Septima
by Patricia Williams Dockery

Directed by Sharon Graci*

Septima is a dynamic and moving play celebrating the life and work of Civil Rights leader and educator Septima P. Clark. Told through monologues, stories, and music, the play honors the moments of Septima’s life that shaped her into one of the most important figures in American history  and inspired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to call her the “Mother of the Movement.”

CAST
Zania Cummings
Sonja D. Reed
Michael Smallwood*
Michele Powe
Keith H. Alston 
George Metropolis
Shivam Patel* (understudy)
Josh Wilhoit* (understudy)

LOWCOUNTRY TOUR CAST
Zania Cummings
Sonja Reed
Josh Wilhoit*
Shivam Patel*
Michele Powe
Keith Alston

ORIGINAL CAST
Kimberlee Monroe
Sonja Reed
Josh Wilhoit*
Shivam Patel*
Michele Powe
Keith Alston

* PURE Theatre Core Ensemble Member

The Lowcountry tour received funding from Arts Etc. and the Beaufort Fund at Coastal Community Foundation.

About Septima Poinsette Clark

Septima Poinsette Clark was a civil rights activist born in 1898 in Charleston, South Carolina. She attended the Avery Normal Institute and graduated in 1916. Clark started her career as a schoolteacher in a one room schoolhouse at the age of 18. Unable to go to college, Clark received her licentiate of instruction and began working on John’s Island as an educator. She taught for nearly 20 years before enrolling at Benedict as a part-time student. Clark eventually earned her BA from Benedict College in Columbia, and her MA from Virginia’s Hampton Institute. She wanted to do more to advance the rights of African Americans, so she joined the Charleston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Many southern states enforced segregation until the mid-1900s, denying African Americans the right to attend white schools. African American teachers were not allowed to teach in the Charleston public school system, and instead, had to accept teaching in rural school districts. Clark and others thought this was unfair, and they protested to win African Americans the right to teach at Charleston public schools. The campaign was successful and Clark believed that social activism had the power to better the lives of African Americans.

In the 1950s, Clark and the NAACP advocated for integrating public schools. Her involvement in the NAACP caught the attention of the Charleston City School Board. Clark was asked to deny her membership in the NAACP, but she refused. As a result, the school board fired her. No longer employed, she devoted all of her time to activism. Clark was particularly upset by the voting system in the South. Black men and women had the right to vote but were often kept from the voting polls by literacy tests and poll taxes. 

Clark designed educational programs to teach African Americans how to read and write by tying their everyday lives to the vote. Her idea for “citizen education” became the foundation of the Citizenship Schools. She worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to win rights for African Americans.

Septima Clark served as an advocate and a leader until her death in 1987.