Joe Louis Clark (born May 7, 1938 in Rochelle, Georgia) is the former principal of Eastside High School in Paterson, one of New Jersey's toughest inner city schools. He is also the subject of the 1989 film Lean on Me, starring Morgan Freeman. Clark gained public attention in the 1980s for his unconventional and controversial disciplinary measures. He also partly inspired Denzel Washington's character in the film Hard Lessons about contemporary Los Angeles high school principal George McKenna.
Clark is also the father of the Olympic track athletes Joetta Clark Diggs and Hazel Clark Riley, and the father-in-law of Olympic track athlete Jearl Miles Clark.
Read more about Joe Louis Clark: Criticism and Praise
Famous quotes containing the words joe, louis and/or clark:
“We saw a pair of moose-horns on the shore, and I asked Joe if a moose had shed them; but he said there was a head attached to them, and I knew that they did not shed their heads more than once in their lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“I believe that Harmon would be the easiest to defeat, though he might gain much strength from the Republicans. Clark would surely lose New York. I am beginning to feel that by some stroke of genius they may name Woodrow Wilson, and that seems a pretty hard tussle.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)