[2] Prior running for office, Clarke worked in education, teaching home economics.
[1] She worked on bringing the federal Women, Infants and Children food program to the state, setting up drug courts and organizing school breakfasts.
[3] In the 1990s, she founded a short-lived "biracial, bipartisan" Women's Caucus in the Mississippi House.
[3] In 2024, she became the first woman and the first black person to have their portrait on display in the Mississippi State Capitol.
Her portrait is an oil painting, and is in the room of the Capitol where the House Education Committee meets.