ElderChicks

Dr. Thomas Sticht of San Diego is a distinguished scholar and a great friend of ElderChicks.  He has been more than a researcher; his work has advanced the international field of adult literacy and particularly emphasized the importance of educating women who, as we know, are the first teachers in the family.  Tom reminds us in this faxcinating article of the work of Septima Poinsette Clark as the country observes the birthday of Martin Luther King. 

SELMA: The March From Literacy to Voting Rights

by Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Literacy

Promotional materials state that the 2014 movie, SELMA, “is the story of a movement. The film chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement.”

The movie focuses on the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, the violence and indignities the marchers encountered, and the interactions of President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in bringing about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.   Missing, however, are the activities of thousands of African-American literacy teachers who taught illiterate adults how to read and, most importantly at the time, how to write their names so they could  meet the literacy requirements for voting across the southern states.

Working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and other civil rights groups from 1962 to 1966, Septima Poinsette Clark lead the Voter Registration Project that subsequently prepared 10,000 teachers for citizenship schools where they taught literacy within the functional context of voter registration.

Brown-Nagin (1999) reported that, “The most critical elements of the citizenship program …was that it was to be functional: [adults] learned to read using state and federal constitutions, codes of law, sample ballots, and other legal documents as ‘texts.’ …citizenship school instructors taught practical matters such as how to: make purchases from mail order catalogues; utilize bank accounts; compute income tax; utilize social security and disability benefits; and take care of the many other affairs involved in functional adulthood” (p. 94). These efforts eventually lead some 700,000 African-Americans to vote. (Clark, 1986, p.70).

In 2000, writing about Clark, Michael Cary stated, “As newly literate black voters tried to register, they encountered more barriers, like tests without objective answers, the correctness of an answer depending on the whim of the registrar. Responding to such procedural devices, Clark participated in protests and in lobbying Washington to have these practices stopped. Eventually, in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, and the federal government subsequently moved with a firm hand to end voting discrimination in the South. Preparing for the next election in 1966, Clark set up 150 Citizenship Schools in Selma, Alabama, from May 18 to August 15, 1965, paying teachers $1.25 an hour for two hours of teaching every weekday morning. They registered over 7,000, and the new voters soon made themselves heard” (Cary, 2000).  By the time Clark retired from her SCLC work in 1970 over a million African-Americans had registered to vote in the south.” (Clark, 1986, p.70).

In 1964, in recognition of the role that she played in the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. insisted that Septima Poinsette Clark accompany him to Norway where he received the Nobel Peace Prize. King considered Septima Poinsette Clark the “Mother of the Movement.” As for herself, Clark spoke about the role of literacy education and learning in the civil rights movement and wrote: “How can anybody estimate the worth of pride achieved, hope accomplished, faith affirmed, citizenship won? These are intangible things but real nevertheless, solid and of inestimable value” (Clark, 1962, p. 154).

In the U.S. presidential election of 2008, the “intangible” became “tangible” thanks in large part to the march from literacy to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  In the 2008  Presidential election, 13 percent of the voters were African-Americans  and some 96 percent exercised their right to cast their vote for an African-American candidate who would go on  to become the first African-American President of the United States.

References

Ayres, D. (1988). Let my people learn: The biography of Dr. Wil Lou Gray. Grenwood, SC: Attic Press.

Brown-Nagin, T. (1999). The transformation of a social movement into law? The SCLC and NAACP’s campaigns for civil rights reconsidered in light of the educational activism of Septima Clark. Women’s History Review, 8, 81-138.

Cary, M. (2000). Clark, Septima Poinsette (1898-1987. In: Anne Commire (Ed.). Women in world history: A biographical encyclopedia. Vol. 3., Detroit: Yorkin Publications.

Clark, S.  (1962). Echo in my soul. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.

Clark, S. (1986). Ready from within: Septima Clark and the civil rights movement. Navarro, CA: Wild Trees Press.