Peter H. Clark
Peter Humphries Clark was born in Cincinnati. He was the son of a barber who could afford to send him to the private Gilmore High School without public schools. After his father died in 1849, Peter ran the barbershop for a brief time until the Ohio legislature authorized Black schools primarily due to the efforts of his uncle, John Isom Gaines.
Peter H. Clark then became the first teacher in the Black school but was fired in 1853 by the white Board of Education. Peter was an abolitionist writer and public speaker during the next four years. He was appointed secretary of the 1853 National Convention of Colored Men, where he drafted a constitution of the National Equal Rights League. He also served as a conductor for the Underground Railroad.
In 1854, Clark married Francis Ann Williams and worked as a journalist until the Black trustees of the colored school rehired him as the principal of the Western District School in 1857. While in Cincinnati, he also founded a union for Black teachers and, at some point, received a master’s (A.M.) degree from Wilberforce University.
Clark became principal of Gaines High School in 1866, a post he held for 20 years until he was fired on political grounds. He left Cincinnati in 1887 to serve as principal of the Alabama State Normal and Industrial School, and in 1888, he went to St. Louis to teach at the segregated Sumner High School for the next twenty years.
Related Article: Why so Many African Americans have Roots in the West End of Cincinnati
Clark was an abolitionist who aided escaped slaves and free Blacks charged with being runaways. He became the first Black socialist to run for Congress in the United States in 1878.
Peter and Francis had three children: daughters Ernestine and Consuelo and son Herbert. His legacy is one of Ohio’s most influential Black abolitionist writers and speakers.
His accomplishments earned him the title of the nation’s primary Black public school educator. He is also the namesake of the Clark Montessori School in Hyde Park.
Sources
Peter H. Clark – Wikipedia
19th Century Black Cincinnatians you should know | Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library (cincinnatilibrary.org)
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Images provided by Wikipedia, remarkableohio.org, and clarkmontessorifoundation.org
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