00:00:00MARSHALL: Well, let’s see. Just putting this over here. If I can, in the
beginning, if I can, uh, just, uh, say this is June the 4th, and I am at the
home of Leo Clark, in Ypsilanti. Leo, what’s, what’s your middle name?
CLARK: Crawford.
MARSHALL: Crawford?
CLARK: Yes.
MARSHALL: C-R-A-W-F-O-R-D?
CLARK: That’s correct. That’s my mother’s maiden name.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. Now, um, what was your father’s name?
CLARK: Samuel Ford Clark.
MARSHALL: Samuel Ford Clark.
CLARK: Clark, senior. Yes, that was his, uh, ad—y’—adopted name.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: But, uh, his given, his original given name, or I guess it would say I
00:01:00would have to say that was his Christian name—
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: Samuel Ford Clark
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: was his Christian name,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: his, uh, name at birth was Sulley Coppa.
MARSHALL: Suh—do you know how to spell that?
CLARK: Uh, I…
MARSHALL: Don’t worry about it.
CLARK: No, OK, I, I, I’ve got it written, [ ].
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: OK…and, uh, as a son of a Minde tribesman, and born in Liberia.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: He, he, it was Liberia where he was born.
CLARK: Yes, Liberia.
MARSHALL: Now he was a, he was a Minde tribesman.
CLARK: A Minde tribesman.
MARSHALL: And that’s spelled M-E-N-D-E?
CLARK: M-I-N.
MARSHALL: M-I-N-
CLARK: D-E.
MARSHALL: D-E, OK. And he came to this country to, uh, to go to, go to school?
CLARK: Yes, um, it would seem that his, that his father, uh, Zolu, who was in
a, um, a Moslem, by religion, and, a, Reverend Clark, who was a Christian
missionary, um, were in contact, and so, as, since, uh, grandfather Zolu, [eg],
00:02:00um, valued education,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: he agreed that if he would take my fath—if Reverend Clark would
educate my father,
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: then my grandfather would become a Christian.
MARSHALL: I see, uh-huh, uh-huh.
CLARK: And so, that was the way the connection began and, but, prior to
y’know, and I guess that his early education began, there in Liberia,
MARSHALL: Yeah. Uh-huh.
CLARK: but then, ah, Reverend Clark died.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: Uh, then two black missionaries, uh, uh, Rev—Joe Davis and, uh, his
wife Cordelia,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: um, were returning to the United States,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: and, uh, it was at that time that they brought my father with them,
MARSHALL: Oh, I see.
CLARK: to the United States, and, uh, they were from Little Rock, Arkansas.
MARSHALL: Oh. Mm-hmm.
CLARK: And this is where they came in at that point. My father, uh, entered
00:03:00and, uh, graduated from Philander Smith
MARSHALL: Oh!
CLARK: uh, College in, in, uh, Little Rock.
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: And from there, he went to Meharry Medical School, with an, I guess his
intention was when he finished to go back and return to Liberia,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: but at the time of his graduation was the U-boat warfare,
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: the U-boats in the Atlantic were [French], so he stayed and entered the
army, um, here, and was then naturalized, uh, while in the army.
MARSHALL: I see, uh-huh, uh-huh.
CLARK: It was during, uh, during the war, ah, during World War One,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: that uh, he served in, at, was in Fort Chaffey I believe, in Arkansas,
he spent the entire war there as a, uh, rising to the rank of corporal,
00:04:00
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and serving as an, uh, mailman, the company, camp mailman, ah, though he
had his medical degree.
MARSHALL: Huh.
CLARK: And, uh, then I guess, during the flu epidemic, um, well, the, y’know,
many of the fellows in his company came down with the flu,
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: he did acquire medicine, medicines, and treated, and never lost a kid,
never lost a patient.
MARSHALL: That’s interesting. Y’know, I had a—that’s, that’s always
interesting to me, because I had the flu during that period,
CLARK: Mm, mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: [laughs] Yes.
CLARK: [ ]
MARSHALL: I had the flu, yeah.
CLARK: [ ] quite lethal.
MARSHALL: When did, uh, he and your mother meet?
CLARK: Well, they met at, uh, they were contemporaries at Philan—uh,
Philander Smith.
MARSHALL: Oh, I see.
CLARK: Um, um, he was of course a little ahead of her, and, uh, at the time,
and so that she [went] while he was in the army, and she had, uh, come out, and
00:05:00was teaching.
MARSHALL: Mm.
CLARK: in Arkansas. And, uh, that, uh, he says, says she said he was one day,
she was at her classroom and he was, saw this young man coming down the road,
and saw, simply, when he got there, said, well, she recognized him and, as, um,
as the fellow that had been most outstanding in their school,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: and that, then, “Well, what brings you to this area?” and he said,
“I’ve come to get you.”
MARSHALL: [laughs]
CLARK: And that, that uh, he wanted, he asked, that he wanted her to be his wife.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: That, that, I guess my sister knows more than, has more of a, knowledge
of that.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh. [Have to be]
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: That, that then that must—was that—that was at, right after the war.
CLARK: Yes, this was after the war. This was uh, 19…uh, 19, I guess, it had
00:06:00to be, because they were married, what, December seventh, uh, no, or, no,
December 9th, 1919.
MARSHALL: December 9th, 1919.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: [ ] [laughs]
CLARK: That’s our anniversary.
MARSHALL: Then when, then, then, then when did they come here?
CLARK: All right. Um, it was he had set up practice there in Arkansas, in, um,
1938, my, um, well, no, it was 1936, I’m sorry, my sister finished the Negro
high school in Newport, Arkansas, where the family was living in Newport,
Arkansas, but it only went to the tenth grade.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: Uh, she, my, we had, my mother had a sister living in St. Louis,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and so uh, she attempted to send her sister to St. Louis to finish high
school. Well, this was in, in the midst of the Depression, and so that uh,
because her parents were non-residents of the city, she couldn’t get in
00:07:00school. So, um, my mother, my brother and I then moved in with my aunt and her
husband and her family in St. Louis so that my sister could com—could finish
high school, and from Sumner High,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: in um, in St. Louis. Well, while there in Sumner High she became
interested in becoming a physical education teacher.
MARSHALL: Huh.
CLARK: And her physical education instructor thought that uh, Michi—uh, well,
Michigan State Normal
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: College was, had, had an excellent reputation for, in physical
education, teacher training in physical education,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and, so, uh, this was an area that she wanted to go to school.
Coincidentally, uh, we had a cousin who married a doctor living in Detroit.
