Septima Poinsette Clark - Early Life

Early Life

Clark was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1898. Her life in Charleston was greatly effected by the era of Reconstruction, as well as power relations during the time. Her father, Peter Poinsette, was born a slave on the Joel Poinsette farm between the Waccamaw River and Georgetown. Joel Roberts Poinsett was a distinguished US politician of his time. After the Civil War, he got a job as a caterer. Clark remembers only ever being punished by her father when she did not want to attend school; however, Clark's father was not able to write his own name until the later years of his life. Her mother, Victoria Warren Anderson Poinsette, was born in Charleston but raised in Haiti by her uncle, who took her and her two sisters there in 1864. Victoria Poinsette had never been a slave. She returned to Charleston after the Civil War and worked as a launderer. Clark's mother did not work directly for whites, and refused to allow their daughters to work in white houses in order to protect them from sexual harassment. Victoria Warren Anderson Poinsette lived in a constant struggle of wanting to improve her social class; she wanted to live in a middle-class society, but on a working-class budget. Clark recalls her mother as very strict, and punished Clark for minor disobedience. Clark's parents, Peter and Victoria, met between the years 1890 and 1892 in Jacksonville after Peter's non-violent exit from slavery.

Clark graduated from high school in 1916. Due to financial constraints, she was not able to attend college, but began work as a school teacher. As an African American, she was barred from teaching in the Charleston, South Carolina public schools, but was able to find a position teaching in a rural school district, on John's Island, the largest of the Sea Islands. During this time, she taught children during the day and illiterate adults on her own time at night. During this period she developed innovative methods to rapidly teach adults to read and write, based on everyday materials like the Sears catalog.

Clark recalls the gross discrepancies that existed between her school and the white school across the street. Clark's school had 132 students and only one other teacher. As the teaching principal, Clark made $35 per week, while the other teacher made $25. Meanwhile, the white school across the street had only three students, and the teacher who worked there received $85 per week. It was her first-hand experience with these inequalities that led Clark to become an active proponent for pay equalization for teachers. It was in 1919 that her pay equalization work brought her into the movement for civil rights.