Members of the OHS Human Rights Youth Chapter recently attended the Clark 150 Conference: Past, Present and Future of Equality in Iowa. The conference was part of a multi-day celebration to commemorate the 150th anniversary of a groundbreaking Iowa Supreme Court civil rights decision. The event will honor both Alexander G. Clark, an African-American businessman and activist, and Chester C. Cole, Iowa Supreme Court Justice and co-founder of Drake Law School. Tcelebration was sponsored by Drake University.
In the landmark 1867 case, the Muscatine school district said Clark's daughter couldn't attend the same public school that white students attended. Clark sued. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in his favor, saying that all children could attend a common school. The decision, written by Cole, was an important one, preceding by 86 years the landmark 1954 ruling in Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education. Clark's lawsuit made Iowa one of the first states to integrate its public school system.
"The students learned that there are many different career options in the field of law," said Barb Hanson, GEAR UP coordinator and Human Rights Youth Chapter sponsor. "For example, they were able to connect that their work in social justice could be a career with a law degree. They were able to hear from many lawyers from the midwest who were also passionate about social justice, as well as the director of the ACLU of Iowa, the director of the Iowa NAACP, and several college professors from the state. Students engaged in deep-thinking conversations and lectures, reflective of a college environment. It was a superb experience."
