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Walter R. Clark Collection, Circa 1892-1949

 

Summary

Extent:
1 Hollinger Box
1 Half Hollinger Box
1 Objects
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Walter R. Clark Collection, Broward County Historical Archives, Broward County Library.

Background

Scope and content:

The Walter R. Clark collection contains correspondence, photographs, a scrapbook, and a framed collection of badges related to the professional and personal life of Walter Reed Clark, the Sheriff of Broward County from 1933 to 1950.

Biographical / historical:

Walter Reed Clark was born on December 11, 1904 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to farmers James Clark and Annie Miller Clark. He was the eldest of four sons. As a young adult, Clark was a butcher in a meat market before running for Broward County Sheriff in 1932. In 1926, Clark married Avis Mae Mull and together they had a son named Curtis Clark. The couple later divorced and Clark married Odell Clark in 1937.

In 1933 he became the Broward County Sheriff and served five terms until 1950. Walter Clark's career as sheriff is most noted by the lynching of African American field worker Reuben Stacey in 1935. Reuben Stacey was accused of attacking a white woman and was lynched while being transferred from the Broward County Courthouse to the Dade County jail. A grand jury investigated the lynching on July 23, 1935. The sheriff and his deputies in charge of the transfer were absolved of all wrongdoing in the crime.

Clark's time as Sheriff was also shaped by an incident in his first year in office that resulted in the Supreme Court Case Chambers v. Florida. It is clear from the evidence of both the State and four accused men that from May 14 to May 20, 1933 Sheriff Walter R. Clark other police officers subjected forty "negro suspects" of a murder to intense and random questioning. On May 20th, four of the suspects "broke" and confessed to the murder. Chambers, Davis, Williamson and Woodward were sentenced by an all-white jury to death by electric chair. S.D. McGill took up their defense case, and the legal battle to free them dragged on for years. On February 12, 1940, Justice Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court overturned the four men's convictions. In 1942, after 9 years of imprisonment, the four men were declared not guilty and released. Chambers vs. Florida was a landmark case in the US Supreme Court that set the precedent that police pressure, mental torture, and threats of violence violates the Due Process Clause.

Walter Clark was also accused of compliance in multiple illegal gambling institutions. In 1950, Senator Estes Kefauver and his committee began an investigation of Sheriff Clark and his connection to illegal gambling in Broward County. Kefauver exposed Clark's involvement in the Broward Novelty Company which alledgedly owned slot machines and ran an illegal lottery. However, at the end of the trial, Clark was found not guilty on all counts.

Walter Clark died of leukemia on April 26, 1951.

Acquisition information:
Frank Clark donated the materials to the Broward County Historical Commission in 1975 (Accession BCHA-1975.18).
Processing information:

This collection received file level processing. This finding aid may be updated to reflect new descriptions as well as aquisitions to the collection.

Arrangement:

The Walter R. Clark Collection is arranged into four series: I. CorrespondenceII. PhotographsIII. ScrapbookIV. Framed collection of badges

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The Walter R. Collection is open for research.

Preferred citation:

Walter R. Clark Collection, Broward County Historical Archives, Broward County Library.

Location of this collection:
Broward County Historical Archives, Broward County Library
100 S. Andrews Avenue
Fort Lauderdale
FL
33301
USA