Time Machine: Muscatine man was first black U.S. ambassador

MUSCATINE — Alexander Clark opened a barbershop after he arrived in Muscatine in 1842. He was 16.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1826, Clark already had a two-year apprenticeship with his uncle, a barber in Cincinnati, under his belt.

With his savings, he bought wooded property. He chopped and sold wood to the many steamboats plying the waters of the Mississippi. With that money, he invested in more property.

In 1848, Alexander married Catherine Griffin of Iowa City and started a family. He also helped start the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Muscatine.

At the start of the Civil War, Clark enlisted in the Iowa First African Regiment (later, the 60th U.S. African Regiment), consisting of about 1,100 blacks from Iowa and Missouri.

At the Benton Barracks in St. Louis in November 1863, Sgt. Maj. Clark presented the regiment with a flag from 'the ladies of Keokuk and Muscatine.' Lt. Col. Collius responded to Clark, 'Sir: In behalf of my command, I receive this fine emblem of freedom from your hands. With hearts full of gratitude to the ladies of Keokuk and Muscatine, we return them our thanks, and promise on our part to defend their invaluable gift to the death. When it trails in the dust, we shall have left the world. With this promise I turn it over to these sable sons of Africa, who, I know, are bound to receive it and bear it further into rebel land.'

Clark, himself, was denied the opportunity to serve because of a disability.

In 1867, when Clark wanted his 12-year-old daughter, Susan, to attend the school closest to their home, she was denied admission. He filed a lawsuit in district court against the Muscatine school district and won. The school board appealed to the state supreme court.

The board's argument was, 'Public sentiment ... is opposed to the intermingling of white and colored children in the same schools.' Clark rejected the board's offer to 'create a grammar class in the colored school with a competent teacher.'

When Iowa's constitution was adopted in 1857, it set up a board of education to provide instruction for 'all the youths of the state through a system of common schools.' The next year, the legislature ordered local districts to provide separate schools for colored children, but that was declared unconstitutional. From then on all mention of education in the constitution provided for 'youth' without mention of color.

Clark's lawyer pointed out that the law eliminated authority to provide separate schools for blacks.

In its 1868 agreement, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled, 'A pupil cannot legally be excluded from the public schools on account of color or descent, nor can he be compelled, if colored, to attend a separate school for colored children.'

Susan Clark graduated from Muscatine High School on June 23, 1871. Alexander Jr. followed two years later.

That was only a small part of Clark's influence in Iowa. At the Republican State Convention in 1869, Gov. S.J. Kirkwood spoke about the progress in Iowa to recognize black men as citizens, pointing to the black delegates, including Clark, at the convention. Two years before the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Iowa Legislature granted political rights to black men as a result of Clark's request.

Susan married the Rev. Richard Holley on Dec. 6, 1877. The couple moved to Cedar Rapids in 1887 when Richard accepted the pastorate of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. They lived at 62 17th Ave. West. He served the church for a total of six years before he left the ministry.

The Clarks lived in a two-story house in Muscatine that was destroyed by arson in 1878. It took less than a week for Clark to begin construction of a brick fireproof duplex on his property.

Alexander Jr. went on to become the first African-American to graduate from the University of Iowa Law School in 1879, practicing in Muscatine and Chicago before settling in Oskaloosa. Father and son bought the Conservator, a newspaper in Chicago, in 1882. Clark earned his law degree in 1884, moved to Chicago to run the paper, then sold it in 1887 and returned to Iowa.

Clark became the first black U.S. ambassador on Aug. 8, 1890, when he was appointed to Liberia by President Benjamin Harrison. He took charge of the office in Monrovia on Nov. 25, 1890.

By May 31, 1891, Clark was dead.

The train carrying his body arrived in Muscatine on Feb. 11, 1892. A report from the Muscatine News-Tribune said, 'The metal casket containing the remains was enclosed in a box made of pine and cedar, and was taken immediately to Day's undertaking establishment, from whence it will be taken today to the residence on West Eighth Street of Mrs. Geo. W. Appleton (Rebecca), daughter of the deceased. The funeral appointment will not be made until Rev. R. Holley, a son-in-law, arrives from Cedar Rapids.'

He was buried in Muscatine's Greenwood Cemetery.

Clark's family sold the duplex in 1893.

After that, Clark's memory quickly faded and few people in Muscatine were even aware of him until a survey of local historic sites for the nation's bicentennial celebration unearthed the old house at the corner of Chestnut and Third streets.

Preserving and restoring the house as a museum of black history became a priority for the Alexander G. Clark Historical Society, Inc., formed in December 1974. A low-income high rise was approved for the site and the group struggled to raise funds to save the house from the wrecking ball. Finally, by March 1975 enough money was in the bank to move the duplex a block away to 205-207 West Third St.

Burtine Motley, Cedar Rapids, was the president of the Clark historical society. Her efforts to raise more money to restore the crumbling duplex were unsuccessful and the house again faced demolition in December 1978. Motley said that not having experts to help with fundraising was a major obstacle.

'We might consider an offer (to buy the property). We want to see the house saved,' she said. 'That's the essential thing.'

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. It was purchased by historian Kent Sissel in 1979.

Privately owned and restored, it still stands on West Third Street in Muscatine.