Faces of Hope: The Original Residents of the Clark House by Bob Campagna

“The move of the historic Alexander Clark house was a dramatic moment,” states Alexander. “Beyond the logistics of moving and preserving the Alexander Clark house, there are a series of displays highlighting the story of Alexander Clark and sharing what makes Alexander Clark significant on a national level.”

Alexander Clark was Iowa’s most prominent Black citizen of the 19th century and a national leader in the cause of equal rights, his career culminating in service as U.S. ambassador to Liberia. Born free in Pennsylvania in 1826, he settled in Muscatine at age 16. He worked as a barber and acquired timberland along the Mississippi River and sold firewood for steamboats. He invested in real estate and amassed considerable wealth, becoming one of the town’s most accomplished residents.

Clark emerged as a civil-rights leader while in his early twenties. In 1853 he attended as a delegate the National Convention of the Free People of Color, connecting him with national leaders, like Frederick Douglass, in the fight for equal rights. During the Civil War, he played a major role in the formation of the state’s only Black regiment. After the war, in 1868, the Iowa Supreme Court ruling in Clark's lawsuit against segregated schools affirmed the right all of Iowa children to attend public school regardless of race, religion, nationality, or appearance. Clark was also active in Republican politics and won acclaim as “the Colored Orator of the West” for his speeches on suffrage and universal rights.

 Clark became the second Black graduate of the University of Iowa School of Law in 1884 at the age of 58. His son, Alexander, Jr., was the first Black graduate of the law school in 1879. Clark’s access to Black audiences swelled when, in 1882, along with his son Alexander, Jr., and fellow attorney Ferdinand L. Barnett, he purchased The Conservator, Chicago’s first Black newspaper. He served as the editor and became the sole owner in 1884. In 1887, he chaired the executive committee of the National Colored Press Association, connecting him to prominent journalist and activist Ida B. Wells.