Lexington, Miss. – Robert G. Clark, who was elected by the first Black Mission Mississippi from 20. century and increased to the second-and-the-house leadership in the state house of the ages 96, his son said.
The tail. Bryant Clark, who managed Robert Clark, said his father died of natural causes at home in Holmes County, north of Jackson.
The teacher and descendant of slaves, Clark was assessed during his first years at the state capital, moved to sitting solo on a two-room desk in the house House and neglected white colleagues on social events.
By the time he left the office 36 years later, he served as a chairman and a home ethical committee and a strong educational board. In a state in which almost 40% of the inhabitants were black, he saw more black candidates by won the universities as if the rights of voting were carried out and several majority black districts were drawn, sometimes under the court order.
Clark also won the respect and support of colleagues, Montenegro, who elected him in January 1992. Year of the Pro Tempore speaker, the position he kept until he retired in 2004. Years.
Clark was among the five activists and elected officials honored in February 2018. During the black Tie-Optional Gala in the newly opened Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
The glitzy event was a lifespan from Clark’s difficult early day, when most of his cousins worked in cotton fields on family land in Holmes County. As a small child, he would sit next to the field with his older grandfather, William Clark, who was born by the slave and shared live memories of deprivation.
“He was never the owner of a pants or shoe until after slavery,” Robert Clark said in the joined press in an interview for 2018. year. “Their foods poured on them in the trough just as we fed the pigs and had to get down and eat the best way to can.”
It’s the wisdom of Grandpa, he said, helped you give him a feeling of becoming a leader.
“I would throw a corn hand and chicks would eat. I would throw another corn of corn there, and the chicks would leave the corn of corn and flee to another hand,” Clark said. “And I asked him:” Grandpa, why did old crazy chickens get corn and just ran to another corn? “He said,” Young man, they just follow a crowd. “And he said,” It’s something I never want to do. “
“And from feeding the chickens, it became part of me – not just the next group.”
Clark went to Michigan to earn a master’s degree in education, and then fulfilled the promise that he made older relatives returning to family land in Mississippi. As a teacher and coach often entered their homes for athletes.
“I realized that many parents can’t help their children with lessons,” Clark said. “And I went to the education supervisor to ask him if he would implement the adult education program. And he said,” No, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the county to do. “”
After the completely white local committee rejected Clark’s request to initiate a program that would primarily help black adults, he announced his candidacy for that board. Maneuvering to keep a black man with a board, the local representative has received a change in state bill to appoint this school board, not elected. Instead of accepting the defeat, Clark led against that representative and made history by victory.
Since the Blacks were generally not accepted in the Democratic Party who controlled by Mississippi, Clark’s family belonged to what they called the “Black and Tan” republican party segment when he was in the first legislative race as independent. He would only lead and win, as a democrat later.
On the day of the inauguration in January 1968. Clark did not know if he would be allowed to take his oath. The white candidate who won is filed by the appeal that he did not live in Holmes County, where his family lived for generations.
Clark arrived at the Capitol with his lawyer, Marian Wright, who later founded the Children’s Defense Fund, a national group representation for the poor. They stood near the statue of the deceased Bilboa, the archive-segregation that served as Governor Mississippi and the American Senator, when told about the ceremony before the ceremony in which Clark would be oath.
Ornate house, with marble walls and stained glass windows, is filled with oak tables from the two-leaves where seats mix gossip and often become fast friends. In January 1968, in a deep-segregated Mississippi, a senior member of the Clark Legislative Delegation revoked that Clark would sit alone.
Insulation has spread to group dinners for legislators: “No one would sit with me,” Clark said.
He sits alone on the tables for six or eight, he had recalled, “I soon went to 240 kilograms soon. I had no intention of gaining weight. I just didn’t mean to leave all the food on the table.”
Clark and his first wife Essie, they had two sons – Robert G. Clark III and Wandrick Bryant Clark. She died of cancer in 1977, and he raised his sons as a widower, domestic home and drains into state capital, while the legislation was at the session.
About 19 years after her death, Clark married Ann Ross. In 2003. He chose not to seek the re-elections, and his seat was won by his second son. Bryant Clark continued with practical law. Robert G. Clark III, meanwhile, served as a closure judge in four counties.
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Assavi’s press writer Jeff Amy contributed from Atlanta.
2025-03-04 20:05:00
