Compiled by Lee Pierre
Earlier this year, on Feb. 14, Dominion Energy and the Library of Virginia recognized the achievements of six African-American leaders as part of the tenth annual “Strong Men & Women in Virginia History” awards. The awards honor prominent African Americans past and present who have made noteworthy and admirable contributions to the commonwealth, the nation, and their professions.
“This year’s honorees have dedicated their lives to serving their communities. We are honored to acknowledge their achievements and all they have done to improve the lives of others,” said Bill Murray, senior vice president of Corporate Affairs & Communications, Dominion Energy. “Through activism and rising to be leaders in their fields, these six honorees have uplifted and inspired; their leadership has provided an example for others, and their contributions have left positive and lasting impacts on society.”
This year’s honorees join a long list of distinguished men and women who have served the Commonwealth and the nation in important ways, serving as role models for us all, especially for
today’s students. The honorees are Christy S. Coleman, Williamsburg Public Historian; Samuel H. Clark, Roanoke Labor Leader; Robert L. Dandridge, Norfolk Hall of Fame Basketball Player/Coach; Rev. Dr. B.H. Hester, Fredericksburg Minister, Civil
Rights Activist; Christyl C. Johnson, Woodbridge Engineer; and Samuel W. Tucker; Richmond Civil Rights Attorney. The honorees were celebrated at a program in Richmond on June 16.
Samuel Harris Clark labor leader, born April 11, 1885, in the town of Vicker in Montgomery County, was the son of a farmer, Charles E. Clark, and his second wife, Julia Lewis Clark. At the age of eleven, he joined the New Hope Baptist Church, thus laying the foundation of faith that guided his life’s work. After completing his education in the county’s public schools, Clark attended Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton University) before taking his first job on the railroad. On October 25, 1911, in Montgomery County, he married Millie Virginia Nichols, who died on June 27, 1961. Their one son and four daughters included Alma Bernice Clark, who married Samuel Lee Gravely, the first African American to achieve flag rank in the United States Navy.
In 1913 Clark went to work in Roanoke as a brakeman for Norfolk and Western Railway Company and later joined the Association of Colored Railway Trainmen and Locomotive Firemen (ACRT&LF), founded in 1912 as the Colored Association of Railroad Employees. The union was one of several that represented African Americans who were excluded from such unions as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (BLFE), which admitted only white members. Clark rose to the presidency of the Roanoke local in the 1930s, and in 1939 he was elected Grand President of the ACRT&LF at the union’s convention in Bluefield, West Virginia. He served as president until July 1958 three years after he retired from the Norfolk and Western in May 1955. During most of his tenure, the union consisted of a small number of locals in southern railroad centers.
When elected, Clark transformed the association from a primarily fraternal organization and promised that he would work to end racial discrimination in American railroading. In 1939 he approached the noted civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston for help in protecting the railroad workers’ rights. With Houston serving as the association’s chief counsel, Clark led the organization through a number of landmark legal decisions that upheld the rights of Black railroad workers. The first victory came in 1940 when the union negotiated a settlement for better wages, hours, and benefits for the Black car-riders who worked on the coal piers of the Virginian Railway in Norfolk.
Clark, Houston, and the ACRT&LF then turned their attention to discrimination against Black firemen. The union joined with the all-Black International Association of Railway Employees to combat an agreement that the Southeastern Carriers’ Conference had reached in 1941 that permitted the BLFE and twenty-one railroads to replace Black firemen who could not be promoted under union rules, with white firemen who could be promoted. In 1944 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the combined cases of Steele v. Louisville and Nashville Railroad Co. et al. and Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen et al. that because of the BLFE and the recognized bargaining agent for railway employees. It could not discriminate against Black firemen. As in many other early civil rights cases, difficult as it sometimes was to establish a legal precedent, it was often even more difficult to enforce it. Clark testified in September 1943 about such practices at Norfolk and Western’s Roanoke yard before the National Committee on Fair Employment Practices but its directives to cease such discrimination were ignored. In 1958 Clark himself successfully sued Norfolk and Western after the railroad employed similar discriminatory measures in deciding which brakemen could apply for promotion to higher-paying jobs as retarders.
Clark’s dedication to public service, labor rights, and racial equality extended beyond his work with the ACRT&LF. He was a deacon at Roanoke’s Jerusalem Baptist Church and sat on the board of Burrell Memorial Hospital both in Roanoke. After he retired, Clark moved to Christiansburg but he did not resign himself entirely to his favorite pastimes, gardening, and fishing. He volunteered much of his time and served several terms as president of the Montgomery County chapter, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As a leader of the NAACP and of a local senior volunteer program, he encouraged people to register and vote. Samuel Harris Clark died in a Blacksburg hospital on June 25, 1979, and was buried in the city’s Schaeffer Memorial Community Cemetery.
Alma Clark Gravely, 100, proudly accepted the “Strong Men Strong Women” posthumous award from Dominion Energy and the Library of Virginia on behalf of her now late father, Samuel H. Clark who continuously fought for the rights of African American railroad workers in Roanoke and beyond. The Clark family will donate its $5,000 award to the Montgomery County-Radford City, Floyd County NAACP.
