My Family

"Family has always been the grounding force in my life. I was raised in a home where education, discipline, and service were not abstract ideals, they were daily expectations. My great-grandfather, James Farrar was born in Virginia in 1870, five years after the end of slavery. He moved to Connecticut and married Martha Smith, and together they had six children. James was an entrepreneur, Martha was a housewife, and he bought and built multiple properties in Fairfield County. They sent all six of their children to college. Five of their six children also earned graduate degrees. My grandmother, Elvira Farrar Clarke, attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and my grandfather, George Clarke, graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1935. My father graduated from Virginia Union College, and went on to be a researcher at Yale University School of Medicine where he co-authored papers on gastroenterology and contributed to research on cerebral blood flow. My mother, Audrey Clarke, graduated from Howard University in 1958, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and was one of the first black women to be awarded a Fulbright scholarship, which took her to the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. When I was a little girl, my mother went back to grad school, and earned a M.A. and a doctorate in education from U.C.L.A. I spent my elementary school evenings and weekends doing my homework alongside my mother as she studied at the Charles Young research library at U.C.L.A.." - Teresa Clarke

"How many black women born in 1914 went on to non-profit board service in predominantly white organizations? Not many."

Meet my late grandmother, Elvira Farrar Clarke, born in 1914 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who served on various non-profit boards in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Grammy attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she majored in Home Economics. She enjoyed a long career in several positions of service to the public and her community. She was a junior high teacher, employment counselor, program director for a portfolio of Head Start programs, and a librarian.

In the 1950’s, she was a pioneering non-profit board leader in her home state of Connecticutt, where she served as President of the Board of Directors of Visiting Nurse’s Association of Bridgeport, member of the Fairfield County Girl Scout Executive Board, the Board of Directors of the United Way of Bridgeport, and Board of Directors of the Bridgeport Inter-Group Council.

She was appointed to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s Advisory Committee on Child Care, and she assisted in drafting of California legislation that governed child care centers, and authoried a manual on how to start of child care center in California. She was interviewed on television in the 1970s on the topic of child care, and in 1976 she received an award for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare for her “long and valued service to the children in Project Head Start.”

More about her life can be found at worldsbestgrammy.co

Three generations and 70+ years of non-profit board leadership

"My mother modeled what education can do at its best: expand opportunity, elevate standards, and strengthen institutions." - Teresa Clarke

Teresa’s commitment to education and institutional leadership began at home.

Her mother, Audrey Millicent Clarke, Ed.D., was a scholar, superintendent, and lifelong educator whose career reflected intellectual rigor and moral purpose. A graduate of Harding High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Audrey earned a B.A. in Spanish, magna cum laude, from Howard University in 1958, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and became one of the first Black women to receive a Fulbright Scholarship, studying at the University of Buenos Aires in 1958–1959. She later earned an M.A. in Education and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from UCLA.

Audrey rose from Spanish teacher to Superintendent of the Lynwood Unified School District in California, leading the district for nearly a decade in the 1990s. After retiring, she continued shaping future education leaders as an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge and as a lecturer in the Urban Superintendents Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Audrey passed away in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2018, surrounded by family. Her legacy endures in the work her daughter carries forward.

More about her life can be found at worldsbestmommy.com

In the documentary, “1954″ Teresa tells the story of her late mother, Audrey M. Clarke, Ed.D., through the lens of Brown v. Board of Education. Dr. Clarke graduated from an academically strong, racially integrated public school in Bridgeport, CT in 1954, which put her on her path to success in college, graduate school, and her long career in public education, culminating with her role as a professor at California State University at Northridge, where she taught education law, with Brown v. Board as a key element of her curriculum.

An important moment in her career was the invitation she received from Harvard Law School to participate in the launch of the law school’s Charles Hamilton Houston Center on Race in 2005, at which there as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board. She also served as a lecturer in the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Urban Superintendent’s Program.

My son, Brooke, graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, where he majored in Sociology. While at Middlebury, he served as one of two students on the President’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, and founded A.I., Business & Society a group that hosted speakers on A.I. In addition, he continues to publish his own weekly newsletter that helps non-techies keep up with the developments in AI that affect business and society.

Brooke lives in the suburbs of Chicago where he works for a Fortune 500 company serving as an AI liaison between the technology division and the business units. He is a great soccer player.