"My Dear Aunt Margaret"

Margaret Washington-Clifford, the granddaughter of Booker T. Washington

By Rick Badie

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

October through December was candy-making time at Margaret Clifford’s home.

Fall provided the ideal temperature for chocolate to settle just so. Sweets from Washington Candy Co. were shipped worldwide during the holidays.

Mrs. Clifford’s late mother founded the business in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1922.

Among many things, Margaret was also an entrepreneur. In 1981 she reopened the Washington Candy Company, keeping a promise to carry on. 

For Mrs. Clifford, fulfilling that pledge reflected traits she considered the pillar of any community. They also were the ideals her grandfather — Booker T. Washington Jr. — promoted a century ago as the most influential black leader in America.

And they were the cornerstone of numerous presentations Mrs. Clifford made to local schools and organizations about the founder of Tuskegee University. Her message, said daughter, Robin Banks of Atlanta, complemented her grandfather’s — will your way to greatness.“Honesty, thrift, character — those are the kinds of things he so strongly believed in,” she said at the time. -end

Margaret Washington Clifford...my dear great aunt Margaret, the second daughter of Booker T. Washington and Edith Washington Shehee, born in Chicago in 1921. Educated, Spiritual, and beyond fashionable. She served as a teacher, counselor and vice president in California schools before returning to Atlanta University in 1976 to teach. An active member of Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta where she served on the Usher’s Board, Daughters of the King and the Church Newsletter Board. Margaret was a life member of the Phi Delta Kappa international organization. She also held membership in Delta Kappa Gamma International Honor Society for women teachers, the American Association for Counseling and Development, the American Association of University Women, the National Council of Negro Women, the Southeastern Psychological Association and other organizations.


Clifford was the widow of the late Dr. Paul I. Clifford, himself the grandchild of a civil rights pioneer — J.R. Clifford — who had been aligned with Booker T. Washington Jr.’s critics and had, with W.E.B. DuBois, founded the Niagara Movement, forerunner of the NAACP, mother of the late Luke Cabiness and sister of the late Louise Washington O’Neal and Edith Washington Johnson. She is survived by her children, Marshal Abuwi and Robin C. Banks (who I thank for this amazing jewelry collection I am able to share with you all), and her sister Gloria Jackson Baskin (my grandmother) of Los Angeles; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. My dear Aunt Margaret (1920-2009).

---------------------------

Recently, after hearing I had opened a vintage boutique, I was invited to visit my great aunt’s home in Atlanta (per Robin Banks, cousin) to rummage through her old jewelry, clothes, and accessories. Aside from family heirlooms, and sentimental pieces the family and I have kept for personal keepsakes, I was encouraged to take these timeless pieces and share them with my clients at Boutique e-lu-sive. I want to invite you into a world of Washington’s... history, legacy, and classic taste. I am so grateful and appreciative to have come from such a prestigious and gracious background. I thank you Robin for allowing and trusting me to give your mother’s jewelry collection a 2nd life. 

I'm very excited to introduce you to...

“My Great Aunt Margaret’s” vintage jewelry collection now available at www.elusiveboutique.com