Sheriff Jim Clark, segregationist icon, dies at 84

Appointed sheriff in 1955
Clark was raising cattle in Dallas County when then-Gov. James E. "Big Jim" Folsom appointed him sheriff in 1955 following the death of the incumbent. After the Voting Rights Act led to 9,000 blacks registering to vote in Selma, Clark lost his re-election bid in 1966.

After the loss, he worked in and around Selma selling mobile homes and stayed out of the spotlight until 1978, when he went to federal prison for conspiring to import marijuana. He served about nine months.

Clark returned to his hometown of Elba, where he had been in declining health for the last two years and was using a motorized wheelchair. His views, however, had not changed.

Hc / AP C.T. Vivian, integration leader, leads a prayer on the steps of the Selma, Ala., courthouse in this Feb. 5, 1965, photo, after Sheriff Jim Clark, right, stopped him at the door with a court order. Clark, 84, died Monday night in Elba, Ala.

In a 2006 interview with the Montgomery Advertiser, Clark said, "Basically, I'd do the same thing today if I had to do it all over again. I did what I thought was right to uphold the law."

He also claimed that marchers weren't beaten on Bloody Sunday. "They fell down all at once in one big swoop," he said.

His death was first reported by The Selma Times-Journal and Montgomery Advertiser.

‘I hope God will show mercy to him ... ’
Young said Wednesday he had met with many old adversaries from the civil rights movement over the years and they were "able to laugh and joke about those times." But that never happened with Clark.

"I hope God will show mercy to him even though he showed no mercy to us," Young said.

Kathryn Tucker Windham, the famed Southern storyteller and author of several ghost books, covered Clark in the 1960s while a reporter for The Selma Times-Journal. She said there were two sides to Clark: one the public saw and one they didn't.

She recalled a prominent woman in Selma putting on "her hat and white gloves" to visit Clark because she was concerned about his actions during the arrests. Clark ended up charming the woman before she left.

"He himself had courtly manners when he wanted to," Windham recalled.

Clark's funeral will be at held Friday.

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