The Georgia Writers Museum (GWM) has announced that author Mark Clegg will be the featured speaker at its September Meet the Author program, where he will discuss his new book, The Crimson and Gold.
Winner of a 2026 Historic Athens Preservation Award, The Crimson and Gold offers a comprehensive account of the struggle for integration in Athens within the backdrop of highly competitive high school football.
The book chronicles the forced merger of the all-white Athens High School and the African American Burney-Harris High School into Clarke Central High School, intertwining the proud athletic traditions of both schools with the broader fight for civil rights during the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s.
In addition to recounting the integration of the University of Georgia in 1961, The Crimson and Gold explores "Freedom of Choice" student transfers in the early 1960s, the desegregation of businesses such as the iconic Varsity restaurant, violence carried out by the Ku Klux Klan, the first athletic competitions between Burney-Harris and Athens High, and the often-violent early years of Clarke Central High School.
To tell the story, Clegg conducted extensive interviews with Black and white Athenians, including Horace King, Richard Appleby and Clarence Pope—Burney-Harris and Clarke Central players who were among the first five Black football players at the University of Georgia. He also interviewed former Athens mayor and former Athens High and Clarke Central football player Doc Eldridge; former DeKalb County CEO and Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, who also played football at Burney-Harris and Clarke Central; Maxie Foster, the first Black scholarship athlete at UGA and an Athens High alumnus; and local writer, journalist and Flagpole publisher Pete McCommons.
An Athens resident, Clegg received the 2025 Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council Award for Best Local History Book. He is also the author of Mountain Miles: A Memoir of Section Hiking the Southern Appalachian Trail and The View from Hadrian's Wall: Two Friends Hike Along the Ancient Roman Frontier.
The presentation begins at 7 p.m. on Sept. 1, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. Attendees can register and pre-order a signed copy of The Crimson and Gold by visiting the Georgia Writers Museum website. Tickets are $45 each or $40 each when purchasing two or more.