This column by Daniel G. Clark first appeared in the Muscatine Journal.
Muscatine’s first Alexander Clark Day was proclaimed by Mayor Walter Conway in 1958. Sixty years later the city council voted unanimously to honor the famous resident’s birthday in perpetuity.
August 1890: “Alexander Clark, the new minister to Liberia, and who is known throughout the country as the colored orator of the West, was born in Washington county, Penn., February 25, 1826.”
So begins the short biography published nationwide and surely authorized by Clark himself. In 1872 the media-savvy publisher-lawyer-churchman had turned down President Ulysses S. Grant’s offer of appointment to Haiti, reportedly because the job didn’t pay enough.
Continue Reading...