CLENNON KING, A BLACK STUDENT AND TEACHER

 


Clennon King, a black student and teacher born in the USA on 18th July 1920. White Racism oppressed him. He criticised irregularities of the Black Movement. He fought against institutional oppression with unconventional methods. 

Clennon Washington King Jr. was significant yet controversial in the mid-20th Century in the USA. He challenged racial barriers and unconventionally fought for civil rights. Born on 18.7.1920, in Albany, Georgia, King was the eldest of seven children in a middle-class family. His father, a civil rights activist and driver to Booker Taliaferro Washington (educator, author, and the Blacks' leader), instilled emphasis on education. King earned a bachelor’s degree from Tuskegee Institute and a master’s from Case Western Reserve University. He taught history at various Black colleges, Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University).

In 1957, King criticized the NAACP’s (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) strategies. He argued NAACP disrupted relations between Whites and Blacks. With this, 600 students at Alcorn boycotted his classes. His contract was not renewed in 1958. Then King, as the first Black person, applied to the University of Mississippi’s graduate history program. Governor J. P. Coleman, state highway patrol, and plainclothes officers forcibly removed, arrested, and jailed him. Two doctors declared him insane. He was sent to the state asylum for two weeks. A judge ruled that a Black person must be insane to think of attending a university. His brother, civil rights lawyer C.B. King, got him released. King continued to defy systemic racism. In 1960, he became the first Black to run for president of America, on the Afro-American Party ticket. His candidacy challenged the exclusion of Black voices in national politics. In 1979, King in Miami, founded the All Faiths Church of Divine Mission, the Arenia Mallory School of Religion, the Miami Council for Church and Social Action, and the Party of God. He ran in local elections, embodied resilience despite setbacks.

King’s support for segregation at times and cooperation with the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission alienated him from both white segregationists and Black civil rights leaders. 

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