J. Herman Blake: “I truly loved the column you wrote on Septima [Clark] on Friday. I read it over several times. You really caught the essence of her spirit and I was deeply moved.” Also, a comment by Patterson Smith, James Island.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | All South Carolinians – white, black, brown, newcomer and native – can stand to learn more about a real homegrown patriot, the late Septima Poinsette Clark.
The mere mention of her name today invokes reverence in the black community. But white Southerners seem to forget that she was so respected for her work in the civil rights movement that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked her to accompany him to Oslo, Norway, in 1964 when he accepted the Nobel Peace prize.
“In a sort of casual way, he would say, ‘Anything I can’t answer, ask Mrs. Clark,’” she recalled in a 1986 memoir.
From 1916 when she was 18 until she was fired 40 years later with 41 others in Charleston County for being a member of the NAACP, Clark was a teacher, first on John’s Island and then in Charleston, McClellanville, North Carolina, Columbia and again in Charleston.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | If you periodically read commentaries like this one about public policy, you are probably considered a pretty good citizen – somebody who cares about how our society operates and is governed. You probably vote, fret about tax rates, get roused by bureaucratic incompetence and care about issues of public importance.
But what about people across our state and nation who don’t read much, pay little attention to what’s going on in neighborhoods and towns – people who tune out, not tune in? What about other people, liberals and conservatives, who have perverted American principles for their own ends to make America less than what it has been?
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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