2. Why I Built This Archive?
A personal essay by Wilkie Clark’s Daughter
WHY I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE
“Documenting what happened, Preserving what matters, Protecting what must endure.”
I didn’t wake up this morning and decide to become an archivist of Southern injustice.
I didn’t choose this role as a project, a hobby, or a platform-building exercise.
This is not branding.
This is not strategy.
This is calling, shaped by 57 years of living as Wilkie Clark’s Daughter.
Every fight I have had to fight —
every moment I have stood alone —
every silence I’ve had to break —
every injustice that tried to make a home in my life —
has led me right here.
This Archive didn’t begin in 2025.
This Archive began the moment my father decided he would not bow.
I. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE MY FATHER’S STORY WAS ALMOST ERASED.
My father, Wilkie Clark, built our funeral home with nothing but determination, borrowed strength, and a belief that Black families in rural Alabama deserved dignity — even when the State tried to deny him the means to provide it.
He was denied loans.
Denied access.
Denied fairness.
Denied humanity.
He was told “No” so many times the word should have defeated him.
But it didn’t.
He built anyway.
He led anyway.
He served anyway.
He resisted anyway.
And he passed the fight to me — not because he wanted to burden me,
but because the truth is a baton.
It must be carried, or it gets lost.
I cannot and will not let his story — or his fight — be rewritten, sanitized, buried, or forgotten.
This Archive is the guardrail.
The shield.
The sanctuary of his truth.
II. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE INJUSTICE DOESN’T RETIRE.
Systems don’t stop doing what they were designed to do.
When the Alabama Board of Funeral Service decided to target me —
when they misused their authority —
when they sent an improper Cease & Desist order —
when they tried to intimidate me —
I recognized the pattern.
It was the same pattern my father faced.
The tone had changed.
The tactics were modernized.
But the intent felt familiar.
They underestimated me the same way they underestimated him.
And just like him,
I refuse to go quietly.
This Archive ensures they cannot operate in darkness.
Not with me.
Not anymore.
Not ever again.
III. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE SOMEBODY HAS TO TELL THE TRUTH.
The South has perfected the art of burying the truth:
behind procedure
behind paperwork
behind power
behind silence
behind “that’s just how it is”
behind whispered conversations
behind bureaucracy
I’ve lived long enough to know that truth dies most often in silence, not lies.
So I will not be silent.
Not when injustice is still active.
Not when truth is still under threat.
Not when our stories are still disappearing.
This platform exists to document,
to preserve,
to protect,
and to reveal.
Because truth not written down is truth that can be denied.
And truth unprotected is truth that can be destroyed.
I built this Archive so the truth would have a home — finally.
IV. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE BLACK INSTITUTIONS ARE UNDER ATTACK.
Black funeral homes have carried African American communities through every era:
Jim Crow
segregation
economic exclusion
racial violence
municipal neglect
political suppression
state-level targeting
When people didn’t care whether we lived,
Black funeral homes cared how we were remembered.
When systems denied us justice in life,
our own institutions gave us dignity in death.
My family’s funeral home has held this community for 57 years.
I’ve watched it be marginalized, dismissed, undermined, and disrespected by people who couldn’t shine my father’s shoes.
I built this Archive because our institutions deserve defenders, not eulogies.
V. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE HISTORY DESERVES A GUARDIAN.
History is not what happened.
History is what gets recorded.
And too much of what happened to my family —
my father —
my community —
our institutions —
our businesses —
our truth —
never made it into the official record.
I built this Archive to correct that.
To add the missing pages.
To rewrite the omissions.
To speak the names that were left out.
To fill the silence with truth.
This is the historical record that should have existed all along.
VI. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER.
This platform is not nostalgia.
It is not a memorial.
It is a battleground.
It exists because:
justice still demands pursuit
power still needs accountability
history still needs protection
legacy still needs defenders
and truth still needs a place to live
I built this Archive because, as long as I have breath,
I will not let the South forget what it did —
and I will not let the South ignore what it is still doing.
VII. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE I AM MY FATHER’S DAUGHTER.
Everything I am —
everything I stand for —
everything I build —
comes from the man who taught me how to fight with dignity and how to resist with courage.
He taught me:
never bow
never beg
never break
and never be afraid to stand alone
This Archive is the continuation of his life’s work.
His courage lives here.
His story lives here.
His legacy lives here.
And as long as it breathes through me,
it will never die.
VIII. I BUILT THIS ARCHIVE BECAUSE THE TRUTH MUST ENDURE.
This platform is not a project.
It is not a publication.
It is not a phase.
It is a permanent record.
A repository of lived history.
A defense against erasure.
A protection against injustice.
A witness to what the South refuses to confront.
I built it for you.
For my community.
For my father.
For our children.
For the truth.
And I built it because:
”Documenting what happened,
Preserving what matters,
Protecting what must endure —”
is not just a tagline. It is my life’s assignment.
END OF ESSAY