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: And that he was wondering about places to set up practice. Uh, Pontiac
00:08:00was an area that wanted that he had wanted a black doctor, and so dad had set
out from Arkansas to come to ah, Michigan and Pontiac
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: to get into the area. It seems that he was driving and as you know in
those times you no hotels or anything,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and so guess he got down to the stoplight at Michigan and Washington
Street, and fell asleep. [Laughs] And just [one], and so they directed him to
um, the Starks, um, home, and but it, but what is presently the Lindsay’s home
on Buffalo, right there next to the parsonage,
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
CLARK: The old parsonage,
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
CLARK: That was where they directed him to
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: to spend, the police directed him there to spend the night to get some
rest, and people convinced him that Ypsilanti needed a black doctor,
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
CLARK: and so that here it was and so he stayed, he didn’t go any farther.
MARSHALL: And that was in 1936.
CLARK: Nah, this is ’38.
00:09:00
MARSHALL: ’38. ’38.
CLARK: in ’36 was the move to Saint—
MARSHALL: I see.
CLARK: And so preparatory to her, to well, this was in May, I think, of 38,
MARSHALL: I see.
CLARK: and preparatory to uh, [claimers] coming to school, ’cause she
graduated in June of 38,
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh,
CLARK: and so starting in September, he came in May and then, ah, came back and
got her, and he and she lived here,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: um, in, uh, for her freshman year until she w—she went to college there,
MARSHALL: Mm.
CLARK: the family, he then bought a home, while here, on, on Hawkins Street,
there, 126 Hawkins
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: Street, and he then sent for the family. And we arrived, uh, like, uh,
July 12, 1939,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and uh, then on the, uh, in fact we moved into the house we started
lived there, there with the Starks until the house was read—
MARSHALL: Hmm.
CLARK: was ready. We moved into the house on um, July 28, 1939.
00:10:00
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: Reason I know the date, it was my birthday.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]. [Naturally.]
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Oh…
CLARK: 1938.
MARSHALL: Well, you know, it’s interesting, now, the, the, she and I, she and
I finished school the same year, I finished [Macon] in, in June 1938.
CLARK: Oh, uh-huh. Well, that was when she finished, well, she finished Sumner
High, yeah, that’s when she
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: finished high school
MARSHALL: Yeah. Uh-huh.
CLARK: to come here, and graduated from Norm—what, Normal or Eastern in 1942.
MARSHALL: Well, see, I, I finished Lincoln in 1938 and I headed to Illinois, and
come to Illinois in 1939.
CLARK: [Laughs]
MARSHALL: And then I went back to Lincoln
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: and worked for two years.
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And in 1941, [Ruth] and I got married.
CLARK: Oh.
MARSHALL: ’Cause, see Ruthie graduated in 1940.
CLARK: I see.
MARSHALL: from, from Lincoln.
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: But the reason—thinking about similarities.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Ruth, the little town where she was from in Missouri, they had to the
00:11:00eighth grade.
CLARK: [Laughs] Oh, I see.
MARSHALL: And, you see, I always tell, I always kid her, say, “Well, the Lord
meant for me to have you, ’cause he directed me, he directed me all the way to
Kansas City and Lincoln,”
CLARK: and Lincoln,
MARSHALL: “and meantime the Lord had sent you all the way to [Malvin and]
city to Lincoln, and there’s where—” [laughs]
CLARK: [Laughs] what do you say, one of those marriages made in heaven.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And I was, and I was [on D] one day in the library, and, uh, wasn’t
nobody in the library typical, y’know,
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: and uh, I’m in there by myself, about 4:30 or something like that,
and one of the, [duck his chamber] is a little bit lost, in the gals or [could]
something like that, and I [flipped]. I [flipped]. Just like that, just like
that. She, she had hair was long then,
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: [sing] put her hair around there, and I was always a sucker for hair. [Laughs]
00:12:00
CLARK: [Laughs]
MARSHALL: Well, you know it’s, well, that’s interesting. Now, uh, you, you
mentioned your sister. Now you had, who was, your sister was the oldest?
CLARK: Yes, she was the oldest.
MARSHALL: What was her name?
CLARK: Clamah.
MARSHALL: Clamah.
CLARK: Clamah Cory [Short], yes, Clamah, named after my grandmother.
MARSHALL: How’d she spell it?
CLARK: It’s spelled C-L-A-M-A-H.
MARSHALL: C-L-A-M-A-H. Now, she’s the one that fin—finished Eastern.
CLARK: Eastern, that’s right.
MARSHALL: Clamah, and her name was Clamah Clark.
CLARK: Clamah Cory Clark.
MARSHALL: Clamah Cory Clark.
CLARK: Yes, mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: I must have her on that list, ’cause I made up a list of all the
blacks that ever went to Eastern.
CLARK: Oh, I see, yes, well, she went to…
MARSHALL: She must have [been] I know your name is on there.
CLARK: [Laughs]
MARSHALL: Yeah, and, uh, Clamah Cory Clark.
CLARK: That’s right.
MARSHALL: And, and, and then, were, were you s—were you the second, or third?
CLARK: No, I was the third, I’m the baby, [and then three], and my brother
Samuel is, uh,
MARSHALL: Samuel,
CLARK: was three years, Ford Clark, Jr.
00:13:00
MARSHALL: Samuel Ford Clark, Jr.
CLARK: Yes. Uh, he was, uh, uh, three years younger,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: um, born in 1923,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and um, then I came along uh, nearly seven years later, 1930.
MARSHALL: It was just, just the three children?
CLARK: The three children, who are living, yes.
MARSHALL: And yours was, your, your, yours was, what, what did you say? July the—
CLARK: July 28.
MARSHALL: July 28, 1930. [Laughs]
CLARK: And, uh, that’s of course, how I got my name Leo,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: I was born in the sign of Leo.
MARSHALL: Oh, I see, I see, uh-huh, uh-huh.
CLARK: My moth—my sister was named after my father’s mother.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah, mm-hmm.
CLARK: And that was, uh, again, a, uh, out of, born out of African tradition.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: of naming, uh, Clamah was the uh, the name given to the first-born
00:14:00
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: girl [laughs].
MARSHALL: I see.
CLARK: And, uh, an en—kind of an endearing term.
MARSHALL: Did, did your, did your father ever get back to Africa?
CLARK: No, he never did.
MARSHALL: And that means your mother never has been there.
CLARK: No, mother’s never been there.
MARSHALL: So you were the first—were you the first in the family to go?
CLARK: Clamah and I went together,
MARSHALL: Oh, I see.
CLARK: We, we were both on the same trip,
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: and, but she’s the first one to get back to Liberia, see, I didn’t
get to Liberia.
MARSHALL: Oh?
CLARK: Yeah, she got there. I lost my passport in Kenya,
MARSHALL: Ohhh, gosh!
CLARK: and missed the flight.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
CLARK: And, uh, uh, as, as if for some reason I wasn’t supposed to get there yet
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: And she went on, and then because I, the, after I had missed my, my
connecting flight,
WOMAN: [CALLS] Leo?
CLARK: went back and found it. [TO WOMAN]: Yes?
