HMD’s popular Speaker Series is back!
The Life and Legacy of Noah Clarke, Poolesville’s Crusader for Black Schooling

Location: Old Town Hall and Exhibit Hall
                     19933 Fisher Avenue, Poolesville, Maryland, 20837
Date: Thursday November 14 2024
Time: 7:00PM → 8:30PM EST
Maximum Audience Size: 50
Cost: Free, but please register here, in advance, to save your seat! Register here for The Life and Legacy of Noah Clarke

A conversation with Tina Clarke, moderated by HMD chair Knight Kiplinger, about the life and legacy of her remarkable grandfather, Noah Clarke (1878-1958), of the Jerusalem community in Poolesville. (Ms. Clarke, a resident of Jerusalem Road, is herself a giant in the civic life of our county.)

Noah Clarke was a crusader for black education and civil rights in Montgomery County, and can be fairly described as the Father of Secondary Education for his people in our county. He led the local effort in 1926 to raise money for and build a new, public elementary for Poolesville black children on Jerusalem Road, with matching funds from the Rosenwald Fund. (Today the original structure is inside the county’s waste transfer complex, the Poolesville “Beauty Spot.”) The following year, he initiated a campaign to create the first high school for blacks in the county, in Rockville. He led the effort for a larger, better high school in 1934, called Lincoln High School, which was replaced with the modern George Washington Carver High School in 1950. In 1954-56, Mr. Clarke was one of 19 county citizens (along with Poolesville leader Charles Elgin) on an advisory committee to recommend to the School Board a course of action for integration of the county public schools over a two-year period.