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Portrayed by Morgan Freeman, he gained national celebrity in the 1980s with his efforts to impose order on his inner-city high school — and became a lightning rod in an enduring debate over education in America.
Joe Clark, New Jersey principal who inspired ‘Lean on Me,’ dies at 83 Emily Langer Joe Clark, the bullhorn-bearing New Jersey principal who gained national celebrity in the 1980s with his efforts to impose order on his inner-city high school, a story that inspired the 1989 film “Lean on Me” and made him a lightning rod in an enduring debate over education in America, died Dec. 29 at his home in Newberry, Fla. He was 83, according to his daughter Hazel Clark, who said that other reports of his age as 82 were in error. She confirmed his death but did not cite a caus...