JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Former Rep. Alyce Clarke was the first Black woman elected to the Mississippi Legislature, and now she is the first Black person — and first woman — to have a portrait on display in the state Capitol.
She smiled Tuesday as fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters honored her during a ceremony to unveil the oil painting, which has a prominent spot in the room where the House Education Committee meets.
Clarke, an 84-year-old Democrat from Jackson, served 39 years before deciding not to seek reelection in 2023.
“Thank God, I’ve had more good days than I’ve had bad days,” she said during a ceremony. “And I’d just like to thank everybody who’s here. I’d like to help everybody who’s helped me to get here because I did nothing by myself.”
Other portraits in the Mississippi Capitol are of former governors and former House speakers, who were all white men.
The artist, Ryan Mack, said he based the portrait on a photo of Clarke from the mid-1980s.
“I’m a true believer and witness of the good she has done,” Mack said, citing her work on education and nutrition programs.
The first Black man to win a seat in the Mississippi Legislature in the 20th century was Robert Clark, no relation, a Democrat from Ebenezer who was elected to the House in 1967. He retired in December 2003, and a state government building in downtown Jackson was named for him the following year.
Alyce Clarke won a March 1985 special election, and another Black woman, Democrat Alice Harden of Jackson, won a seat in the Mississippi Senate two years later.
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Several other Black women have since been elected to Mississippi’s 122-member House and 52-member Senate, but women remain a small minority in both chambers.
Clarke pushed early in her legislative career to establish Born Free, a drug and alcohol treatment center for pregnant women. In the 1990s, she led…
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