[TAPE STOPPED AND RESTARTED]
WOMAN: [Laughs]
MARSHALL: At, uh, place where you were, where you just said that, uh, it
wasn’t ordained that you was supposed to go to
CLARK: Oh, yeah, apparently uh, because, uh, that, uh, we had, uh, it’s
00:15:00funny, we were, we had just come back from safari in Tanzania,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and, all the whole trip, when we go and have to show our passports,
I’d give it back to my wife and she’d put it in her big purse.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: and carry it around. And for some reason, uh, while we were here, I
stuck it in my back pocket, well, while we were at the border crossing, we
noticed that uh, our van had a, a flat, had a tire going south,
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: so the driver drove down to the, to the gas station on, on, in Kenya to
have the tire fixed, and so we just leisurely strolled down,
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
CLARK: y’know, from, from Tanzania into Kenya, and, uh, waited around. Well,
while there, the call to nature came, and so I went to the lavatory, and uh,
went on, and, and went on back to, and we went on the hotel in Ken—in uh,
00:16:00Nairobi, and got packed, and everything, and then we went on, and uh,next thing,
we were at the airport, getting ready to board, and said, OK, where are our
passports, well, I turned to [Vivian] for my passport, she says, “No, I
don’t have your passport, you kept it.” And so we then suddenly panicked,
or, started, started, all right, let’s get the luggage off the plane, and,
’cause we gotta go through, and, and, get, get, it’s got, must have been
packed, went all through it, and now and time’s passing, and so, when we
pulled the luggage off the plane, well, no place for a, ah, now, it’s getting
to that point that departure, and so I’m going to miss that plane.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah
CLARK: And so we kept our luggage off, and let the rest of the group, uh, my
sister and her husband and uh, and uh, two other people who were with us, they
went on, and said, well, we’ll catch up with you, as soon as we can, and so we
called back to the hotel and to see if they would, they’d cleaned it up, if
00:17:00whether it had got kicked under the bed, and then, well, so, we had the,
[couldn’t] wasn’t there, we checked the safari van, and, uh, now had the,
the, oh, where we’d been had I dropped it in the van, and no sign of it. And
so, then I remembered going to the bathroom and the pockets were short enough that
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: it might have flipped out. And so, was going to call,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: Well, in Kenya, the whole, uh, tele—telephone book for the whole
country is less than an inch thick.
MARSHALL: Yeah. [Laughs] I know what you mean.
CLARK: And he, he didn’t have a phone.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: So, it’s 120 miles, so, we chartered a car, had them drive us 120, 120
miles down to Namanga, to the border. Asked the guy, he said, “Yes, it’s at
the border crossing.” He found it in the lavatory, turned it in to the border
00:18:00crossing, and then we went up to the border crossing, identified myself with my signature
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
CLARK: and they, and they turned, they had it and turned it over to us.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: So, but then, [by the] and then we drove back to ah, Nairobi, um, the,
uh, and but then there were no connecting flights that would catch us up to
we’d be chasing them all the way,
MARSHALL: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
CLARK: never catch up with them. And so, we said, but we’ve got, uh, leaving
tomorrow night, we’ve got a, a, a plane going back to Rome, I mean, back to
uh, Paris. So I said, well, it wasn’t, it wasn’t on our itinerary, but we
went on and so we spent three days in Paris.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: Instead of [ ]
MARSHALL: Where did they catch you?
CLARK: Well, well, we didn’t, we, we didn’t, we never made it back, uh, it
was in New York, we just
MARSHALL: I see.
CLARK: missed each other by about 45 minutes in New York,
MARSHALL: Yeah [hummer in the sea]
CLARK: and so we arrived, and so we just finally talked with one another, and
that was it [laughs]. And so I, I missed, uh, see, I didn’t get to West Africa
00:19:00at all.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: as our tour started in, ah, well, in Africa, in Egypt
MARSHALL: Yeah, oh yeah.
CLARK: and then to Tanzania, to Zambia, and to Kenya.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: Then we, then to go across continent to, um, Nigeria, and, um, Ivory
Coast, and then ah, in lining up with, ah, the time in Liberia.
MARSHALL: ’Course you got quite, you got quite a program on there on your
flight [and met].
CLARK: Yes, I had lots of [sights], and, and movies also,
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: that I took, and, uh,
MARSHALL: And you never have shown to the business professionally.
CLARK: No, uh, the only place that I, that in school, and once at, at church,
and at home, this is, uh, the only showings that I’ve made in the ten years [laughs].
MARSHALL: Yeah. And, uh, it, it doesn’t seem like ten years.
CLARK: No, uh, in fact it’s eleven this summer.
MARSHALL: Yeah. Eleven’s when we [were at the year].
CLARK: [That’s] 1970, yeah.
MARSHALL: We’d just got here. [What do you rear].
00:20:00
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Well…
CLARK: But, uh, the same that if, uh, y’know, um, why would, well, and
y’know, the fact that we’d be able to find it because, eh, y’know, how
valuable that passport would have been to a,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: American passport to [laughs]
MARSHALL: Did, did, did, did your sister get to see any of the ancestral, uh,
people, uh?
CLARK: Uh, no, we, no one, that we didn’t make any, anyone who, y’know, uh,
at that point claimed or would be.
MARSHALL: Mm.
CLARK: Again, they would be, uh, I would doubt if they would be in the city,
they would be back in the, uh, in the, in the inland
MARSHALL: Yes.
CLARK: interior, uh, in the tribal area.
MARSHALL: Yeah. You know, Ruth and I have known [about]
CLARK: They did go to the school where Dad went t—where attended.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah?
CLARK: school. Yes, there in the, in Monrovia.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh. You know, Ruth and I have known lots of people from Africa.
00:21:00
CLARK: Mm.
MARSHALL: But we’ve just never been there.
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: But the, the, the little girl that we kept in the house from Africa
was from Sierra Leone.
CLARK: Oh yeah, that’s right next, next country, uh-huh.
MARSHALL: And, uh,
CLARK: Well, supposedly this was where uh, y’know, my grandmother Clamah
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
CLARK: was from Sierra Leone, or, eh, or at least [in for] uh, my, Zolu, uh,
uh, [daughter] from
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: the tribe. She was a, a fellow [a by] tribe
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
CLARK: And uh, so, and always claimed to have been descend—descendants of Egyptians.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Well, we have, uh, we, we have one
of, one of our, well, there’s a boy over here at the University of Michigan, Flint,
CLARK: Yes, uh,
MARSHALL: he’s from, he’s from, uh,
CLARK: There’s a Doctor Dennis.
MARSHALL: That’s it. Samuel Dennis, yes, he’s, he’s
CLARK: and
MARSHALL: and I’ve never seen him since I’ve been in Michigan.
00:22:00
CLARK: Oh yeah. Well, I, well I’ve talked with him, and I’ve, y’know,
we’ve met, and, uh, it’s through him that I will, y’know, when I, I get
myself together and we’ll pursue the, the suit of my family
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: Because uh, his, um, let’s see, he’s not a Minde but uh, it’s,
it’s a, a relative tribe of the, of the Mindes that of which he is a member.
