Life Story: Susan Clark Holley (1854 - 1925)

Susan Clark was born into the free Black community of Muscatine, Iowa, in 1854. Her father, Alexander, was a successful business owner. He made enough money that Susan’s mother, Catherine, could stay home to care for their family. Susan had two older siblings: a sister named Rebecca and a brother named Charles.

Iowa was a so-called free state, but the Clark family faced the same kind of prejudice and discrimination that made the lives of Black people challenging in all parts of the U.S. For example, the schools in Muscatine were segregated by race. Alexander and Catherine wanted to make sure that their children received the best possible education, but they had to send Susan and her siblings to the school for Black children. This school did not receive as much funding as the schools for white children in Muscatine. This made Alexander angry.

Susan was only six years old when the Civil War started, but she probably learned very quickly that the war could change the lives of Black Americans forever. The Clark family supported the Union war effort. Alexander recruited over 1,100 Black men to fight for the Union Army in the hopes that slavery would be abolished across the nation. When the war ended in 1865, the Clark family was probably very hopeful that a new age of opportunity for Black Americans was just beginning. 

Unfortunately, Susan soon learned that while the Civil War had abolished slavery, it did not eliminate racism. In the fall of 1865, the public school for Black children in Susan’s neighborhood closed. The only other school for Black children was over a mile away, so Susan’s parents decided to send their children to the school for white children that was only two blocks from their home. Alexander reasoned that since he was a successful business owner who paid taxes, his children should have the right to attend the school his tax dollars paid for. No Black family had ever tried to send their children to a white school in Muscatine. Eleven-year-old Susan and her siblings were able to attend the school for two days before the Muscatine school board held an emergency meeting and ruled that Black children could not attend Muscatine public schools.

For the next two years, Susan traveled a mile every day to attend a school for Black children run by the A.M.E. Church. When she graduated, she wanted to continue her education. But there were no secondary schools for Black children in Muscatine. In September 1867, Susan once again tried to enroll in the public school near her home. Once again, she was turned away. The principal sent home a note that explained the school board had authorized him to reject Susan. Alexander was furious. On October 10, 1867, he sued the school board on Susan’s behalf. He explained in a letter to the local newspaper that his decision to sue was motivated by the fact that Black children did not have equal access to quality education in Muscatine.  

Susan and her father won their case in the district court, but the school board appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court. On March 12, 1868, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in Susan’s favor. In the decision, Judge Chester C. Cole wrote that the Iowa State Constitution required that all young people in the state receive a quality education. He acknowledged that there was a tradition of segregated schools in Iowa but noted that the schools for Black children did not provide the same quality education as schools for white children. He concluded that this meant denying Black children the right to attend any public school in Iowa was a violation of the state constitution. 

The battle in court lasted nearly an entire school year, but Susan was victorious. The next fall, she enrolled in the public high school, becoming the first Black student to integrate a U.S. public school by court order. Susan’s high school experience was probably very challenging. The courts could guarantee her a place in the school, but they could not guarantee that she would be welcomed or treated fairly by the staff and students. As the only Black student in her school, Susan probably faced racism and discrimination every day, but she persevered. In 1871, Susan became the first Black high school graduate in Iowa history. She graduated with honors and was one of the students chosen to speak at her graduation, a testament to her intelligence and dedication in the face of circumstances that might have discouraged others.

It is unclear what Susan did in the years immediately following her graduation. She appears again in public records on December 6, 1877, when she married Richard Holley. Richard was a minister in the A.M.E. Church. As his wife, Susan became a leader for the women in his congregation. Susan and Richard never had children, so she was able to dedicate herself completely to community work. Over the course of her life, she was a member of several women’s clubs dedicated to uplifting the Black community, including the Order of the Eastern Star, Heroines of Jericho, JSY Club, and One More Effort Club. She had a leadership position in the Iowa Federation of Afro-American Women. She was also a chairperson of the statewide Mother’s Child Study Committee, which encouraged Black mothers to teach their children about deportment, civic-responsibility, and the arts.

Susan and Richard moved to Cedar Rapids in 1890 and lived there until Richard’s death in 1914. In Cedar Rapids, Susan followed in her father’s footsteps and started her own business. She ran a dress shop and was a highly regarded dressmaker in her community. She next appears in the public record in 1898, when she was a passenger in a train wreck. The newspaper report stated that Susan was able to extract herself from the wreckage and immediately set about helping other injured passengers.

After the death of her husband, Susan moved in with a niece who lived in Chicago. When she died of complications of diabetes in 1925, she was buried back in Muscatine in the Clark family plot of Greenwood Cemetery. But her legacy was just beginning. In the 1954 arguments in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. the Board of Education, lawyers cited Susan’s 1858 victory over the Muscatine school board as evidence that school segregation was not constitutional. On September 9, 2019, the Muscatine School Board voted to rename the city’s middle school Susan Clark Junior High School to honor her legacy as a trailblazing figure for racial integration and educational access for all.  

• abolition: The movement to end the practice of slavery in the U.S.
• Civil War: U.S. war from 1861 to 1865 in which the Northern and Southern states fought over the question of whether the practice of slavery should continue in the U.S.  
• segregate: Separate people by race.
• constitution: Document that outlines the government of a state or country.
• deportment: Manners.