Jim Clark (sheriff)
| Jim Clark | |
|---|---|
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| Sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama | |
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In office 1955–1966 |
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| Appointed by | Jim Folsom |
| Succeeded by | Wilson Baker |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
James Gardner Clark, Jr. September 17, 1922 Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | June 4, 2007 (aged 84) Elba, Alabama, U.S. |
James Gardner "Jim" Clark, Jr. (September 17, 1922 – June 4, 2007) was the sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama from 1955 to 1966. He was one of the officials responsible for the violent arrests of civil rights protestors during the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965.
Clark was born in Alabama, the son of Ettie Lee and James Gardner Clark. He served with the U.S. Army Air Force in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. He was a cattle rancher when lifelong friend Governor of Alabama Jim Folsom appointed him as sheriff in 1955.
In 1964 and 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee engaged in a voting drive in Dallas County, of which Selma was the county seat. Clark was sheriff of Selma, and vocally opposed to racial integration, wearing a button reading "Never" [integrate]. Clark wore military style clothing, and carried a cattle prod in addition to his pistol and club.
In response to the voting drive, Clark recruited a horse mounted posse of Ku Klux Klan members and supporters. Together with the Highway Patrolmen of Albert J. Lingo, the posse was intended to "operate ... as a mobile anti-civil rights force," and appeared at several Alabama towns outside of Clark's jurisdiction to assault and threaten civil rights workers.
In Selma, the SNCC campaign was met with violence and intimidation by Clark, who waited at the entrance to the county courthouse, beating and arresting registrants at the slightest provocation. At one point, Clark arrested around 300 students who were holding a silent protest outside the courthouse, force-marching them with cattle prods to a detention center three miles away. At another point he was punched in the jaw and knocked down by a demonstrator, Annie Lee Cooper, whom he was trying to make go home by poking her in the neck with either a nightstick or a cattle prod after she had stood for hours at the courthouse in an attempt to register to vote. By 1965, only 300 of the city's 15,000 potential black voters were registered.
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