Part II: The Sky’s The Limit
Dr. Reatha Clark King’s Love Letter to a Baptist Church
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends slowly toward justice.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
The Star Gazer
The stars had always been there, beckoning young Reatha Belle Clark to reach for them as she lay on the front porch in Pavo, Georgia. She didn’t know it then, but the star most visible from Georgia — Vega rising high in the summer sky — was one of the brightest in the heavens. Just like her. It was a sign that there was life out there, a bigger life than she could imagine, but not bigger than she could dream beyond the cotton fields, beyond what was expected of her, into a world of science and discovery.
“The Georgia air was thick, the kind that clung to your skin and turned the cotton fields into a living furnace. Twelve-year-old Reatha Belle Clark twisted another stubborn cotton boll from its stalk, fingers aching, sweat dripping into her eyes. The truck was waiting, the same one that carried her to the fields before dawn. She was supposed to be looking at the ground. But her eyes kept drifting up. Past the heat. Past the dust. To the sky. To Vega, burning bright above her. One of the brightest stars in the heavens. Just like her. If she could just reach high enough.”
In Reatha’s world, everybody worked. No exceptions. You pulled your weight, no matter how small your shoulders. And if you had something extra — some spark — you listened when the elders leaned in and told you there was another way out.
“Get out of this hot sun and get an education,” her parents urged.
They weren’t just talking about school. They were saying: Don’t be like us.
Don’t spend your life bent over a field. Don’t scrub floors until your back gives out.
We want you to grow up to,” pausing just long enough for the words to land.
Then two simple words. Weighty as a church bell:
“Be somebody.”
“Those two words meant a lot to me,” Reatha says.
She was born into a world with a map already drawn for her — maid, like her mother. Farmworker, like her father. But her community, calloused hands and all, had another vision. There’s a bigger road, they said. Take it.
And so she did
Personal Chemistry
In the one-room schoolhouse inside Mt. Zion Baptist Church, she learned the power of numbers and words, the magic of problem-solving, the ability to see a long line of symbols and compute a solution, which is what it takes to be a great geochemist. When Black History Week came around, she read about George Washington Carver, the man who had turned peanuts into hundreds of inventions.
“If he could do that with a peanut,” she thought, “what could I do with my mind?”
At Clark College in Atlanta, she planned to major in home economics — a practical choice. In the 1950s, women were expected to do 500 household chores a day. Not run a Fortune 500 company. A Black woman? Even more so,
Then came Dr. Alfred Spriggs, the head of the chemistry department.
“Miss Clark,” he said one day, looking over her work, “you have the mind of a scientist.”
She switched her major to chemistry. Graduated valedictorian. Earned a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. She packed her bags and left Georgia for the University of Chicago.
The University of Chicago was not only a great school, but it was also a good school, one of the few schools that accepted Blacks and Jews at the time.
The winters bit through her bones, and the workload was heavier than a cotton sack at sundown. It was a world away from Pavo — cold, vast, and unforgiving — but she had made it this far, and she wasn’t about to stop.
By 1963, Dr. Reatha Clark King had a Ph.D. in thermochemistry — one of the only Black women in the country to hold such a title.
The doors weren’t wide open yet, but the degree in her hand was the key to unlocking them.
The Space Race
The National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., wasn’t built for people like her.
The labs were filled with white coats, white walls, and white men. But science cared nothing for color — only for precision, innovation, and results.
NASA needed fuel. Powerful fuel. Reliable fuel.
She became the first Black woman chemist at the Bureau, specializing in high-temperature thermochemistry.
She got to work.
She became the first Black woman chemist at the Bureau, specializing in high-temperature thermochemistry. And amid the Space Race, she created a coiled tube that kept rocket fuel from overheating and exploding — a breakthrough that would help send men to the moon.
Years later, when she saw Hidden Figures, she shook her head.
“You saw that movie Hidden Figures?” she said. “There were a lot of hidden figures back then.”
She had been one of them.
But she had never intended to stay hidden.
Then onto academia, she rose to associate dean at York College in New York. Yet, even among educated colleagues, she faced opposition.
“One Black faculty member called me an Uncle Tom for trying to resolve issues,” she recalled. “That was one of the most hurtful moments of my life.”
She didn’t let it break her.
In 1977, she became president of Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. It was a moment of arrival — but she still did not see herself as a leader.
“Others thought of me as a leader,” she said, “but I saw myself as someone doing what needed to be done. If no one else was willing or capable, then it was my obligation to step up.”
Leadership, to her, was not about ambition but about service.
She could have stayed in the lab forever. But there was another frontier that needed conquering.
Corporate Leadership
She wasn’t just a board member. She became a force in corporate governance, eventually chairing the National Association of Corporate Directors, which named her Director of the Year in 2004.
“I enjoy serving on corporate boards,” she said, “because diversity should be at that table.”
In every boardroom she entered, she brought more than a seat — she brought a voice.
When her husband, Dr. N. Judge King Jr., was offered a job as chair of the chemistry department at Nassau Community College, she took a leap of faith. She became a professor at City University of New York’s York College. She rose through the ranks.
Then, in 1977, she did the unthinkable.
She became president of Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis-St. Paul — one of the first Black women in history to lead a major university.
She wasn’t done yet.
She earned an MBA from Columbia University, shocking those who thought she would stay in academia.
Then, the Fortune 500 came calling.
General Mills didn’t want her in a lab. They wanted her as president of the General Mills Foundation, directing millions of dollars in corporate philanthropy toward education, research, and community initiatives.
Then came the boardrooms.
