Justice Larry Starcher, a Founder of the J.R. Clifford Project, Has Died in Morgantown

Larry V. Starcher, 80, a retired Supreme Court Justice and Monongalia County Circuit Judge, passed away Saturday, Dec. 24, 2022.

In 2004, in partnership with the Mountain State Bar, West Virginia’s historic minority bar association, Justice Starcher and his senior law clerk, Thomas Rodd, initiated the J.R. Clifford Project, a series of statewide community programs and publications based on the life and work of John Robert Clifford (1848-1933), West Virginia’s first African American lawyer. 

Starcher’s legal career included serving as a Legal Aid lawyer for the citizens of Tucker County in the 1960s and 70s.  He will be missed by many who benefitted from his selfless dedication to justice and equal rights for all.  An obituary telling more about his life can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Starcher.

The idea for the J.R. Clifford Project came about in 2003, when Friends of Blackwater organized a history seminar in the Town of Thomas, funded by the West Virginia Humanities Council.  West Virginia University Professor Connie Rice told the story of Clifford’s most famous case, in which he represented Carrie Williams and the students at the Coketon Colored School, just downhill from the historic B&L Building. 

FOB Board member Tom Rodd built on Rice’s research to create a reenactment of the Williams case.  Programs were held in Morgantown and Parsons under the sponsorship of the State Supreme Court. Project activities then carried on under the sponsorship of FOB, as they do today. Starcher was an enthusiastic participant and leader in all of them.  We loved him and we will miss him very much.