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
CLARK: And, so, uh, we said, well, we’re like family. In fact, he’d already
then invited me to go with him when he was going, that was about five or six years
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: ago but I was not prepared
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: to, it was at the time when the, uh, uh, those young, uh, uh, [Waymondi]
student who, uh, died
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
CLARK: in Ann Arbor.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and that, it was at that time I happened to run into, uh, a young fellow
f—f—he was living in Flint,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: [Paco Pele],
00:23:00
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: who was uh, and, and he was also a [black period].
MARSHALL: Well, see, I, we knew him at Lincoln.
CLARK: I see.
MARSHALL: Dennis.
CLARK: Dennis, uh-huh.
MARSHALL: when he was an undergraduate in Lincoln.
CLARK: Oh yes, I see.
MARSHALL: We used to have him out to the house a lot.
CLARK: But uh,
MARSHALL: But [that] we’ve known [him]
CLARK: and he, he had an “in,” although he was a tribesman, he had an in
with uh, uh, Talbert.
MARSHALL: Yeah, right, yeah.
CLARK: but uh, uh, now, what, now since the coup I don’t know.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: y’know, where he stands.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh. Yeah, we knew him for quite a long time, in fact, when he was
in Jefferson City, my wife used to have, she used to work with the, with the uh,
with the League of Women Voters,
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: and with the Church Women United.
CLARK: I see.
MARSHALL: And uh, and, she used to always have him come before one group or
another [laughs]
CLARK: [Laughs] Yeah, uh-huh.
MARSHALL: and talk.
CLARK: Talk, yeah.
MARSHALL: ’Cause he’s [arrow be]
CLARK: quite a talker.
MARSHALL: He’s a talker, yes. But we’ve never seen him since, [to his close].
00:24:00
CLARK: No.
MARSHALL: We’ve never seen him [so a barely mention]. [Laughs] Yeah, either
way. Well, um, then, most of your life
CLARK: Has been here in Michigan.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: Well, I was born in Arkansas, and for all intents and purposes, a
Michigander, I’ve been here since nine.
MARSHALL: Yeah. And, and, and, he, and, and, and, your, your father never, never
got to Flint, uh, never got to the—Pontiac.
CLARK: No. Flint, no. Pon—uh, it was Pontiac
MARSHALL: Pontiac.
CLARK: he was headed for.
MARSHALL: He, he never got to Pontiac.
CLARK: Well, subsequently. Y’know, he started his practice here, but
subsequently obviously
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: he did , but he had some patients in Pontiac,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: and uh, I guess his practice ranged from, I guess people came to see him
from Ecorse, but, uh, he made house calls from as, uh, I, I know in Inkster,
Monroe, and Adrian, as far west as Adrian, Adrian as far west as I know that he
made, had made some house calls. ’Cause as it turned out, he signed the death
00:25:00certificate for Ralph Grimes’ grandmother. This is what Gail told me, that,
uh, that they were going through recently Ralph’s father died,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: and they looked through the book and through the papers and Dad’s
signature was on her death certificate.
MARSHALL: Oh boy. Wel—’course, I guess in those days, Negro doctors around
here were just scarce.
CLARK: That’s right, well, see, Dr. Dickerson was before him and then he was
the only one until Dr. Bass came in 1944, 43, 44, [at that silver].
MARSHALL: Dr. Bass is, ’course, Dr. Bass has often mentioned the fact that,
uh, since he’s been here, that not one person has come out of Ypsilanti and
studied this, studied medicine. ’Course he’s got one now, y’know.
CLARK: Oh.
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: Oh, yeah, uh, Jeff, yeah.
MARSHALL: But there have been other guys that go into medicine, well, I can’t,
I, I, at the moment I can’t place them at the, at the time, but there have been.
00:26:00
CLARK: Ypsilanti…
MARSHALL: I picked up two or three that have come out of Ypsilanti to become
doctors, but they didn’t come back here to practice.
CLARK: Come back to, I see, um.
MARSHALL: But I don’t think these have been since the time about the past,
CLARK: No, no, no.
MARSHALL: back before then.
CLARK: Before that time, right, uh-huh. Um…
MARSHALL: But anyway, um, no, and part of my study, part of my study, I’ve had
some of my, see, I got this grad student.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: and I’ve had, had him tracing the blacks who graduated from Eastern,
all the way back, down to about 1950.
CLARK: I see.
MARSHALL: After 1950 I didn’t think it was important to take it.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: But that gave me, and, and, and, also we have where they came from.
CLARK: Hm.
MARSHALL: So I’m able to pick out the Ypsilanti people.
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Well, ’course, where is the non-Ypsilanti people.
CLARK: Mm-hmm. This is a problem, is that prior to, uh, well, 1945, not that,
00:27:00uh, very low percentage of blacks in college, carried on beyond high school.
MARSHALL: It’s not, we just not, I watch those people come in, come in church Sunday.
CLARK: Mm-hmm. Yes.
MARSHALL: And I was just, just sitting there, just thinking like, my god, this
many people finishing high school.
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And in an industrial center.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And this just wouldn’t have been, 30 or 40 years ago.
CLARK: Well, see now, when my brother graduated from Ypsi High in 1941,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: there were seven blacks in his graduating class.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.
CLARK: When I graduated in 1948, we had 28,
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah,
CLARK: and that was the largest at
MARSHALL: largest till that time.
CLARK: to that time.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah. Well, we—now, they’re beginning to finish college, I
mean, finish high school.
CLARK: Mm-hmm. And get—
MARSHALL: Of course, the problem now is to get them
CLARK: Get them on
MARSHALL: get them beyond
CLARK: Beyond high school.
MARSHALL: Yeah. And with all our opportunities, they’re still aren’t going
as fast as I’d like to. As we’d like for ’em to.
00:28:00
CLARK: Mm-hmm. ’Course, that was the reason, one of the reasons for the
formation of the [M&M] Club.
MARSHALL: Yeah, I know, yeah, yeah. I think they’ve done a good job of
encouraging, but I think, I think that, uh, the problem, always the problem with
those kinds of organizations is that they sit back and nobody else comes along
to help.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: I mean, they focus on good, but they can’t do the whole job by
themselves; it takes everybody.
CLARK: Yeah, this is, this is it.
MARSHALL: Well, the reason that’s fresh on my mind now Johnny Williams is very
much concerned about it.
CLARK: Oh, uh-huh.
MARSHALL: I don’t, I don’t, I don’t
CLARK: Yes, yes, Johnny.
MARSHALL: And uh, I’m trying to get, well, I’m trying to encourage, I’d
li—I’m, I was trying to encourage the Business and Professional League to
help, but I don’t think it’s going to be coming from that.
CLARK: Yes, sir.
