A fact from Joseph Samuel Clark appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 July 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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I would favor the article published in an academic journal. It notes his declining the position because he was still pres of Southern, but in 1940 he retired, so conceivably would have been available. More critically, it makes more sense in those years that Clark (likely a Republican) was appointed to a patronage position (which is what ambassadorships are) by a Republican rather than a Democratic president. This is especially because the Southern Democrats still excluded blacks from voting and holding office in the political system, so would not necessarily have approved such an appointment, even to an African country. Parkwells (talk) 22:20, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You might check to see if this list is consistent with whatever is on Southern University's website. They probably have a list of presidents. It was really grandiose to call the first school a college and the heads "presidents". The first missionary colleges were often little more than a preparatory or high school, and some had elementary-level classes, as many students were starting nearly from scratch.Parkwells (talk) 19:44, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have anything more than the two sources I started with, but maybe we should go with the NY Times. That, at least, is the official story the university was telling itself in 1970 about the tenure of its presidents. The Clarks may have had some interim overlap accounting for at least one person counting 1940. FG Clark had become a dean at Southern after teaching elsewhere, before he was selected as president. For the two Clarks, I did not want to get into the earliest 1880s years of there barely being a school. I think Joseph Clark, when head of Baton Rouge College, was probably at a kind of seminary/high school, as was typical of many of the first missionary schools. But the modern period really started after Southern was designated as a land grant college in 1890; the state was acquiring land in Scotlandville as early as 1912, as I recall from one article. (Had access yesterday to some of an Arcadia Publishing book about Scotlandville, but today it's closed off.) It was too much to get into the history back to 1880.Parkwells (talk) 19:44, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is equally standard to have a section on "Marriage and family" earlier in the article. I think it is important to put there because it shows how Felton was influenced by growing up with his father as an example and in the college environment. The two of them were hugely important to development of the university for more than 50 years through much of the 20th century. Sticking it at the end of the article makes it seem the family was an afterthought. His son's career is part of JS Clark's legacy, just as in a political dynasty.Parkwells (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
