{"id":11554,"date":"2025-03-09T08:49:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T08:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/robert-g-clark-96-dies-broke-race-barrier-in-mississippi-statehouse\/"},"modified":"2025-03-09T08:49:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T08:49:04","slug":"robert-g-clark-96-dies-broke-race-barrier-in-mississippi-statehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/robert-g-clark-96-dies-broke-race-barrier-in-mississippi-statehouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert G. Clark, 96, Dies; Broke Race Barrier in Mississippi Statehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Robert G. Clark Jr., who became the first Black person to sit in the Mississippi State Legislature since Reconstruction and who endured insults and ostracism before becoming a force in state politics, died on Tuesday at his home in Ebenezer, Miss. He was 96.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His death was announced on Facebook by his son Bryant W. Clark, who succeeded his father in the Mississippi Statehouse seat that Mr. Clark had occupied for 36 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A reserved yet genial politician, Mr. Clark was on the cusp of the revolution that transformed politics in Mississippi, a bastion of the most virulent white resistance to desegregation in the 1960s. For many years he waged a lonely fight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When he entered the State Capitol in Jackson for the first time on a cold January day in 1968, Mr. Clark, a former high school teacher and coach, was assigned a solo desk at the far edge of the chamber. Other legislators were paired, but nobody would sit with the lone Black man in the Mississippi House of Representatives, an independent who was backed by the breakaway Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a faction that had turned its back on the segregationist regular Democrats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Previously, Black people had had difficulty being admitted to the chamber even as spectators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Clark sat alone for eight years. Once, he found a watermelon on his desk. When he rose to speak, he was cut off. \u201cThey\u2019d cut me out, and I couldn\u2019t get the floor,\u201d he <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/2015669174\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told<\/a> the historian John Dittmer in 2013 in an oral history for the Library of Congress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One night Mr. Clark had had enough. Furious, he cleaned out his desk and strode from the chamber, intending never to return. \u201cI was ready to walk out!\u201d he recalled. \u201cWalk out!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The veteran Mississippi journalist <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/28\/business\/media\/bill-minor-dead-mississippi-reporter-on-civil-rights.html\" title=\"\">Bill Minor<\/a>, a white man who spent his career battling the state\u2019s segregationists, ran after Mr. Clark into the Capitol parking lot, along with a legislator named Butch Lambert. Rain was pouring down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Minor pleaded with the young Mr. Clark: \u201cOK, go ahead and do it. You\u2019re doing what they want you to do!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Clark recounted what happened next: \u201cWhen he said that, I dropped my hand\u201d \u2014 he had been trying to push past the two men \u2014 \u201cand walked back in.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAnd when I walked back in on the floor of the House, man, they was having a hooray!\u201d he recalled with a laugh. \u201cThey was wolf-whistling, they was clapping, and they was doing everything! And when I walked back in, they got just as quiet as a mouse.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It would be years before it got easier for Mr. Clark. He would sometimes speak against bills he <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/mississippiencyclopedia.org\/entries\/robert-g-clark\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">supported<\/a> \u2014 the only way, he said, to get white legislators to vote <em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">for <\/em>them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But things began to change in 1974, when he helped push through a landmark consumer protection bill; white legislators voted for it even though it largely benefited Black people. The following year, after redistricting, he was joined in the House by a handful of other Black representatives from Jackson. Even more Black officials were elected in 1979.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Clark patiently made his way up the ranks, working with white legislators who had previously shunned him, like the speaker of the House, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/mississippiencyclopedia.org\/entries\/cb-buddie-newman\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Buddie Newman<\/a>, who had been a pillar of segregation but who now had to plead with Mr. Clark for his vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Once, he recalled, after Mr. Newman had half-mockingly dropped to one knee, having persuaded Mr. Clark to sign one of the speaker\u2019s initiatives, Mr. Clark coolly told him, using a contemptuous term for rural white southerners, \u201cMr. Speaker, you peckerwoods are going to have to do a lot more of that for Black folks in the future!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Newman made him chairman of the House education committee, and in 1992, Mr. Clark became speaker pro tempore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By then Mr. Clark had become \u201calmost an unofficial governor to Mississippi blacks, who came to him from throughout the state with their problems,\u201d the political scientists Jack Bass and Walter DeVries wrote in their 1976 book, \u201cThe Transformation of Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence Since 1945.