MARSHALL: I think if we’re able to do anything, Johnny’s going to have to
form another group.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: of his own peers.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: ’Cause the old-timers
CLARK: Dedication and the, and the energy
MARSHALL: Yeah. The old-timers have the, have the interest only up to a point.
00:29:00
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: and, and if he could find, now Johnny took me in his car, out to the
housing project, and he says, “You know, I used to live here.”
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And he showed me the kids out there, guys drinking out of the bottles
in the sacks, you know, and standing around smoking, and slapping each other on
the back, and all this kind of thing, nothing to do.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And he, he was pretty much concerned about it,
CLARK: Yes.
MARSHALL: ’course, I, I, I encouraged him. [Laughs]
CLARK: [Laughs] Yeah, well, of course…
MARSHALL: I just hope he’ll follow through.
CLARK: Yeah, well, of course, now, that, um, we’re looking working with Barry Cunningham
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: with a grassroots kind of thing, and Bob Littleton [and some other
gentleman] who see that you can’t go in the gifts the handout,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: but you got to get the self-help and self-pride, and, and, and, and, a
bootstrap approach.
MARSHALL: I guess one of the things that I’ve been searching, and I’ve been
searching for this for a long time, Leo, you’ve got a daughter and I’ve got
00:30:00a daughter.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: With my daughter, she tells us now that all of her life she just when
she considered the end of her education, she considered that being out of college.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: She never thought about anything else.
CLARK: Yeah, well, this is what I was, uh, saying, that, in coming through I, I
think about of my, of my classmates and they, who had the decision to make
whether or not they would go to college, or not.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: The decision to go to college or not to go. That was never a question.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: I, I never—that never entered my mind, to ever drop out short of, uh,
completion, [that is] till after I got in. [Laughs]
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
CLARK: Do I, do I really want to work this hard? [Laughs] ’Cause I didn’t
have the discipline at that time, things that come too easy for me.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: Up to that point, and then when I got to study, am I really up to the
00:31:00occasion, so.
MARSHALL: [I might]
CLARK: I had—I had to suck it up and do [that].
MARSHALL: In my freshman year, I remember, I used to think about how
embarrassing it would be, be for me to go back to Kansas City where I graduated [laughs]
CLARK: Yeah, these were the, ah, things and, uh, that kind of made you
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: buck—buckle down. I had some narrow escapes out in Iowa, there, that,
’cause I was too young, and being away,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and focusing on sports
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and other things, and wasn’t, uh,
MARSHALL: Yeah. Well, there was something, ’cause I don’t know why if I, if
I go back, I think back to those days and I think about some of the high school
kids. See, in, in Kansas City, we had this one high school, where all, ev-all
Negroes all over Kansas City went.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Now we didn’t have busing, but we had a, they had a, a public
transportation system
CLARK: system, mm-hmm,
MARSHALL: and the school board provided
CLARK: tokens
MARSHALL: bus tokens
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: for these kids to get to school. And they come from all over town,
coming in there go to school.
00:32:00
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And, uh, I was fortunate, I lived within the, within walking distance
of the school,
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: but, when we first of all, there were a lot of ’em never finished
high school.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: and, they didn’t, one of the things they had done, they had this,
this, uh, trade course, they had these trade courses,
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Now all of ’em had to take them.
CLARK Mm-hmm. Yes.
MARSHALL: Uh, I surprised them, for some reason, when I wanted to go to college,
because we—they just didn’t expect it.
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: But then I went on to college, and once I went, then I became aware of
so many of my friends who were in much better economic situations
CLARK: situations
MARSHALL: than I was, than I was, but they didn’t
CLARK: they didn’t have—
MARSHALL: have the desire to go on. And then of course the guy who was best man
at my wedding, I’ve been in contact with him lately [ ] still a very good friend.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And he was a very smart boy.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: But he settled. [Without that kind of degree]
CLARK: [ ] baccalaureate degree, yeah.
00:33:00
MARSHALL: Yeah. And, and what he did was he ended up on the assembly line, uh,
with James [Tackom].
CLARK: Oh.
MARSHALL: He works for [police tackom] out there. Now, he went in to [entered]
the Second World War, he was a, he was one of the what do you call the 90-day wonders,
CLARK: Oh, the Second World—
MARSHALL: So he wasn’t dumb.
CLARK: Uh-huh. Yeah.
MARSHALL: He wasn’t dumb at all. But he just never, that was just never, no
desire. And I remember his mother. But his mother was one of these people who
says, “Well, if he wants to go, he can go!”
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And he chose not to go.
CLARK: Not to go.
MARSHALL: But I don’t think my daughter ever had that choice.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: [Laughs] I, I never thought I had the choice either,
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: even though I, y’know, financed my way through my, my, uh, school,
it was, uh, the first two years on an athletic scholarship.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And then, uh, but, uh…What did you do, play football?
CLARK: Uh-huh. George Allen, y’know, was my coach, at, at Morningside. I went to
00:34:00
MARSHALL: You went to Morningside.
CLARK: Morningside, uh-huh, in Sioux City,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: for two years, and uh, uh, the former grand resident coach George Allen
was my coach, this was his, um, first full-sized coaching job, he had been
freshman, a hundred and fifty pound coach at U of M,
MARSHALL: Oh, uh-huh.
CLARK: where he coached at that time they had a football team where the
heaviest person, players, could, could not exceed a hundred and fifty pounds.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: And, uh, so he was their coach, that was his first coaching experience,
and then he got out to Morningside.
MARSHALL: And then, y—what did you go there, two years?
CLARK: Two years there, and this was when dad got ill. And, uh, so I came home
to be, uh, close.
MARSHALL: What year was it you came home?
CLARK: That was in uh, well, the, ’50, it was the summer of ’50, ’50,
and, uh, so in the fall of 50 I entered Eastern.
MARSHALL: I see.
CLARK: And, uh, he died in, uh, April of ’51.
00:35:00
MARSHALL: And, well, my mother died October of ’50. I had just gone back to Lincoln
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: [ ] graduate school in Illinois
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: [ ] just gone back to Lincoln in September of ’50, no, in July of ’50,
CLARK: I see.
MARSHALL: and she died in October.
CLARK: Oh, well, I said, well, after dad got here, then, and then with the
breakout of the war, that was in 42, was when he was elected county coroner.
MARSHALL: Yeah. Glad you mentioned that. In, in ’42?
CLARK: I believe it was.
MARSHALL: Forty—around ’42. I think I have—
CLARK: ’42, and the ’44 election he was defeated.
MARSHALL: I think I have the article on that.
CLARK: Yeah. Right, OK.
MARSHALL: I’m not sure, but I think I do. But he, he was elected county coroner.
CLARK: Yes. He—there were two of them, Dr. Ganshorn was the other, he had
00:36:00been the traditional Republican.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: Dad ran as a Democrat
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and got elected as the second coroner.
MARSHALL: And then he served, what, two years?
CLARK: Yeah, a two year term. He ran for reelection, but was, uh, not successful.
