800 honor Chapel Hill leader Rebecca Clark

CHAPEL HILL -- More than 800 people remembered Rebecca Clark on Friday as a matriarch, public servant and unofficial office-holder in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The retired nurse and tireless political organizer died a week ago at age 93.

A who’s who of elected officials graced the stage and filled out the audience at Chapel Hill Bible Church for her funeral. State House Speaker Joe Hackney, former Chapel Hill Mayor Howard Lee and U.S. Rep. David Price, through his wife Lisa, all talked of needing Clark’s support to get elected.

“Rebecca Clark held powerful office in this community,” Hackney said. “She earned this universal respect in this community with a lifetime of helping others.”

Clark fought for workers’ rights at UNC-Chapel Hill, drove voters to the polls on Election Day, and offered the downtrodden a “hand-up,” according to Clark’s former pastors and other community leaders.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP recognized Clark as a community organizer who left footprints for generations to follow, checking voter lists at her Lincoln Center precinct every hour last Nov. 4 to make sure her friends and family were voting.

Local jeweler Ken Jackson repeated a story he had told at Clark’s 91st birthday roast, which raised money for the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church building fund.

He said as a child living off Jones Ferry Road in Chatham County, Clark would walk miles to a home located where the PTA Thrift Shop now sits, wash her feet with well water and put on her shoes. Jackson said that was a sign of respect for others and for herself.

“I see Ms. Rebecca in the spirit world with an angel washing her feet so that she can enter heaven,” Jackson said.

Lee likewise connected Clark’s earthly life with a heavenly image.

“Now that she can walk on streets paved with gold, we must remember that she worked hard to get streets paved with tar here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro,” said Lee, the South’s first black mayor. “It’s possible that I never would have been elected mayor of Chapel Hill without her work, engagement and support.”