Alexander G. Clark Sr. & Jr. Chapter, The University of Iowa

The Alexander G. Clark, Jr. and Sr. Chapter of the Black Law Students Association at The University of Iowa is named in honor of the first African Americans to graduate from The University of Iowa College of Law—Alexander G. Clark Jr. and Alexander Clark, Sr

Alexander Clark, Jr. graduated in 1879—the first African-American to receive a law degree (L.L.B.) from The University of Iowa, and the first Black person to receive a L.L.B. degree from a college west of the Mississippi River.  Five years after his son graduated, Alexander Clark, Sr. obtained his J.D. This probably makes the Clarks the first African-American father and son to receive law degrees from the same institution.

The Clark family has a long history in Iowa. Alexander Clark, Sr. arrived in Iowa in the 1840s. After working as a barber and in the timber industry, Clark, Sr. enlisted in Iowa’s First Colored Volunteer Infantry as a Sergeant Major.  Although he did not serve, Clark Sr. was an agent and active recruiter for Union forces.

In the early 1840s, Clark’s home sheltered Jim White, a “fugitive slave.” White’s case was the state’s second fugitive slave case. Just as in the Case of Ralph (1839), the court decided that White’s owner could not return his servant to slave status within a free state. Ralph and White’s case preceded the infamous Dred Scott case.

Long before Brown v. Board of Education, the Clarks filed successful challenges to desegregate schools in Iowa.  In 1867, Clark Sr. sued the Muscatine school district to allow his 12-year old daughter Susan to attend Muscatine Public School No. 2, one of the city's elementary schools for white children, instead of forcing her to attend the school designated for black children. The case went before the Iowa Supreme Court in 1868 and the justices found in Clark's favor, ruling that separate schools for Blacks and Whites was unconstitutional more than 80 years before the U.S. Supreme Court reached the same finding in Brown v. Board of Education.

Clark, Sr. was also Vice-President of the Iowa Republican Convention of 1869, and Iowa’s delegate to the 1872 Republican National Convention.  Clark, Sr. later served as a Minister-Resident and Consul-General to the nation of Liberia.

NBLSA History http://www.nblsa.org/about/index.html

Contact Iowa BLSA via email or at

Black Law Students Association

The University of Iowa

278 Boyd Law Building
Iowa City, IA 52242