MARSHALL: And did he—
CLARK: No, wait, I’m sorry, that, that must have been ’44, and then he,
and, and, was un—defeated in ’46.
MARSHALL: ’46.
CLARK: I’m pretty sure.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh. Well. That would be in, uh, we’ll, we’ll, have, we’ll
have [that] of course. By that time, they were putting things about us in the newspaper.
CLARK: [Laughs]
MARSHALL: See, earlier they weren’t [desert]
CLARK: One of his biggest disappointments, uh, of course, when he came here,
not to be able to have his office downtown.
MARSHALL: Oh, uh-huh.
CLARK: That, that’s at, even in, in Newport, he had his, he had his office
there with all the other professional men downtown on the front street.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh. He was a pretty young man when he died.
00:37:00
CLARK: Yeah, sixty-three.
MARSHALL: Sixty-three.
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: Now, when, when you all came here, did your mother ever work here?
CLARK: Uh, uh, yes, for a, a year, she worked as a domestic. For a fact, for
the Tuckers, of the Tucker automobile fame.
MARSHALL: Oh, yeah, uh-huh.
CLARK: And then,
MARSHALL: And then, of course, she decided to go home and take care of her
family. [Laughs]
CLARK: As, as the, the practice ex—expanded and money started coming in.
MARSHALL: And, and, and, uh, now, when did they move into the house up here on Hawkins?
CLARK: Well, that was on July 28, 19—
MARSHALL: Oh, that was the house—
CLARK: That was the house we moved into, yes.
MARSHALL: I see, that was the house [ ]
CLARK: Yes. Mm-hmm. That was the house that, uh, and, uh, we had the, the
living, the front room was his office,
00:38:00
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: was Dad’s office, and we, uh, picked our times between patients to go
up and out, and then during the war, was when we, the house had , y’know,
there was a living room ran all the way across the house, well, that was the
office, and then the dining room ran all the way across the house,
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: but during the war, we divided, put a divider in the dining room and
took a bedroom and so he had a waiting—
MARSHALL: I see.
CLARK: gave him a waiting room and, well, took a double window on the side of
the house and cut a doorway,
MARSHALL: I see.
CLARK: which is the door what’s still there now. And so that gave a waiting
room and an inner office for him, and then allowed us free access to move around
in the house without dirt to walk in on patients.
MARSHALL: Yeah. Uh-huh.
CLARK: Then again, uh, much of his trade was, uh, house calls,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: more so than office
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: trade.
MARSHALL: In those days,
CLARK: In those days, yeah, [laughs] in fact, that was, uh, it was, if I had
00:39:00foreseen that that would have been the, the practice would change
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: uh, I might be, might have been a doctor today.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: But when I went to school,
MARSHALL: You liked that idea.
CLARK: Huh?
MARSHALL: You liked that idea, of going on house calls.
CLARK: No, well, see, see, the last, uh, uh, year and a half that he was
actively practicing, I drove him.
MARSHALL: Oh, I see.
CLARK: And, too many of the times y’know, we got up in the middle of the
night and would go out and find out he was sick, Dad was sicker than the person
he was going to see or that he had been sick all day long and, so finally
decided to call the doctor when he couldn’t ah, couldn’t get any sleep.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: This guy, that kind of, I said, “This is [fine, you, dang,] you
won’t get me doing that.” And so I, when I went to school, I didn’t think
that this was part of the problem, when I went to school I knew I wasn’t going
to be a doctor and I wasn’t going to be a teacher.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
CLARK: [Laughs] And, so, the near—what was the nearest thing that I could do
00:40:00was to be a, be a professional and allied to the medical profession was to be a
pharmacist, so I thought I’d go into pharmacy. And I really couldn’t get
into it,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and I, so I wound up changing curriculum, changing curricula, changed it
three times, until finally, I sat down with George Allen [and said] I’m having
trouble with motivation, and my books, and uh, I, things are, and the only thing
that I really enjoy was working with people, with kids, and coaching, and at
that time it just didn’t seem that that was a high enough status
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: for, for me. He said, “Well, y’know, personally I think it,
there’s nothing more honorable.” I said, “Well, OK. And so that’s when
[I enjoyed it] and the whole curriculum, my whole results turned around. And I
was experiencing success in school, and, y’know, I was getting by but just barely.
00:41:00
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: So that was it, but I mean, and, I, I, I [was just] started [good]
enjoying what I was doing.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm. You’re just—a people-oriented person. [Laughs]
CLARK: Yes. That was it.
MARSHALL: Now, when you came out of Eastern, uh, um, did, did you go right on
immediately to do graduate work, or
CLARK: No.
MARSHALL: did you—?
CLARK: No, I, uh, well, no, jobs, there wasn’t uh, jobs, where, uh, well,
that time, the only place that uh, blacks could get hired were Inkster, Romulus,
and, uh, Ypsilanti if you were an elementary teacher, at, at Harriet School, or
Perry School at the time. Well, at that, well, at that time it was Harriet,
it’s now Perry, but, um, at that, uh, but I was, I had a secondary
certificate, and, uh, when, and so then I didn’t have a job at first, so I
started substituting, substitute teaching in there, in Ypsi. And it was then
00:42:00that, uh, as I, as I was substituting, in that, uh, you’re, a position came
open that uh, had a history minor. Well, I was three hours short of my maj—of,
of having a, y’know, the history minor to teach [asset] and all this changing
I, I wound up with, uh, with three min—a major and three minors,
MARSHALL: Yeah. Uh-huh.
CLARK: and this was, and it had the, it had twelve hours and you needed three more.
WOMAN: [whispers] Excuse me,
CLARK: Yes.
WOMAN: [whispers] She’s ready to go to bed.
CLARK: Oh, OK. I’ll bring her in. And, uh, so, so, I missed out on the
contract, but I uh, continued subbing and then went back to get the hours to finish,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and, and I finished a minor in, in the history as, and also in chemistry
at the, at the same time, so but then, and then during my subbing Slim Ardis
00:43:00asked me, “I know you may have opportunities elsewhere, but hold out for Ypsi,”
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: and he made me the first uh, black to teach in the secondary schools in
modern times, at, at Ypsi High. This was in ’54.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
[TAPE MACHINE RESTARTED]
MARSHALL: Teaching in the high school.
CLARK: Well it was in, it was teaching eighth-grade general science, uh, was
when, and I say, at that time, the school configuration was, uh, elementary was
K through seven, and Clyde [Briggs] was teaching in the seventh grade, at [park]
central elementary, and the high school went from eight to twelve. And so, when
I was hired in there, in, at, as a part of the eighth grade, I was part of the
high school staff.
MARSHALL: And that was in fifty…
CLARK: Four.
MARSHALL: Four.
CLARK: September, ’54.
MARSHALL: And that was just when the, in the Supreme Court decision [judgement],
I guess that was the start of something new, wasn’t it?
