It is always to see a high school pay tribute to great athletes who played wearing the school colors years ago. It is a way of recognizing the athletes’ contribution and to set their hard work and dedication as examples for current athletes to aspire to.

This year’s Easley High School class for the Athletic Hall of Fame featured the late Luther Washington, who served at Clearview High School during segregation, then at Easley Junior High after the schools were united in the late 1960s.

While Washington was most likely inducted into the Hall for his contributions to the Easley High School and Junior High School athletic programs, the work he did at Clearview High School was just as important.

Certainly desegregation was the right thing to do. “Separate, but equal” never quite work. Plus, if our society is to prosper, it takes the effort of all working together. The difference in the colors of peoples’ skin is one of the most insignificant characteristics in human life. Yet for far too long, we allowed that difference to separate us.

That period of our history is behind us, though the prejudices that caused fearful parents to insist on segregation still linger. Hopefully, with each coming generation, those prejudiced thoughts that hold down a section of society will gradually disappear completely.

But when a school ceases to exist, too often its history disappears with it. It is up to the generations who have memories of Clearview High School to keep its achievements alive.

That is why we feel the Easley High School Athletic Hall of Fame should consider former Clearview High athletes for membership. Major League Baseball has a special branch of its Hall of Fame to recognize players from the old Negro League. After all, these players were kept from the Major Leagues not due to a lack of talent, but due to a failure in society.

We feel that the addition of Clearview High School athletes to the Easley High School Athletic Hall of Fame would only enhance the entity, and make it one that all of Easley can look toward with pride.