Today we pay tribute to Septima Clark. Septima was an educator and civil rights activist that Dr. Martin Luther King referred to as "The Mother of the Movement". He even insisted that she travel with her to Sweden when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. She pushed an education and equal rights agenda and under her leadership more than 800 citizenship schools were opened and more than 10,000 community leaders were trained. In these schools local leaders were trained on how to teach reading and writing to the members of their communities so they could pass the literacy tests that were preventing African Americans from voting. Andrew Young stated that these citizenship schools were the foundation of the civil rights movement. After the civil rights movement, she continued her service to humanity by organizing day care centers for low-income mothers and speaking and writing on behalf of women's rights. Above is a photo of Septima with Rosa Parks.