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: And, uh, y’know, I, you’re a local boy and, and to come through uh,
00:44:00and knowing that, hopefully would sort of show well, it can, yes, it can be done.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: But uh, the [failed regulation] again was that thing I had before, that,
uh, y’know, I didn’t have the decision to make whether I was going on to school.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: I was a doctor’s son,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
CLARK: and as you’ll find, well, y’know, well, status-wise, we were [ ]
financially, it didn’t mean a lot,
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: because Dad was a good doctor, but a poor businessman.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: But, uh, and, a lot of this did not translate, that well, I made it,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: but I was Leo Clark,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: son of Doctor Clark.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: And that they, and, y’know, to raise their ambitions.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: Took me a little while to realize what it, what, what was happening.
MARSHALL: Yeah. [Laughs]
CLARK: And, uh,
MARSHALL: That’s that [pricey].
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
00:45:00
CLARK: Yes. And of course I guess, um, I was more fortunate than my brother,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: because at that time he had a very difficult time being socially
accepted among blacks because of, of being the um, doctor’s, uh, son, and
then, also, first, first marking period, he got a, he got on the honor roll, and
that immediately
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: And I don’t, I don’t know when the last one [and that the blacks I
guess other than Terraza] Hamilton,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and Hamilton is the, had not been on a [show]
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah,
CLARK: Uh, yeah, kind of set him apart. Well, he then showed, he went about to
show that I can be as rowdy and as rough as you can [laughs]
MARSHALL: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
CLARK: and so he built a reputation, uh, in that fashion.
MARSHALL: But he did finish though.
CLARK: He finished high school, but he never finished college.
MARSHALL: Never finished college.
CLARK: Got up to his last semester.
MARSHALL: Hm.
CLARK: Uh, [assignment], he must have, um, 125 hours or something like that,
00:46:00but doesn’t have any degree, never got his degree.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I know, I’m I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m so
familiar with it, so…
CLARK: [laughs]
MARSHALL: I got a brother who never finished, he got to be a junior.
CLARK: Well, yes, see, see, a lot of things happened to him that interrupted,
y’know, as so we moved, the times we moved were because my sister removed from
Newport to St. Louis, when, uh, just as he was, uh, about to, y’know, [he was
really any enter a grade] he had to move in the eighth grade,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and uh, when, when he was in high school he went, finished the eighth
grade at, at [Barrett], and um, at John, [enter] junior, and that was the finish
of the elementary
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: grade, and then he went into the high school
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: in ninth and tenth grade, and he was, y’know, th—there the low echelon,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and here he was getting ready to go, become into his junior and senior
year where he could do some things,
00:47:00
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and we moved here.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
CLARK: and so every, and so he had to start all over again to establish himself.
MARSHALL: And, [then on] and, and, and, and, and, our minds at that age are
immature anyhow.
CLARK: Mm-hmm, yes.
MARSHALL: We don’t know it, but…[laughs]
CLARK: We’ll say, y’know, here he was, um, the, the favored daughter, on top,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: and then he, then, the, the baby from six years and here I come.
MARSHALL: Yeah. [Laughs]
CLARK: And suddenly become the baby of the family. And so he was just robbed
every, every, y’know, every way he, he, he turned. That’s all I can say.
MARSHALL: Now. When did you and Vivian meet?
CLARK: We met when I came, uh, home in the summer of ’50. Her sister, uh,
well, her two sisters, um, older sisters, Odena and Thelma, Thelma was attending
Cleary, and, uh, Odena was attending Eastern. Ah, had been at, uh, uh, at West
00:48:00Virginia State, but then transferred here, um, but, they stayed at the
Hollifield’s. Mrs. Hollifield was, uh, a second or third cousin.
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: And so, and rather, at, at first they stayed, uh, Thelma and Odena
stayed with, uh, um, with them. And uh, I guess on a visit I’d just come home
from school, and, uh, while she had come up to visit, um, um, her sisters, and
then right across—and y’know, that’s there
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah, right.
CLARK: right across the street from our homestead.
MARSHALL: Yeah, right.
CLARK: Uh, I, y’know, met her, and um, that was uh, got zapped. I got zapped.
MARSHALL: You got zapped right quick.
CLARK: In fact, as I said, I, I will swear, in Iowa, before, I had a dream, and
then I saw her. [Laughs] And, uh, as, as I said, uh, and I told the guys, “I,
00:49:00I think I just dreamed about the girl I’m going to marry.” And this, this
was, had to be six or eight months before I met her.
MARSHALL: [Laughs].
CLARK: [Laughs].
MARSHALL: Leo, Leo, Leo. You know I’m laughing, really. Ah, shoot.
CLARK: And, but, uh, y’know, we dated a couple of times, but she, uh, just
never got serious, but she was saying, that, at that time she knew I was the one
she was going to marry but she wasn’t ready yet, and so she was putting me
off. And so, I went off and nearly, uh, was engaged and was, nearly got married
with, to another girl,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: In fact she was a member of the church.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: Uh, y’know, [Verda Clinbroke].
MARSHALL: Oh yeah, yeah.
CLARK: Uh, [fologist] Yeah, Lamar, Lamar Seas, yeah.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh. [Laughs].
00:50:00
CLARK: And yet, then we, um, y’know, when she came, when found, when she came
here, came to school I guess, about her sophomore year, and my uh, [during my]
senior year,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
CLARK: that was when we finally
MARSHALL: Mm.
CLARK: started dating again.
MARSHALL: Now. Meantime, I’m taking it you, that you had, had already
connected yourself with Brown Chapel.
CLARK: Yeah. So it was there, that that, when he came,
MARSHALL: That he came,
CLARK: That he came, he uh, uh, uh, affiliated with, with Brown Chapel, when,
uh, um, mother came, uh, he brought her, and, so, uh, she, y’know, we had been
uh, M.E.’s, Wesleyan Methodists,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: Uh, uh, uh, uh, and, but, he, when Dad came, he would, went downtown on
Washtenaw to United Methodist
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: and didn’t feel welcome.
00:51:00
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: And so he became, became an A.M.E. And, and, uh, so, and again, Mother
reluctantly became an A.M.E. [Laughs] She always remained, remained an E.M.E.,
an M.E., and [Ruth said, Ruth said] a [as my guess claim is uh, uh, Wesley is
nothing to do with it now], so, that’s Detroit.
MARSHALL: That’s, that’s, that’s my wife to this day.
CLARK: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And what is my daughter? My daughter couldn’t stand—she got away
from home, she couldn’t stand the A.M.E. church.
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: You went, went on back to the, to the Methodists.
CLARK: Went back to—
MARSHALL: She—and her husband was Baptist and she took him back to the Methodists.
CLARK: Not to the Methodists.
MARSHALL: Now, my wife grew up a Methodist, I took her to the C.M.E.,
CLARK: Uh-huh,
MARSHALL: And then I took her to the A.M.E.
