Born: 22 June 1886, United States
Died: 20 October 1979
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Clara Olivia Byrd
American educator, civic leader, and suffragist Clara Byrd Baker fought for equal rights in the early 1900s and was the first woman to vote in Williamsburg, Virginia.
After earning her Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Hampton Institute and Virginia State College for Negroes (predecessor to Virginia State University), Baker began teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in James City County in 1902. In 1920, she started teaching at a public training school for African-American children, later joining the faculty of Bruton Heights School, where she stayed until retiring in 1952.
Baker was a leader in Williamsburg’s African-American community in Williamsburg, promoting education, interracial cooperation and women’s voting rights. She became the first woman in Williamsburg to vote in 1920, after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. In 1967, the superintendent of schools commented that he could “not remember any worthwhile community-wide effort in which Baker had not participated”.
Clara Byrd Baker Elementary School opened in Williamsburg in September 1989.