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Freedom's Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark Paperback – February 1, 2012

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 34 ratings
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In the mid-1950s, Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987), a former public school teacher, developed a citizenship training program that enabled thousands of African Americans to register to vote and then to link the power of the ballot to concrete strategies for individual and communal empowerment. In this vibrantly written biography, Katherine Charron demonstrates Clark's crucial role--and the role of many black women teachers--in making education a cornerstone of the twentieth-century freedom struggle. Using Clark's life as a lens, Charron sheds valuable new light on southern black women's activism in national, state, and judicial politics, from the Progressive Era to the civil rights movement and beyond.
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  1. Print length
    480 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The University of North Carolina Press
  4. Publication date
    February 1, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    6.12 x 1.07 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0807872229
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Freedom's Teacher is the product of a 12-year research journey, the result of which is extensive and meticulously organized. . . . Charron vividly brings [Clark's] life and times to the fore.--The Charleston Post and Courier



The crucial role played by Septima Poinsette Clark and other African-American women has been written back into the story of the civil rights movement.--The Pilot



A carefully researched and beautifully written study that absorbs the reader from the first paragraph. . . . An engaging synthesis of the major events and personalities of twentieth-century South Carolina. . . . An essential text for students of educational history, women's history, and the civil rights movement.--North Carolina Historical Review



Deeply researched and engaging. . . . Charron's richly suggestive biography of Septima Clark will surely stimulate more work on the African American women who made the possibilities of the movement realities.--Journal of American History



[A] deft narrative. . . . A compelling story about someone whose name may not be included as a leader in the civil rights movement but certainly should be.--Journal of Southern History



A beautifully written and meticulously researched biography. . . . An essential addition to the growing number of biographies of black women educators and activists….It challenges us to broaden our understanding of the development of the civil rights era, the definition of civil rights leadership, and the role of education in laying the foundation for protest and social justice in the twentieth century.--American Historical Review



As a lyrical and moving account of an influential activist, this biography is unrivaled.--Journal of American Studies



In Charron's capable hands, [Septima] Clark's life has at long last received the full-length attention it deserves.--Oral History Review



More than a biography.--Oral History Review



Charron's stunning, eminently readable writing style pulls the reader in from the outset with opening lines that approach synesthesia. . . . Any biographers would find this work amazing and a worthy addition to their libraries. Any historian of the civil rights movements would be well suited to pick this up as background and context for understanding a leader and pioneer. A general reader would not be put off by academic prose or overreliance on either citations or notations.--H-Net Reviews

From the Inside Flap

In this vibrantly written biography, Katherine Charron demonstrates Clark's crucial role--and the role of many black women teachers--in making education a cornerstone of the twentieth-century freedom struggle. Using Clark's life as a lens, Charron sheds valuable new light on southern black women's activism in national, state, and judicial politics, from the Progressive Era to the civil rights movement and beyond.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The University of North Carolina Press; Reprint edition (February 1, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0807872229
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.62 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 1.07 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 34 ratings

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Katherine Mellen Charron

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
34 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Komozi Woodard
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book and study it well
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2010
Verified Purchase
At last the life of Septima Clark, the pioneer in education for liberation, has found the historian worthy of the subject! Katherine Charron is a gifted historian who has rediscovered the rich legacy of Septima Clark and the Citizenship Schools. In her brilliant hands, Septima Clark teaches us once again!

Some might forget that the model for the liberation schools and freedom schools were the grassroots Citizenship Schools on the Sea Islands of South Carolina. If we talk about education for liberation, then we need to understand its roots in the mass movements in American history for self-education, a demand that exploded from below. Like most of the great mass movements in the Black Revolt, the Civil Rights movement was a revolutionary school in that great tradition of grassroots abolitionism, Garveyism, African Blood Brotherhoods, New Negro Radicalism, Black Feminism, Institutes for Positive Education, Uhuru Sasa Schools, Chad Schools, African Free Schools, the Algebra Project and so forth. In that Black Radical Tradition, Black Power and the Black Arts movement built on that foundation of self-emancipation.

Furthermore, Professor Charron teaches us that Septima Clark's work for self-emancipation interwove women's emancipation into the fabric of black liberation. Septima Clark was one of the master teachers of the 20th century!

Read this book: order copies for your study group; set up workshops in your library and community centers. Discuss it in church. You have all that you need: time, space and will. Organize yourselves: arm yourselves with knowledge or harm yourselves with ignorance! Make the right choice.

Komozi Woodard
Africana Studies
Sarah Lawrence College
Bronxville, New York
12 people found this helpful
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Windchill-06
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional book about an exceptional woman...
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2019
Verified Purchase
I bought this book to learn about the great role women played within the civil rights movement, in particular Ms. Clark. This book exceeded my ambition in achieving that goal. Buy the book and read it. You will be glad that you did.
2 people found this helpful
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Sherry Swan
5.0 out of 5 stars quality and quick delivery
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2020
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quick delivery and quality
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DHardimon
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2012
Verified Purchase
Ms. Clark is a name not often heard but definitely should be. She is a game changer in the civil rights movement and therefore the history of this country. Ms. Charron research is thorough having done her doctoral thesis on her life.
3 people found this helpful
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SM
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the heroines of 60's civil rights movement
Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2015
Verified Purchase
forgotten figure of civil rights. The women were pushed to the background and they formed their own networks
One person found this helpful
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Ella Jo Sassypants
5.0 out of 5 stars A biography of a movement
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2009
Freedom's Teacher is beautiful. A vigorously researched, lushly written, biography of African American educator and activist Septima Poinsette Clark, the book serves to enrich our understanding of the black freedom struggle and the classic phase of the civil rights movement.

If Clark had only developed the citizenship schools for SCLC (later transferred to SNCC), she would stand among the giants of the civil rights movement. But, as Katherine Charron makes clear, Clark's involvement in the movement of the 1960s came after a lifetime spent fighting for African American's and women's rights. Indeed, for Clark, the two struggles were inseparable, and both were about as much about personal transformation--becoming empowered--as they were about citizenship--becoming enfranchised.

Like Barbara Ransby's biography of Ella Baker, Freedom's Teacher spurs readers to reconsider the periodization, the actors, and the aims of the civil rights movement. More importantly, and more inspiringly, the focus on black women's activism through education reminds us that even in the most crushing days of Jim Crow, African American women continued to build the tools that would secure their freedom.
8 people found this helpful
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