Efforts underway for recognition of LIALO, a Black athletic association
19th October 2015 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
How do you preserve the heritage, memory and legacy of a vital, historic, ground-breaking organization when few people even remember it?
You keep your head down and stay on course with your mission.
That’s what Dr. Kirk Marshall Clayton is trying to do as he pushes numerous state historical entities to recognize and honor the long-gone Louisiana Interscholastic Athletic and Literary Organization (LIALO), the institution that, before the era of integration, oversaw and administered African-American high school athletics.
“I’m trying to be a spark that ignites things,” Clayton said. “This is a part of Louisiana history, but it’s been forgotten.”
Clayton knows what he’s talking about — as a 1965 graduate of Scotlandville High School in Baton Rouge, he competed in the LIALO as a track and field standout who helped guide the school to a state track championship while setting the national prep record in the 100 meters as an individual and winning multiple state and national sprinting honors.
Clayton says that while he himself has been honored for his achievements by several organizations — such as the Sugar Bowl’s Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame (GNOSHOF), which inducted him in 1996 — the LIALO as an organization remains largely overlooked by historians and sports fans in the state.
“I’m doing this so that not only I, but an entire organization that did so much for so many at a time when sports were still segregated but when we were still doing so many great things,” he said.
The LIALO existed for decades before the tide of integration caused it to be merged into and absorbed by Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) in 1969. However, Clayton said that while the structure of the LIALO shifted, the organization’s records — and therefore much of its heritage — to a large extent weren’t preserved and transferred in the process of the merger with the LHSSA.
Neither, Clayton said, have the LIALO as an entity and its former member high schools been memorialized in any of the state’s historical museums and halls of fame.
Not a banner, not a plaque, not anything.
And that’s what he hopes to change. Clayton — who now lives and works as a school teacher in California after starring in track at and graduating from San Jose State University — said he sent more than two dozen letters of inquiry to the LHSAA and other entities in the state that are involved with historical preservation.
Some, like the GNOSHOF, have been very receptive, he said. Sugar Bowl and GNOSHOF spokesman John Sudsbury said last week that the hall of fame’s board expressed great enthusiasm to at least seriously mull over Clayton’s petition on behalf of the LIALO to do something to recognize the high school organization and its history.
While Sugar Bowl spokesman John Sudsbury said the GNOSHOF board won’t get down to business for its 2016 ceremony until after the current football season ends in January, he added that the hall committee certainly is considering Clayton’s petition on its agenda.
“We’re definitely going to review it and see if we can find [an action] that makes sense,” Sudsbury said. “Our organization likes it a lot, and we have different options for it.”
Sudsbury also lauded Clayton for his efforts to recognize the LIALO.
“It’s definitely an interesting thing,” he said, “and it’s a cool thing that Mr. Clayton is doing.”
However, Clayton said that the Sugar Bowl has depressingly been in the minority when it comes to receiving responses from the organizations he contacted. Many of the entities didn’t respond at all, and some, like the Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation (LTHP) and even the Louisiana Black Publishers Association, said they had no inclination to work with him.
“[The LTHP] gave me a flat-out no,” he said. “It was matter-of-fact. They said they have no interest in something like that.”
LTHP administrator Sherry McInnis could not be reached for comment.
But despite such setbacks, Clayton said he’s steadfast in his mission to promote, preserve and advocate for the legacy of the LIALO.
“Nobody did more than [the LIALO] for an entire race of people,” he said. “When I ask for something like this, I’m not asking for money. I’m trying to get all these halls of fame to get something in there on the LIALO and all the schools that were a part of it and the people who did it. I’m not going to stop.”
This article originally published in the October 19, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
