Anthony Clark, first Black head of Philly’s city commissioners, has died

Anthony Clark, 62, the first Black chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, whose terms in office saw the modernization of city election systems, died Saturday after a battle with cancer.

As part of the three-member board overseeing city elections, Mr. Clark presided over 30 primary, general, and special elections, and is remembered by colleagues for helping pass motions that brought many election features online and reformed office rules.

“Everything good that our department did, we did together,” said former Commissioner Al Schmidt, who worked with Clark to enact many reform measures.

But Clark was also known as an unusually reclusive public figure, and one who also frequently courted controversy during his decadeslong ascent within the city’s Democratic political machine.

Born Aug. 25, 1959, in North Philadelphia, Mr. Clark was the seventh of 10 children. After graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School, he later took up work as a welder and a bus attendant for special-needs children, among other odd jobs.

Maurice Floyd, a former aide to legendary U.S. Rep. Lucien Blackwell, would give Mr. Clark one of his first tastes of local politics about 40 years ago, recruiting the young man to serve as a committeeperson following a mutual acquaintance’s recommendation.

At that time, Floyd was leader of the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood’s Democratic 28th Ward and Mr. Clark was “just another kid from North Philadelphia.” But Floyd recalled a kid with serious ambitions.

“He really helped me build up the ward. We really established ourselves in north-central Philadelphia,” said Floyd of Mr. Clark. “But his personality was always to move higher.”

Mr. Clark would indeed move higher.

In 1994, he quietly forged an alliance with then-State Sen. Chaka Fattah, a young upstart looking to build a political bloc to topple Blackwell — and that meant eliminating friendly ward leaders such as Floyd. With Fattah’s support, Mr. Clark ran and deposed his onetime mentor to take control of the 28th Ward for himself, a position he held until retiring just last year. (Floyd, who went into a successful career as a political consultant after the loss, says he doesn’t hold a grudge.)

That same year, Mr. Clark was hired by then-Register of Wills Ronald R. Donatucci as a deputy, his first foray into one of the independently elected “row offices” that also includes the city commissioners. And, by the early 2000s, having befriended powerful party figures of the day, such as late ward leader Carol Ann Campbell, Mr. Clark began his own yearslong effort to score one of two commissioner seats reserved for the majority party.

His first attempt was foiled through an unusual series of events that presaged some of the tumultuous years to come. In 2003, just one day before the Democratic primary, Mr. Clark signed a petition withdrawing himself from the race. A day later — and after it became clear he had, in fact, triumphed in the primary — he reversed course. Amid rumors that Democratic officials had offered to reimburse the candidate $15,000 for his campaign costs in exchange for withdrawing from the crowded six-way race, Mr. Clark insisted he had accidentally signed the document without reading it.

A judge didn’t buy it. Mr. Clark’s votes were tossed.

But whatever the cause, the imbroglio proved a temporary setback. In 2007, he ran again and won an election that would be career-defining. Reachingarguably the pinnacle of his professional career, Mr. Clark was elevated in 2012 to chair the city commissioners board, the first time an African American had held such a position since the founding of the office in 1711.

Although Mr. Clark was a product of the city’s Democratic establishment, as chair he formed an unlikely alliance with Schmidt, a Republican who ran as a reformer. In a statement released by the commissioners following news of his death, officials credited Mr. Clark’s work with Schmidt “to enact a series of modernizations, reforms, and accountability measures for the department.”

Schmidt, now head of government watchdog group Committee of Seventy, pointed to projects such as a new commissioners’ website, an online polling place search tool, digital document submission processes, and updated training and staff guidelines.

“There wasn’t a single improvement to elections that I proposed that Anthony didn’t support,” Schmidt said. “There’s an expression that ‘politics makes strange bedfellows.’ Anthony and I couldn’t have been more different, but in the eight years we served together, Chairman Clark voted for every major reform to improve elections in Philadelphia.”

But to others, Mr. Clark was better known for his attempts to keep a low profile on the board — too low, some argued.

He developed a reputation for remaining largely silent during board meetings and, by his own admission, was often absent from his City Hall office. (Mr. Clark argued he was able to work remotely.) And despite presiding over elections, Philadelphia City Paper discovered that Mr. Clark rarely voted himself, sometimes skipping years at a time. (He cited ill health as the cause for his Election Day absences.) In his reelection bids, he eschewed candidate forums, preferring to lobby ward leaders directly for their support behind the scenes.

The activity, or lack thereof, led to calls for his resignation and the abolition of the office itself, and likely contributed to Mr. Clark losing the chair spot in 2017. However, he otherwise seemed to easily weather the critiques, and won reelection twice before retiring ahead of the 2019 primary.

Behind the political fracas, colleagues and political confidants alike fondly recalled Mr. Clark — even those who, like Floyd, had squared off with him in the past.

“Anthony was kind, courteous, and above all a true gentleman,” said Commissioner Lisa Deeley, who succeeded Mr. Clark as chair. “He loved his family, he loved to travel, and he loved to share his stories and pictures with us.”

At a Saturday political event after another attendee informed him of Mr. Clark’s death, State Sen. Sharif Street, a North Philadelphia scion, similarly recalled the former commissioner.

“I knew Commissioner Clark my whole life. He was unabashedly candid, funny, and caring and certainly will be missed,” he said.

Outside of politics, Mr. Clark was a deeply private person. A devout Muslim, he completed the hajj in 2007, as part of a larger, six-week pilgrimage across the Middle East — one of few personal details Mr. Clark made known, as he proudly displayed photos of himself by the banks of the Nile River, in Egypt.

He is survived by his wife, Ester; mother, Jessie; two stepchildren and seven siblings.

Mr. Clark’s decision to hire brother Alex to work for him at the City Commissioners’ Office drew public scrutiny. On Sunday, in keeping with his brother’s taciturn reputation, the 59-year-old offered few details about him to The Inquirer.

“To me, everything was positive,” Alex Clark said. “He was a good person.”

Funeral services will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, May 16, at Masjidullah, 7401 Limekiln Pike, Philadelphia.

Staff writer Julia Terruso contributed to this article.