December 9

Abolitionist Profile

Septima Poinsette Clark pioneered the link between education and political organizing, especially organizing aimed at gaining the right to vote. “Literacy means liberation,” she stressed knowing that education was key to gaining political, economic, and social power. Long before the Freedom Schools began in the 1960’s, Clark was developing a grassroots citizenship education program that used everyday materials to think about big questions. From reading catalogues to writing on dry cleaner bags instead of chalkboards, Clark not only found creative ways to teach literacy but also helped people become leaders. “Don’t ever think that everything went right. It didn’t,” she acknowledged. “Many times there were failures. But we had to mull over those failures and work until we could get them ironed out.”

Clark was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1898 to parents who did everything they could to ensure that she receive a deep and broad education. Clark became a teacher herself in 1916 and moved to Johns Island off the South Carolina coast where, looking for ways to pass the time in the evening, she began an adult literacy program that would later grow into her “Citizenship School” developed while she was director of workshops at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.  Septima Clark bridged the gap between younger civil rights organizers and an older generation in a way that few did, and her lifelong work in adult literacy and citizenship education helped pave the way for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s organizing work, especially the Freedom Schools of Mississippi.

Prayer

With guidance for the road ahead, come Morningstar.
In failure and reimagining, come Morningstar.
With creativity and passion, come Morningstar.
In the daily practice of abolition, come Morningstar.  Amen.