How former Lacey Mayor Virgil L. Clarkson helped pass a law to end housing discrimination in Thurston County

Angela Jefferson

In a previous column, I discussed the history of housing discrimination and restrictive covenants in Thurston County.  Here is how a former Army soldier passed a law to end housing discrimination in our community. 

The first Black and longest serving Mayor of Lacey is Virgil L. Clarkson, born in Houston, Texas. Virgil followed in his father’s footsteps, who served in the first world war.  His Houston hometown was separate and very unequal to people who looked like him in 1932. 

Here is an example how. His brother’s friend came back from World War II and wanted to go to college after serving. So, he applied to the University of Texas, but was denied because he was Black.  With the NAACP’s support, they took the college to court. Instead of admitting him to the university, they decided to build another University called “Texas Southern University for Negroes” on Sept. 2, 1947.

Virgil started high school at the age of 11 years old and graduated at 16. As a freshman in college, nobody wanted to hire a 16-year-old student.  

Jobless and lacking resources, he made the decision at 18 to join the Marine Corps during the Korean War.  After his Marine Corps tour of duty and another stint at going to college, Virgil gave up and joined the Army as an Air Defense Artilleryman. He ended his military career at Fort Lewis in 1965.  

Civilian life

After his discharge from the Army, former Staff Sergeant Clarkson applied for a job as an engineer and choose to remain in Seattle.  While waiting for his job acceptance and interview, he started working for the post office.  

Three months later, he was called for his state interview and found an apartment for $95 a month with utilities. Today, that same apartment is $2,300 without utilities depending on the neighborhood.

Virgil moved to Thurston County in the late 1960s and was the 15th Black person to live here. When he started looking for a house to purchase, he was steered by realtors to the north side of Olympia. Virgil didn’t want to buy a house in the least desirable part of city, so he found a house on Boulevard Road where a homeowner was willing to sell to him.   

In 1968, the year that Dr. Martin Luther was assassinated, open and fair housing was a big issue in Thurston County.  Real estate agents were not widely selling homes to Black people, and apartment managers and landlords were not renting to them either.

In those days, realtors, rental agents and private landlords had the right to discriminate against people they deemed as unworthy. Virgil had known a gentleman from his church, named Jim Dolliver, a lawyer who worked on then-Governor Daniel J. Evan’s staff and he started sharing his frustrations with him. 

Housing ordinance

Seattle passed its open housing ordinance the night after Dr. King was killed.  That same night in Olympia, Evans and his wife called a group together and said, “We should have an open housing ordinance here.” Evans felt minorities were doing well here in Olympia.

Hearing this, Virgil hopped into his car and drove to Seattle City Hall to obtain a copy of its open housing ordinance. The difficult part was then an effort to gather signatures to support the ordinance.  

Virgil said, “We did that on Thursday and Friday, in two days, we gathered a little over 2,000 signatures.” At that time, The Olympian newspaper had a deadline of 2 p.m. on Saturday for things to get into the newspaper for Sunday delivery.  He took off the next week from work and personally took the petitions to every city hall — Olympia, Tumwater, and then Lacey.  Lacey was the first to pass it, Olympia passed its ordinance within a reasonable time, as well as Thurston County. Many years later Tumwater passed its ordinance. 

Source used for column

"Blacks in Thurston County Washington, 1950 to 1975: A Community Album," by Dr. Thelma Jackson. Dr. Jackson is an educator and a founding member of the NAACP of Thurston County.   

Angela is a Tumwater City Council member, retired soldier and member of the NAACP of Thurston County with a passion for social justice, civic engagement, education and local history.