Clark Decision: Celebrating 150 Years of Iowa School Desegregation: Alexander Clark, Sr.

The short answer, of course, is Susan Clark. Read Drake Professor Emeritus Russ Lovell's full response to Makena by clicking the question above.

Muscatine designated Feb. 20-26, 2011 Alexander G. Clark Week. On Jan. 18, 2018, Muscatine designated February 25 as its annual Alexander Clark Day.

Russell Lovell, emeritus Professor of Law at Drake University, was the featured speaker for the 2020 Alexander Clark Day lecture.

Source: New York Public Library

Alexander G. Clark, Sr., successfully sued the Muscatine schools to allow his daughter Susan to attend the all-white school next door to the family home. Before that, Clark had already worked for years as an outspoken advocate for black suffrage and the elimination of discriminatory laws.

Clark's son Alexander, Jr. became the first African-American graduate from the University of Iowa School of Law (in 1879), and Clark himself was graduated from the school in 1884, eighth in a class of eighty. 

In 1890 President Benjamin Harrison appointed Clark U.S. consul general to Liberia. 

Learn more about this ground-breaking Iowan:

• Iowa Public Television: Alexander Clark Fights for Equal Rights
• Des Moines Register profile
• "Alexander Clark" in Notable Black American Men, Book II
• University of Iowa article: Alum Preserves House, Legacy of UI Civil Rights Pioneer
• Historic American Building Survey: View photos of Clark's Muscatine home and read a biographical timeline with additional Clark references and information about the house.
• “Breathing the Freedom's Air:" The African American Struggle for Equal Citizenship in Iowa, 1830-1900, Ph.D. dissertation by David Junius Brodnax, Sr. (see 48-54, 132-144, 163-202, 223-244 (discussing Clark), and 262-263.