Septima Poinsette Clark (May 3, 1898 – December 15, 1987) was an African American educator and civil rights activist.

[2] Clark's argument for her position in the Civil Rights Movement was one that claimed "knowledge could empower marginalized groups in ways that formal legal equality couldn't.

[6] Her mother, Victoria Warren Anderson Poinsette, was born in Charleston but raised in Haiti by her brother, who took her and her two sisters there in 1864.

Clark rebelled against her mother's strictness through never becoming the lady she wished her to be and marrying a man Victoria called a "stranger".

Due to Clark's poor financial status, she watched the woman's children every morning and afternoon in return for her tuition.

Due to financial constraints, she was not able to attend college initially, so she took a state examination at the age of eighteen to allow her to teach.

During this period she developed innovative methods to rapidly teach adults to read and write, based on everyday materials like the Sears catalog.

[12] Clark first heard of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) while she was teaching on John's Island from 1916 to 1919.

[13] In 1918, Clark returned to Charleston to teach sixth grade at Avery Normal Institute, a private academy for black children.

[15] In 1945, Clark worked with Thurgood Marshall on a case that was about equal pay for white and black teachers led by NAACP in Columbia, South Carolina.

[16] The late-1940s proved to be a difficult time for Clark as she stood up for the NAACP's aim of equalization to integration against many other members and activists.

After J. Andrew Simmons left Booker T. Washington High School to take a position in New York in 1945, Septima Clark stayed on for two additional years, before finally leaving Booker T. Washington High School, an institution she had helped to mold, in order to return to Charleston, SC, to take care of her ailing mother, Victoria.

[1] Clark's decision to send Nerie, Jr. to live with his paternal grandparents was a common action at this time due to the Great Depression and its resulting financial issues.

The biggest NAACP impact during Clark's time in Columbia was they sponsored a suit that won the equalization of teacher salaries.

That same year, the South Carolina legislature passed a law banning city or state employees from being involved with civil rights organizations.

[2] Clark was upfront in her refusal to leave the NAACP, and was thus fired from her job by the Charleston City School Board, losing her pension after 40 years employment.

A black teachers' sorority held a fundraiser for her benefit, but no member would have their picture taken with her, fearing that they would lose their own jobs.

"In a compressed week's workshop, Clark promised to turn sharecroppers and other unschooled Negros into potential voters".

[20] Clark is most famous for establishing "Citizenship Schools" teaching reading to adults throughout the Deep South, in hopes of carrying on a tradition.

[15] The creation of citizenship schools developed from Septima Clark's teaching of adult literacy courses throughout the interwar years.

Clark's goals for the schools were to provide self-pride, cultural-pride, literacy, and a sense of one's citizenship rights.

[20] Citizenship schools were frequently taught in the back room of a shop so as to elude the violence of racist whites.

[15] The project was a response to legislation in Southern states which required literacy and interpreting various portions of the US Constitution in order to be allowed to register to vote.

Citizenship Schools were based on the adult literacy programs Clark and Robinson had developed at Highlander.

The leadership schools ultimately spread to a number of Southern states, growing so large that, upon the recommendation of Myles Horton and Clark, the program was transferred to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), in 1961 though initially Martin Luther King Jr. was hesitant about the idea.

The SCLC staff of citizenship schools were mainly women, as a result of the daily experience gained by becoming a teacher.

"[26] Clark claimed that women being treated unequally was "one of the greatest weaknesses of the civil rights movement.

[29] In 1987, her second autobiography, Ready from Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement (Wild Trees Press, 1986) won the American Book Award.

Clark had major relations to other black activists of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois.

DuBois and Clark agreed on the emphasis of education as the most important approach to the civil rights movement.