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1983\/09\/12\/us\/plan-to-improve-schools-in-motion-in-mississippi.html\" title=\"\">In 1982<\/a>, Mr. Clark helped pass Mississippi\u2019s landmark <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1983\/09\/12\/us\/plan-to-improve-schools-in-motion-in-mississippi.html\" title=\"\">education reform act<\/a>, which established public school kindergartens for the first time in the state, one of the few pieces of progressive legislation ever passed there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That same year, he launched the first of two unsuccessful campaigns for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, one that is now held by Bennie Thompson. His 1982 bid marked the first time in the 20th century that a Black candidate had launched more than a token effort at running for Congress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The campaigns, in a Mississippi Delta district \u2014 the second bid was in 1984 \u2014 were both against a Republican, Webb Franklin, and both were reminders that racial politics were never far from the surface in Mississippi. Few white citizens voted for Mr. Clark, and political ads for Mr. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1982\/10\/14\/us\/race-raised-as-an-issue-in-mississippi-house-contest.html\" title=\"\">Franklin<\/a> directed at them declared, \u201cHe\u2019s one of us.\u201d Another Franklin ad depicted a Confederate monument in Greenwood, Miss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As more Black legislators entered the Statehouse, some criticized an aging Mr. Clark as being too accommodating. \u201cHe seemed more comfortable with the redneck than with the Black militant,\u201d Melany Neilson, his press secretary for the 1982 congressional campaign, wrote in a memoir, \u201cEven Mississippi\u201d (1989).<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Clark, who lived all his life on a plantation that his formerly enslaved forebears had bought from the owner after Emancipation, was unfazed by the restlessness of younger colleagues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was \u201ca self-made man\u201d who was \u201cfiercely protective of the individual nature of his accomplishment,\u201d Ms. Neilson wrote, and who \u201cloved hunting, his hound dogs, his farm, good meals, a good swig of Scotch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Robert George Clark Jr. was born on Oct. 3, 1929, in Ebenezer, the youngest of three children of Robert and Julia Ann (Williams) Clark. His father was a schoolteacher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A formerly enslaved grandfather, who was \u201c11 years old at Emancipation,\u201d did not wear a pair of pants until after slavery, he told Mr. Dittmer in the oral history. \u201cHe always wore something like a dress or a gown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His grandfather became chairman of the Hinds County Republican Party during Reconstruction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Clark attended primary schools in rural Holmes County and high school at Holmes County Training School in Durant, Miss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He received a work and track scholarship to Jackson State College (now Jackson State University), graduated in 1952 with a B.A. in education and became a schoolteacher in Humphreys County, Miss. He gained a master\u2019s degree in administration and educational services from Michigan State University. From 1961 to 1966, he taught and coached football at Holmes County High School. He was eventually fired for supporting the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In addition to his son Bryant, he is survived by another son, Robert George III; a daughter, LaLeche; and his second wife, Jo Ann Ross Clark. His first wife, Essie Austin Clark, died in 1978.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Clark\u2019s first run for the Statehouse, in 1967, came after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the creation of a Mississippi legislative district that was 65 percent Black. Opposed by a white incumbent, he won only narrowly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Neilson, who was a child at the time, recalled \u201cthe tension in the white faces\u201d in Lexington, the Holmes County seat, when Mr. Clark walked into a diner during the campaign. But he eventually \u201cearned grudging respect from local whites\u201d for his diligent work in the State Legislature, she wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Of a number of Black candidates running for legislative seats in Mississippi in 1967, Mr. Clark was the only one to win. Mr. Dittmer asked him how he had pulled it off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWell, one of the things \u2014 I present myself to individuals in a manner to let them know that I am one of you,\u201d he replied. \u201cI am not no big I-O-U of somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/08\/us\/politics\/robert-clark-dead.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert G. Clark Jr., who became the first Black person to sit in the Mississippi State Legislature since Reconstruction and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[425,3842,441,3844,3845,478,3843,657],"class_list":["post-11554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us","tag-black-people","tag-clark","tag-deaths-obituaries","tag-mississippi","tag-mississippi-state-legislature","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-robert-g","tag-state-legislatures"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Robert G. 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