Former Eastside High Principal and The Inspiration Behind The 1989 Film “Lean on Me”, Joe Clark, Dead at 82.
by Ali Bouldin Joe Clark, the former principal of Paterson New Jersey, Eastside High, and the inspiration behind the 1989 film, “Lean on Me,” has died at 82 from an undisclosed illness. Joe Clark, a retired Army Drill Sergeant, played by Morgan Freeman in the movie “Lean on Me,” was widely known for carrying a bull horn in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. In a 1989 appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show, Clark said both the bullhorn and the baseball bat was symbolic. “The bullhorn