[3][4] In the late 1940s, Josephine and William Clement filed lawsuits challenging racial discrimination in schools.

[5] Clement and 15 other women leaders in the black community chartered the Durham chapter of the Links, a national service organization, in 1958.

[8] In 1975, the city council asked the North Carolina General Assembly to make the school board an elected body; the legislation was passed in June of the same year.

William's first wife, Frances, had died of cancer in 1940; they had one daughter, Alexine (born 1936).

[4] The Durham Public Education Network, a nonprofit group, established the Josephine Dobbs Clement Award in 1995.