Lige Clarke

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 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.

Early life
Clarke was born on February 22, 1942, 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 was a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University and later left Kentucky and joined the United States Army.

Career
By the early 1960s, Clarke worked for the United States Department of Defense in Washington, D.C. in the office of the Army Chief of Staff. The access and influence from his position would aid the efforts of Jack Nichols and the Mattachine Society to pressure government legislature concerned with gay rights.

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.

Personal life and death
Clarke met Jack Nichols in the early 1960s in Washington, D.C. They became lovers.

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; Clarke was shot through the chest multiple times by gunfire, while Black was only wounded.

Clarke is buried in Hindman, Kentucky.