CLARK: A.M.E. Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: When I got to Ypsilanti she reluctantly joined the A.M.E.
CLARK: Joined the...no other was that, was available.
MARSHALL: Right. See, she grew up, well, mostly in the A.M.E. church.
00:52:00
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: But the minute she got out on her own, she, she did join the A.M.E. church,
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: But she doesn’t like it, and the next thing I knew she had taken her
husband and they had gone to this Methodist church, and she was very active, on
the board and everything. [Laughs].
CLARK: [Laughs]
MARSHALL: I guess the only thing I’m thankful for is she’s in the church. [Laughs].
CLARK: In the church, yeah. Well, y’know, of course, the other thing was
that, [CLEARS THROAT], when I, it’s funny, when I went to Morningside, see,
Morningside is a Methodist, it was a Methodist s—school,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: and here I was on campus, and so when I got there, I, instead of staying
right there on campus, going to the church, I went all the way across town to
the A.M.E. church. [Laughs] And Mamma said, “What did you do? You went away
from my church!” [Laughs] Went away from my home church. You were right there, y’know.
MARSHALL: You know, the first time I heard about Morningstar, it was, uh, when I
00:53:00finished high school, member of my class
CLARK: Oh, uh-huh.
MARSHALL: I can’t think of that boy’s name now to save my life. But I
remember my high school graduating class, went to Morningstar.
CLARK: Uh-huh.
MARSHALL: And he was a, he was in athletics, I don’t remember what else he was
in, and I knew he played football. But of course after we went to college we
sort of lost track. [ ] the other day, that was in 1934. [Laughs]
CLARK: [Laughs]
MARSHALL: Ah, shoot. Well, Leo, now let me see, we were getting into your school
situation, and you went to the high school, now how long did you stay there in
that, how long were,
CLARK: All right, well,
MARSHALL: were you—got over into the elementary school?
CLARK: Well, I was there in the high school, and uh, started teaching uh, uh,
the general science for the eighth graders, and, then, um, and I was coaching
football and baseball.
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: Ah, well, ah, and then, I stayed there till ah, the middle schools were,
00:54:00junior highs were built, and, and, ah, sixty, uh, fall of uh, West was finished
in fall of ’59, and East we, it wasn’t quite completed until er, after
’60, we moved into it during this Christmas vacation, uh, 19, at, in the
1959-60 school year. So I, at that time I declared myself to be a junior high
teacher. Ah, when the junior highs were built I was given options, so I went to
the junior high and I went to East, and [CLEARS THROAT] I was, um, stayed there,
and became, was part of the, the Student Council sponsors as well as football
and wrestling.
MARSHALL: OK. By this time, were the schools beginning to be pretty—I mean,
were the faculties pretty—beginning to be pretty well integrated?
CLARK: Well, they were starting to integrate at the, on the secondary level,
yes, ah, ’cause, uh, that, uh, Bob Elliott on, on the East faculty there was
00:55:00uh, added, uh, Bob Elliott, uh, Louise Bass was, uh, started, that was the year
she started teaching, uh, again, um, and, uh, and I remember who out of their,
uh, [don’t know] who was there. Hm. Well. I guess uh, y’know, I guess
’cause, T—uh, but Thomas wasn’t there yet. But uh, at any rate, th—they
were starting
MARSHALL: The doors were beginning to open.
CLARK: to be, starting to open, that’s right, and, and, uh, there are, were
y’know, op—opportunities to, ah, to teach, were [open].
MARSHALL: Well, now, when did you get down to, when did you get over there?
CLARK: I was then in uh, uh, I went to Perry in, let’s see, this was in
00:56:00’66, in the ah, fall of, uh, ’67, in uh, in uh, in September ’67 was when
I started working at Perry.
MARSHALL: When you started working at Perry, but you weren’t principal then.
CLARK: No, no, that’s what’s when [at a], well, what happened—in the
summer of ’66, OK, ah, in February of ’66, I went to, came in the Title One program.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: And, uh, we, I was, became then what, what point of importance was the
school community agent to, to do the, uh, better tie between school and, and the
parents and the home. And I was the school community agent for East, ah, junior
high, that was what—when I left the classroom, to do. And I was in that a year
and a half. Well, during the summer, ah, of that first summer, I operated, went
to Perry to operate a summer school
00:57:00
MARSHALL: Oh.
CLARK: program, uh, at, at Perry, and, um, to, to coordinate it for, for them.
And I did that for two years and then that, that, that second year, well, in
[CLEARS THROAT] in May of that, of that second year was when I received the
appointment, ah, as principal.
MARSHALL: Now. When you first went over there, Dean was
CLARK: Gene was the principal.
MARSHALL: Gene was the principal.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And Gene—when you became principal, then that’s when he went to Central.
CLARK: He went to Central,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
CLARK: that’s right, and uh, was also then the director of community schools.
MARSHALL: Right. So when I got here you had been at Perry, I came here in ’69,
you had been at Perry two years.
CLARK: Yes. Two years, right.
MARSHALL: I don’t know which one [you all] [ ].
CLARK: I, eh,
MARSHALL: I don’t know. I, I know I was working with the Boy Scouts, both of
you working with the Scouts,
CLARK: with the Scouts.
MARSHALL: he had a [troop] over there,
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: he and, he and, uh, Louis.
00:58:00
CLARK: Louis, and Louis had a [ ]
MARSHALL: We were working over...
CLARK: Yeah, at, at Chisholm, um, at, uh, [the troop there].
MARSHALL: You ever, you ever see Chisholm?
CLARK: Yeah, I saw him about three weeks ago. And we just happened to mention
[scouting]. Huh, I guess it was Election Day, and [I pose what he] and he’d
come in to vote.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
CLARK: And we were talking about the time...days in scouting.
MARSHALL: He’s devoted to it.
CLARK: Yes, he is.
MARSHALL: And I was so happy that he at least got some Eagles out of it.
CLARK: Yes. Until the uh, the whole tension of his job, trying to work and
build that church and, and, and, this kind of, kind of got to his health and he
had to give up, sadly.
MARSHALL: [I understand]. Uh, then, then, uh, so you were at, you were really
here at that time when there, what I, what I, what I usually call the Big Push,
which started
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: in ’54.
CLARK: [four]
MARSHALL: ’Cause ’54 was the culmination of a big push,
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: but then in ’54 we had the law.
00:59:00
CLARK: Yes, the law came.
MARSHALL: We had to, had it implemented.
CLARK: That’s right.
MARSHALL: And ’course, uh, that was true all over the United States.
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
[TELEPHONE RINGS]
MARSHALL: Now in, in all this process,
[TELEPHONE RINGS]
MARSHALL: something now which is a little bit different from what we did talk about.
CLARK: OK.
MARSHALL: You were an observer, of course, of what was happening,
CLARK: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Now, what were some of your observations? What about the things at
this moment living and so forth?
CLARK: Well, I’ll tell you, it was—
