Iowa Public Television's "Alexander Clark and the First Successful School Desegregation Case in the United States," 2012

    Embedded Resource

Courtesy of Iowa Public Television, "Lost in History: Alexander Clark," The Communication Research Institute of William Penn University, Iowa Pathways - Iowa Public Television, 2012

Source Description

In 1867, an African-American businessman named Alexander Clark filed a lawsuit against the Muscatine, Iowa, school district for denying his daughter admission to a public school because she was African American. Clark won his lawsuit, but it was appealed by the school board and went to the Iowa Supreme Court. Again, he prevailed and in the fall of 1868, his daughter attended the local school. In this clip from the "Lost in History: Alexander Clark" documentary, historians explain the importance of one of the first successful school desegregation cases in the history of the United States.

Source-Dependent Questions

• Alexander Clark stood up for African-American rights. In what ways did he do so?
• What is meant by, "so in a sense it takes the United States from 1868 to 1954 to catch up to Iowa?"

Citation Information 

"Lost in History: Alexander Clark," The Communication Research Institute of William Penn University, Iowa Pathways - Iowa Public Television, 2012. Courtesy of Iowa Public Television