She was invited to join the board of ExxonMobil and, for her first board meeting, would travel from Minneapolis to Malaysia. Reatha Clark King and the Exxon CEO Lee Raymond marveled at their differences in backgrounds, but were pleased that their similarities, they both held a PhD in geochemistry, brought them together on the Exxon board.
Her grandmother had to say what everyone was thinking:
“You’ve come a mighty long way.”
Never, Neverland
When asked how she had done it — how she had shattered every expectation placed upon her — Reatha’s answer was simple.
“Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”
She had once picked up chemistry books without knowing how to solve the problems.
She had once picked cotton without knowing she’d one day fuel rockets into space.
She had once lived in a world that expected little of her — and built one where she expected everything of herself.
“You have to believe in yourself,” she said. “Doubt was written into law for us. But we defied the barriers. We didn’t believe in discouragement.”
The Wrap
During our interview, I asked Reatha, “If Hollywood made a movie about your life, would it be a drama, a comedy, or a romance?”
She answered, “It would certainly be a drama.”
She describes her days as filled with a blend of emotions, including fear, love, close family connections, and warmth. Like everyone she knew, her thinking was also about her race and hoping for a better life for “colored people,” as she says African Americans called themselves.
I would say a drama. When I think about my neighborhood — my church from age two forward, it remains in my memory. I would say lots of work. Work was our theme. Sharecropping, living on the farm, and doing the fieldwork. That dominated my father’s life, for sure, and my mom’s life because they needed to make ends meet. They also needed to please the boss, the people we worked for, because we could be thrown off the farm. That probably wouldn’t happen because the owners were dependent on us for the work that we did.
Reatha adds, “It was a better drama than the movies like The Help. Twelve Years a Slave that does not really depict the kind of drama we experienced growing up. There were so many dimensions to it. I said so many stories had been told, yet many more stories are yet to be told.
But there was hope, too. There was hope that we children, as we went to grade school and showed our abilities in this one-room schoolhouse, which was also our church — were told that if we studied hard, we could go away. We had to go away and educate ourselves to get better jobs than maid work or work in the field. Those were our options at the time. We were told that there were other options for us. Get out of this hot sun and get an education, and we listened.
I asked whether it occurred to her that she had come a long way.
]Reatha replied, “Much longer than just the distance between Minneapolis and Malaysia, the location of my first Exxon board meeting. My grandmother used to say, “You’ve come a mighty long way.
Then she reflected. “But there is still so much further to go.”
My final question was what she would say to a twelve-year-old Reatha Belle Clark today?
I would tell them to never give up. Never give up. Never give up. Now, that’s easier said than done. Believe in themselves. Keep on developing skills and abilities. I wouldn’t tell them to be patient. I would say it will take time. For you — even you to realize your potential to do good, to solve that problem. I had picked up chemistry books when I was a kid, for example, not knowing exactly how to solve that tough problem. I keep lookin’ at it and lookin’ at it and tinkering with a pencil. The solution won’t come overnight-overnight. Believe in yourself. Believe you deserve that opportunity. That doubt is not written in law for you. It was for us — what we couldn’t do, what we shouldn’t do. We defied the barriers. We didn’t believe in discouragement.
Epilogue
How a Small Baptist Church Launched Reatha Clark King Toward the Stars
At the heart of Reatha Clark King’s journey was Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a place that was more than a sanctuary — it was the foundation of her Thrive Zone. It led her to the five affirmations: Mentors, Mates, Methods, Mantras, and Metrics — the essential elements that shape every great life.
1. Mentors: The Voices That Pushed Her Forward
Before she saw her potential, others saw it in her.
• Her family and church elders told her: “Be somebody. Get an education.”
• Her teacher, Florence Frazier, called her brilliant, making her believe it.
• Dr. Alfred Spriggs at Clark College saw the scientist in her before she did.
• Her advisors at the University of Chicago helped her navigate an elite world far from rural Georgia.
2. Mates: The Peers Who Recognized Her Value
Greatness isn’t just discovered — it’s confirmed.
• At ExxonMobil and Wells Fargo, her boardroom peers saw a strategic mind fit for the highest levels of corporate governance.
• At General Mills, they trusted her to direct millions toward meaningful change.
• In 2004, the National Association of Corporate Directors named her Director of the Year, proving she had not just joined the ranks of leadership — she had redefined them.
3. Methods: The Problem-Solver’s Mindset
Her approach to science became her approach to life:
No problem is unsolvable — if you work through it.
• As a student, she faced complex chemistry equations and found a way through.
• As a scientist, she developed a coiled tube that prevented rocket fuel from overheating — a breakthrough for NASA.
• As a leader, she tackled challenges at Metropolitan State University and in corporate America, always methodically finding a way forward.
4. Mantras: The Words She Lived By
Two phrases carried her through every challenge:
1. “Be somebody.” The words of her family and church, reminded her she was destined for more.
2. “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.” The words she repeated when the odds seemed impossible.
5. Metrics: The Proof of Her Success
A Thrive Zone isn’t just about belief — it’s about results.
• Valedictorian of Clark College
• Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago
• First Black woman chemist at the National Bureau of Standards
• Inventor of a key rocket fuel component that changed the Space Race
• President of Metropolitan State University
• President of the General Mills Foundation
• Board member of ExxonMobil, Wells Fargo, and multiple Fortune 500 companies
• Chair of the National Association of Corporate Directors
Her achievements weren’t just titles — they were landmarks that broke barriers for generations to come.
From the Church to the Boardroom
Mt. Zion Baptist Church was where she first heard the voice that shaped her future. It gave her the foundation, the confidence, and the belief that she could go anywhere. Because the lesson was clear from the start:
She was going to be somebody.
