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Elijah Hadyn "Lige" Clarke (February 22, 1942 − February 10, 1975) was an American activist, journalist and author. He was the author of two books with his lover, Jack Nichols.
Clarke's early involvement in Stonewall riots and the first gay pride parade cemented him as an early proponent of the 1970s American LGBT movement. This, along with his handsome looks and well-known status, made him seemingly "the perfect cover boy" for the gay community at the time.
His family was of high social standing in the town, and were also well off economically. His grandfather, George Clarke, had founded both a Methodist church in Hindman and the Hindman Settlement School. His mother wrote for the town's local paper, and his father owned the Main Street grocery store.
He grew up in Cave Branch, an unincorporated community in Knott County, Kentucky, just outside of the town of Hindman, where he grew up and attended school. Clarke attended Knott County High School. During his teenage years, Clarke would pursue acting at Barter Theatre, in Abingdon, Virginia.
Clarke attended Alice Lloyd College before graduating from Eastern Kentucky University. He later left Kentucky and joined the United States Army.
The access and influence from his position would aid the efforts of Jack Nichols and the Mattachine Society, which Clarke had joined after the Lavender Scare, to pressure government legislature concerned with gay rights. Clarke and Nichols created new chapters of the Mattachine Society by producing the East Coast Homophile Organization (ECHO). The Mattachine Society was the first gay liberation organization in the United States. Clarke became a leader of the group's New York and Washington, DC chapters. Clarke helped to organize the first gay rights picket line outside of the White House in 1965, he even hand lettered the protest signs himself. Some of which read "Gay is good!", which in the mid-1960s became a sort of rallying cry to combat both the guilt and shame heaped on gay people by the larger society.
Clarke and Nichols created and wrote "The Homosexual Citizen" as a continuation to their original column written for The Mattachine Review beginning around 1965. It was published in Screw magazine. It was the first regular LGBT-interest column printed in a non-LGBT publication and hosted the first use of the term "homophobia" in a printed work (Clarke and Nichols cited the term in 1969, but it was first coined in 1965 by psychologist George Weinberg). By 1972 they edited Gay (which was affiliated with Screw), the first weekly national homosexual newspaper.
Clarke and Nichols authored two books about same-sex attraction.
Gay was the first weekly newspaper in the U.S. to cover politics and culture from a gay perspective. The newspaper featured a diverse range of content, including contributions from prominent activists and writers. It covered significant events, such as the rise of the Gay Activists Alliance, and explored issues of identity, relationships, and societal challenges relevant to LGBT individuals.
Gay sought to reach a broad audience within the LGBT community. This readership growth demonstrated the increasing demand for LGBT-focused media.
The newspaper also documented the growing gay rights movement, providing a platform for diverse voices and perspectives. It reported on discrimination against LGBT people and covered controversial topics relevant to the community.
Clarke and Nichols, through their leadership, created a publication that contributed to the expanding landscape of LGBT media. Gay was one of the early publications to specifically address the LGBT community, paving the way for future publications. Gay became the most profitable gay newspaper in the country.
In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy inflicted mass fear and paranoia about gangs of gays taking over the American government from within - also known as the Lavender Scare. This led to mass firings of gays and lesbians from government jobs. This led Clarke and his network to take action.
Despite taking some of the biggest and greatest risk of his protesting peers, Clarke was often accused by others of not being serious enough about his activism. This discontentment with in the early queer movements held for Clarke was rooted in their lack of understanding of his Appalachian upbringing. Clarke's queer identity, and his overall persona was widely influenced by his Appalachian roots. He often rejected the idea of marriage and had concern for his cohorts' incessancy on equality. For Clarke, liberation for queer folks would come only when society in general became sexually liberated. Discounting labels and cornering when asked what his sexual preference was, Clarke would simply respond with, "My preference is for Jack Nichols".
Through his understanding of the society around him, and patience for progress to be made, that allowed for Clarke to speak and write emphatically about both social and political happenings within the queer community. In his book, I Have More Fun with you Than Anybody, co-authored by his partner, Jack Nichols, Clarke and Nichols allude to the inefficiency of extremism. From either or any side of a battle: "Right-wingers, we know, are only slightly more demented than left-wingers."
Clarke and Nichols published a memoir about their lives together, which is titled I Have More Fun with You Than Anybody, in 1972. Whenever Clarke was not writing he was teaching Hatha yoga in Manhattan and read poetry written by Walt Whitman. Despite traveling all around the world, Lige was always welcome back home. His sister, Shelbianna Rhein, described him as "everyone's favorite"; he was especially loved by his mother, nieces, and nephews. Clarke's upbringing in Appalachia was said, by his sister, to be a massive influence on his creative, free spirit. Shelbianna said, "Despite the lack of museums, dance studios, and other advantages children on the outside of the mountains enjoyed, we grew up in a nurturing environment with a rich culture of mountain ballads, art, simple values, and people who cared about each other."
Later on Clarke and Nichols wrote their second book together entitled, Roommates Can't Always Be Lovers: An Intimate Guide to Male-Male Relationships". This book contained samplings of letters sent to them in the capacities as columnists for both Screw and editors of Gay and their answers. The reader can expect to find some counsel that goes beyond traditional labels of male and female, old and young, beautiful and ugly. This book also was created in order to bring a warm appreciation of community to the reader, one of which transcends sexuality itself.
On February 10, 1975, Clarke was shot and killed near Veracruz, Mexico, while traveling with a friend, Charlie Black. The two men were pursued while driving by four men on two motorcycles before being shot. Each motorcycle had one man as driver and one equipped with a machine gun. Clarke was shot through the chest multiple times by gunfire, while Black was only wounded.
With the help of Carl Perkins, a former U.S. Representative from Hindman, Clarke's father was able to have his remains airlifted home. Once there, Clarke's funeral was held at the family church, with Jack Nichols in attendance.
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