For more than thirty-six years, I have searched for my father in fragments.

Old ledgers.
Faded photographs.
Yellowed newspaper columns printed under segregated headings like “Negro News Events.”

History did not record men like my father in bold type.
It recorded them in margins.

Last week, while reviewing an October 4, 1962 edition of The Roanoke Leader, I found a small line that stopped me cold:

“Wilkie Clark returned home Saturday after attending the Southern Leadership Conference held in Birmingham, Sept. 25–28.”

At first glance, it seemed routine — another church-related travel notice in a segregated column.

But something about the dates would not leave me alone.

September 25–28.

Birmingham.

So I did what daughters in 2026 can do that daughters in 1962 could not: I researched.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference held its Sixth Annual Convention in Birmingham, Alabama, September 25–28, 1962. The gathering took place at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was there.

He addressed the convention.

On the final day, he was physically attacked while speaking.

This was not a banquet.

This was strategy.

This was planning.

This was Birmingham — one year before the world would watch children blasted by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs.

And my father was there.

For years, I remember how my daddy spoke about Dr. King — not as a distant icon, but with a warmth that suggested proximity. I was too young then to question it. I simply assumed admiration.

Now, I understand something deeper.

If my father attended that convention — and the dates align exactly — he stood in the same church where national civil rights leadership was mapping out the next phase of the movement.

He heard the voice.

He felt the tension.

He witnessed the courage.

That realization landed on me like a sacred inheritance.

I cannot say — and I will not claim — that my father personally shook Dr. King’s hand.

But I can now say, with documented alignment of dates and place, that my father was present at a convention where Dr. King spoke and strategized in Birmingham in 1962.

That is no small thing.

Black funeral directors in the South were not merely business owners. They were pillars. They provided transportation when others would not. They offered meeting spaces. They were trusted confidants in communities under watchful surveillance.

Attendance at an SCLC convention in 1962 was not casual participation. It was alignment.

And suddenly, my father’s lifelong fondness for Dr. King makes sense.

He wasn’t admiring a distant figure on television.

He had been in the room.

History is often loud about its heroes and silent about its witnesses.

My father was one of those witnesses.

And sometimes, it takes sixty-plus years — and a stubborn daughter — to bring those witnesses back into view.

This discovery does not inflate his story.

It clarifies it.

And for me, it is sacred.

The Southern Justice Archive
Presented By: Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson aka
Wilkie Clark’s Daughter”

“Documenting what happened, Preserving what matters, Protecting what must endure!

Before there was a federal complaint.

Before there was an archive.

Before there was even a funeral home —

there was a man.

A man who refused to bow.

A man who challenged a system designed to crush him.

A man who believed in serving people with dignity, even when Alabama tried to deny him that dignity at every turn.

That man was my father, Wilkie Clark.

And to understand why I fight…

why this Archive exists…

why federal intervention is necessary today…

You have to understand his fight first.

IT BEGAN WITH A DREAM — AND A DOOR SLAMMED IN HIS FACE

In the 1960s, Black men in Randolph County were not expected to own businesses.

The unwritten rules were simple:

work for someone else
stay quiet
take what you’re given
do not compete with white businesses
do not seek independence
do not dare outgrow your place
Wilkie Clark disagreed.

He wanted to build a Black-owned funeral home — one that served Black families with dignity, compassion, and professionalism.

But before he could even open the doors, he had to face:

discrimination
denial
regulatory barriers
financial blockades
outright bigotry

and people who hated the idea of a Black man becoming an independent business owner

Most men would have backed down.
My father did not.

THE SBA LOAN THEY NEVER WANTED A BLACK MAN TO HAVE

The federal government had a program to help new businesses:

The Small Business Administration.

On paper, it was race-neutral.
In practice?
A Black man walking into the SBA office in the Deep South was treated as an intruder.
My father applied.
He was denied.
He applied again.
Denied again.
He applied repeatedly — over and over — and each time the answer was:

“We don’t believe this is a viable business.”
“The community doesn’t need this.”
“We have concerns.”

But everyone in Randolph County knew the real message:

“A Black man doesn’t need to own a funeral home.”
My father kept fighting.
It wasn’t until Birmingham headquarters stepped in —
and a local newspaper article announced his approval —
that the SBA finally relented.

That article is in this Archive today.
And it stands as proof of what he endured.

THE FUNERAL HOME THEY DIDN’T WANT US TO HAVE

Even after financing was secured, the obstacles did NOT end.
People tried to stop:
the construction
the inspections
the licensing
the opening
the land acquisition
the permits

And yet — he built it anyway.
Clark Funeral Home opened its doors in 1969,
now, the oldest continuously operating Black-owned funeral home in Randolph County today,
and one of the most important Black businesses in East Alabama.
one of the “handful” of Black businesses operating in Randolph County today.

For nearly 57 years, this funeral home has:
served thousands of families
given comfort to grieving communities
provided dignity where the world denied it
stood as living evidence of Black resilience
and supported black efforts to demand justice when all the cards were stacked against us.

And through all of it, my father never stopped documenting the injustices he faced.

He wrote them down.
He saved letters.
He kept receipts.
He knew one day…
someone would need to know the truth.
That someone was me.

THE FIGHT THAT NEVER ENDED

My father died in 1989.
But the system he fought did not.
And in 2025 —
that same spirit of retaliation, discrimination, and overreach returned to my door.

When the Alabama Board of Funeral Service attempted to:
interfere with our business
undermine our family
misuse regulatory authority
violate due process
disrespect our legacy
issue improper orders

…I realized something unmistakable:

My father’s fight was NOT over.
It had simply passed to the next generation.
And this time, the system met a daughter who is:
educated
documented
technologically equipped
strategically trained
legally informed
historically grounded
and unafraid

My father fought mostly alone.

I will not.
I have my son and my daughter.
I have my grandchildren.
I have this Archive.
I have the record.
I have the evidence.
I have the federal mechanisms.
I have a platform.
I have readers.
I have subscribers.
I have the public.
And nothing is more powerful than truth on the record.

THE WILKIE CLARK LEGACY LIVES HERE

This Archive preserves:

his story
his struggle
his victories
his business
his spirit
his community service
his example
his courage

If you want to understand the South — really understand it —
you must know the story of men like my father.
Men who built businesses with the odds stacked against them.
Men who protected families when the State would not.
Men who held communities together.
Men who carried entire counties through funerals, grief, and history.
Men who endured discrimination but never surrendered.
This Archive exists because my father left me not just a business —
he left me a mission.
And I intend to honor it with everything I have.

**IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW THIS STORY… SUBSCRIBE NOW.**

Because this isn’t a nostalgia story.
This isn’t history in a museum case.
This is a living legacy
still under threat
still unfolding
still fighting
still standing
still resisting
still telling the truth
— and still being written.
And you’re witnessing its next chapter right here.

The Southern Justice Archive
Presented By: Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson aka
Wilkie Clark’s Daughter”

“Documenting what happened, Preserving what matters, Protecting what must endure!”