I had never heard of Muscatine, Iowa, until four years ago, when we stayed at the local Holiday Inn and my husband had a job interview across the river in Illinois. So it surprises me when people who don’t live in this area have heard of Muscatine, have even visited or lived here, and ask me how I like it.

I think it’s a great community, and we particularly appreciate the public schools, especially the work they have done with our mildly autistic younger son. Iowa has long had a focus on good public education – its state quarter features a schoolhouse, a teacher and her students, and the words “Foundation in Education.” This evening I learned more about the role that one of Muscatine’s most famous citizens played in making that education available to all children.

Over the past couple years I have occasionally seen references to Alexander Clark in the local newspaper. Articles discussed the restoration of his house and whether more should be done to publicly commemorate his achievements. As I had never heard of him before, I didn’t read the articles – or letters to the editor – too closely. I wondered how much of the interest was because every town likes to make much of their native sons who do anything important.

Tonight I started looking more closely (because today is the 140th anniversary of a landmark civil rights decision in Iowa), and decided Muscatine has every right to be very proud of this civil rights leader. Clark started here as a barber at age sixteen, became the second black to graduate from the University of Iowa law school (his son had been the first) at age 58, and eight years later was appointed U.S. minister and consul general to Liberia (where he died the following year).

One of his most significant accomplishments was securing the agreement of the Iowa Supreme Court that his 12-year-old daughter, Susan – and any other child of any race or nationality – could attend the same public school that the white children attended. (He had documented the many ways in which the education offered there was significantly superior to what was offered in the school for black children.)

I suppose it is no great honor for Muscatine that Clark had to go all the way to the state Supreme Court to require the local school board to admit a black student to their previously all-white public school. And it is no great surprise that Iowa integrated its public schools 88 years before Brown vs. the Board of Education decided the matter for the last recalcitrant states. But I am somewhat surprised that – especially with the emphasis these days on celebrating the accomplishments of African-Americans – I had never learned any of this before.