jpg","description":"Septima P. Clark and her grandson, Nerie David Clark, Jr. stand in front of Septima P. Clark painted portrait at Septima P. Clark Day Care Center inaugural ceremony. 1978. | Courtesy Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/f3ae692d4504c62e6404d3d0d8e052f6.jpg":{"id":633,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Dedication of Septima P. Clark Memorial Auditorium.","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/f3ae692d4504c62e6404d3d0d8e052f6.jpg","description":"Program from the dedication ceremony held in the Septima P. Clark Memorial Auditorium, March 8, 1988. | Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/e726075e6414d43aa281c87c7155a9d2.jpg":{"id":580,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"C of C Teaching Fellows with Septima Clark\u2019s grandson and SC State Historical Marker.","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/e726075e6414d43aa281c87c7155a9d2.jpg","description":"Aly Lain, Ridgeland Welch, Nerie Clark, 105 Wentworth Street, 2018. Students in the College\u2019s Teaching Fellows program installed a State Historical Marker on the site after doing the research for the marker and fundraising to cover its cost.\u202f\u202fThe marker was unveiled May 3, 2018, 120 years after Clark\u2019s birth on this site. | College of Charleston. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/8f2537516e4aa48501b3fb6b3a7fc43e.jpg":{"id":572,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Handwritten essay for speech to Antioch College ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/8f2537516e4aa48501b3fb6b3a7fc43e.jpg","description":"Speech by Septima P. Clark delivered to Antioch College, 1970. \u201cI believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than to believe, to inquire rather than to affirm.\u201d | Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. "}}}