Joe Clemon

Joe Louis Clemon (born 1944 in Fairfield - died November 18, 2007 in Birmingham) was a "foot soldier" during the Civil Rights Movement.

Clemon grew up in Fairfield and, as a youth was motivated to work for Civil Rights. He and his brother U. W. Clemon, were walking with a friend when a Fairfield police officer pulled up and yelled racial epithets. The friend was picked up and returned a while later frightened enough to have wet his pants.

While he was a senior at Westfield High School in 1963, Clemon and his friends hitchhiked to 16th Street Baptist Church to attend rallies. He recruited some fellow students to a sit-in at the Birmingham Holiday Inn. Their subsequent arrest was used in an unsuccessful constitutional challenge of Alabama's trespass law. (Clemons v. City of Birmingham, 171 So.2d 456 (Ala.1965))

As a young adult, Clemon moved to Los Angeles. He was injured in a drive-by shooting in 1997 and never fully recovered. He was hospitalized with liver cancer in 2007 and was transferred to UAB Hospital to be near his family before he died. He was survived by three children and three grandchildren.

References

• Osburn, Lisa (November 23, 2007) "Joe Clemon, civil rights foot soldier, dies." Birmingham News.