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Aug 28, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Daniel Clark |Nancy Dugan |Laura Belin |Jack O'Connor
Black History Month from Carver to Clark Wednesday, Aug 28 2024 0 Comments This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on February 7, 2024. For the second year since becoming an official state holiday, February 1 was George Washington Carver Day. What better kickoff for Black History Month every year?
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Jul 8, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Daniel Clark |Neal BakerDana Schuster |Al Charlson |Laura Belin
My MLK Day 1619 surprise Monday, Jul 8 2024 0 Comments This column by Daniel G. Clark first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on January 10, 2023. I braved slick roads to attend a Martin Luther King Day celebration in Iowa City at the historic Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Instead of the announced speaker, Professor Venise Berry who got stranded by weather, I got to hear a preacher whose name I didn’t know but whose face I thought I recognized.
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Daniel Clark |Laura Belin |Diane Porter |Bruce Lear
This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on Jan. 10, 2023—but heavily edited and with a different title (“Early remembrances of Alexander Clark”). And with the page-one teaser above. Further explanation follows the end of the column. A celebrated 20th century humorist drew much of his material from memories of growing up in Muscatine.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
qctimes.com | David Hotle |Daniel Clark
You are reading Column No. 78 in the series I had no inkling of when editor David Hotle asked me to write “a column” for Black History Month 2022. To me that meant a single piece about Muscatine’s extraordinary 19th century Black hero Alexander Clark. I had performed the ritual before, for the Journal and others, so I’d do it once more, because that story is one of my favorite things about living here. “There is so much more to be told about Muscatine’s part in Black History,” I wrote.
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Apr 2, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Daniel Clark |Randy Evans |Laura Belin |Bill Bumgarner
History nerds and turning points Tuesday, Apr 2 2024 0 Comments Stephen Frese in 2006 and 2023This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on Dec. 13, 2023. My previous column told of the high-school junior whose 2006 biographical essay on civil-rights hero Alexander Clark won him a full-tuition university scholarship, the top prize in the National History Day competition.
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Mar 25, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Daniel Clark |Bruce Lear |Laura Belin |Joe Bolkcom
History Day champions Monday, Mar 25 2024 0 Comments This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on November 29, 2023. This month I assisted a northeast Iowa middle-school student with her National History Day project. “I am doing Alexander Clark and the impacts he had on desegregating schools,” she explained. We traded messages and then “zoomed” with help from her teacher.
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Mar 16, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Daniel Clark |Laura Belin |Jordan True |Gerald Ott
Queen Susie and Grandmother Rebecca Saturday, Mar 16 2024 0 Comments This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on Nov. 15, 2023. Above: Detail from illustration by Hayle Calvin. Susie the Bravewas also Susie the Queenwho was born in a towncalled Muscatine. So begins the picture book Susie Clark: The Bravest Girl You’ve Ever Seen: Desegregating Iowa Schools in 1868. You say you never knew there wasa Queen in Muscatine?
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Mar 6, 2024 | 
qctimes.com | David Hotle |Daniel Clark
Many Iowans tell me they learned of Alexander Clark only recently. They express surprise—usually regret—that they never heard of him in school. Should we blame the previous generations for not teaching us? I don’t. Our ancestors did the best they knew. They learned the stories and venerated the heroes they were told about. People have heard of Clark’s colleague Frederick Douglass. His name never got lost in history, as headline writers so often say of Clark.
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Feb 26, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Daniel Clark |Bernie Scolaro |Nancy Dugan |Laura Belin
This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on October 18, 2023. Above: “Ms. Rocki” reads aloud that evening. Tonight is the launch for the picture book I hinted at last January. “You can expect rhyming and rapping…and whimsical, colorful illustration,” I wrote. That was 20 columns ago.
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Feb 21, 2024 | 
qctimes.com | David Hotle |Daniel Clark
However vague about particulars, Muscatine proudly claims Mark Twain. We can look around and see decorative reminders of our association with his greatness. The world knows Mark Twain and his Mississippi River, and he said we were special. What a no-brainer theme for promoting our town!Too bad the house where young Sam Clemens may have lived with his brother and their mother was demolished to make way for a new filling station, itself now long gone. Oh well. Muscatine Journal, Apr.
