Rebecca Clark started at UNC as a maid" running up and down stairs to answer phones and relay messages for the white males who lived in Old East Residence Hall.
By the time she died Jan. 3 at the age of 93 Clark had a campus building bearing her name and every politician in Chapel Hill doing her bidding.
Hundreds of people filled Chapel Hill Bible Church on Friday to honor Clark" who bridged generations with years of activism on behalf of UNC housekeepers and other people throughout the community.
""Longfellow said ‘in this world a person is either an anvil or a hammer"' meaning that a person is either a molder of society or is molded by society" said Rev. John D. Burton at the ceremony.
There is no doubt which one of the two … Mrs. Clark was.""
Clark was born in Chatham County and both of her parents died when she was young.
She picked cotton to buy shoes for school and made it through 11th grade at Orange County Training School" the all-black school at the time.
She worked all around Chapel Hill and eventually married John Clark and had two sons Douglas and John" Jr.
""I never stopped working. Even having children" I never stopped working" Clark told Bob Gilgor in an interview for the Southern Oral History Program Collection at UNC.
Because the men wasn't making anything and we wasn't making anything. We had to make ends meet.""
After working long hours in the poorly ventilated laundry rooms"" Clark got involved with a union at UNC at a time when employees were scared that they might be fired.
She worked to register voters when Howard Lee became the first black mayor in the South in 1969.
""It is possible that I never would have been elected mayor of Chapel Hill without her engagement" involvement and support Lee said Friday. To me" she was truly a hero.""
Clark became a nurse before retiring in 1979.
In 1998" then-Chancellor Michael Hooker renamed the renovated laundry building for Clark and her fellow housekeeper Kennon Cheek.
Clark remained involved in politics long enough to work the polls the night Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States.
Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
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Wednesday, May 15, 2024
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