If you are an 80's baby like me then you remember the hit movie "Lean On Me" and if you not then go check it out!
This movie was depicted on actual events and is a must watch especially for minorities! Unfortunately, the REAL Joe Clark passed away on yesterday he was 82.
His family announced his death but did not specify a cause.
When Mr. Clark, a former Army drill sergeant, arrived at Eastside High School in Paterson in 1982, he declared it a “caldron of violence.” He expelled 300 students for disciplinary problems in his first week.
When he tossed out — “expurgated,” as he put it — about 60 more students five years later, he called them “leeches, miscreants and hoodlums.” (That second round of suspensions led the Paterson school board to draw up insubordination charges, which were later dropped.)
Mr. Clark succeeded in restoring order, instilling pride in many students and improving some test scores. He won praise from President Ronald Reagan and Reagan’s education secretary, William J. Bennett. With Morgan Freeman portraying him, he was immortalized in the 1989 film “Lean on Me.” And his tough-love policies put him on thecover of Time magazine in 1988, holding his bat.“Is getting tough the answer?” the headline read. “School principal Joe Clark says yes — and critics are up in arms.” (New York Times)