Pat Clark is the Executive Director for the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Before coming to FOR, Pat was the National Criminal Justice Representative for eight years with the American Friends Service Committee. There she focused on such issues as the death penalty, prison control units, hate violence and restorative justice, juvenile justice, prison reform and alternatives to incarceration. She has served as a major spokesperson against the death penalty.
Pat was the Executive Director of Death Penalty Focus of California (1990-1994), a statewide organization working to abolish the death penalty. From 1985-1990 Pat worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she became the director of the Klanwatch Project. In that role, she and her staff monitored the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations and conducted research that was used in litigation against these organizations and for general education. She served as a major spokesperson for Klanwatch and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
As a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity International from 1979-1982 in Zaire, Africa she directed and finished the construction 117 homes; directed the work of over 50 laborers and craftsmen. Initiated and oversaw the construction of a women’s center for villagers; set up a cooperative store, developed an experimental garden; coordinated and/or instructed academic and vocational classes for non-English speakers.
Pat serves on the boards of Southern Poverty Law Center, Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation and on the advisory board of and Habitat for Humanity International. She recently was selected a commissioner for the Greensboro, NC Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
She has been a board member of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, the Pennsylvania Prison Society, Habitat for Humanity International and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Links to Pat’s Journey:
Pat Clark Quotes:
“The emotions that family members experience
in losing loved ones to violent crime ran the gamut in my family. I had aunts and
uncles who wanted to personally wreak havoc and vengeance on the perpetrators.
But my grandmother’s response to the anger and outrage of other family members
was that no human being had a right to determine who should live or die. My grandmother
was a strong, quiet, deeply religious Black matriarch. Her ultimate belief in people was
memorably displayed when the son of the woman who killed my uncle came to her house
to play with my cousins. To the shock and horror of other family members, my grandmother
welcomed him in. Her loving example helped lay the foundation of my opposition to capital punishment."
