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The Story of Green
McAdoo School
After
the Civil War,
about 600 slaves
were freed in
Anderson County.
Early education
for blacks was
administered in the churches,
such as Asbury
United Methodist
Church and the
Mt. Sinai Baptist
Church. During
the era of Reconstruction,
the Freedman's Bureau built a school
for African American children in the
middle of the newly-established
freedmen's community,
on a hill overlooking
the town square
of Clinton.
This hill north of
town became
identified as Freedmen's
Hill (and later
took on the
present name of Foley
Hill). Local
white residents torched
the black school
in the spring
of 1869, causing
a citizens meeting
where residents
adopted the
following resolution: Whereas on the
morning of March 7, 1869, the church
and school on Freedman's Hill in Clinton
belonging to
the colored people,
was destroyed
by fire under circumstances
which leave
but little doubt that it was the work
of an incendiary . . . The people of
Clinton and vicinity, without distinction
of party or
political antecedent, denounce
the act.19
T he
Clinton citizens took up a
collection to rebuild a church
and school for the African
American community. Local history
says that a former slaveholder
and stern Democrat, Colonel
John Jarnigan, took the lead
in the movement to rebuild
the destroyed church and school.
Less than two months later
on May 1, 1869, a former slave,
Andrew Freeman of Anderson
County, donated one and a quarter
acres of land for the building
of what became known as the
Whittier School for the African
American community. School
Superintendent, Charles D.
McGuffey, nephew of the author
of the famous McGuffey Readers,
witnessed the implementation
of the deed. This town lot
became the historic location
for African American schools. 20
Clinton Colored School
was built as a New Deal relief project
in 1935. In late July 1934, the  engineering
department of the Tennessee Emergency
Relief Administration (TERA), the state
agency that carried out the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration for Tennessee, approved
construction plans for the school, and
assigned O.E Jett from the area TERA office
as project director. With support from
TERA, the City of Clinton School Department,
and Anderson County School Board, a total
of $8,214.49 was raised to complete the
new building. TERA used a total of 66
laborers, and 117 semi-skilled workers,
who were given a few days work each during
this depressed time in America.
Few counties were as
impacted by federal programs in the 1930s
and early 1940s than Anderson County.
In a 10-year period from 1933 to 1943,
major federal projects such as the construction
of Norris Dam and Reservoir by the Tennessee
Valley Authority and the development of
the secret Clinton Engineering Works (better
known as Oak Ridge, the Atomic City) reshaped
the county's landscape and community.
During that time of change, TERA was one
of several lesser federal relief programs
that carried out multiple projects in
Anderson County. While it funded the construction
of the Clinton Colored School, another
New Deal agency, the Public Works Administration
funded the construction of a much larger,
more modern, and better equipped Clinton
Elementary and High School.
Architect Frank Barber
designed the Clinton Colored School, following
a plan for a two-teacher school, with
a raised stage placed in one schoolroom
so the building could also serve as a
community auditorium. Barber was a partner
of the well-known Knoxville firm of Barber
and McMurry. The firm was known
for its school and church designs. The
firm designed, among others, Sequoyah
Elementary School (1929) and the Maryville
High School before the commission
for the Green McAdoo School. During the
New Deal, Frank O. Barber also designed
the Colonial Revival-styled Corryton School
in Knox County. The firm's plan
was a similar version to school plans
for rural and small town African American
neighborhoods, originally developed by
the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The local African
American community had established a Rosenwald
School Fund Committee and began local
fundraising to get Rosenwald support.
However, the Rosenwald Fund closed its
school building program in 1932, before
Clinton African Americans had an opportunity
to raise their share of the funds and
obtain Rosenwald backing. Several similar
Rosenwald school campaigns across the
South were finished by New Deal agencies,
with primary funding going from TERA and
its successor, the Works Progress Administration.
 Located in the heart of the African American
community, Green McAdoo represents the 1930s concept of a
neighborhood school. The Green McAdoo community, including
the teachers and parents, provided a good educational experience
for students despite equipment, salaries, and opportunities
that were extremely inadequate in comparison with white public
elementary schools. Despite unequal treatment from the outside
world, Green McAdoo’s faculty created a family atmosphere
that is celebrated by alumni even today at a school that was
never really part of the town.
 The Civil Rights story of Clinton was influenced
by internal and external factors. Clinton Colored School,
like many others throughout the South, experienced several
events that mapped the course of history. The building itself
is an indicator of the changes that reshaped Clinton from
the New Deal to the end of public school segregation in Clinton.
 Because of the impact of Oak Ridge, the
town and county experienced significant demographic change
from 1940 to the 1950s. The Clinton Colored School also was
a shared jurisdiction between the City of Clinton and Anderson
County; it received funding from both, but was also responsible
to both political entities. With the end of World War II,
local African American citizens began to demand more equal
school facilities. The Clinton Colored School was a two-classroom
building, with no cafeteria, no gymnasium, and no indoor restrooms,
while the school down the hill had all of these features,
and more. Race relations, according to white and blacks interviewed
after the desegregation crisis, had been acceptable. African
Americans comprised only three percent of the county's
population in 1950 there were only 67 school age black
children in the county. Blacks were neither a demographic,
political, or economic threat, but they still insisted on
better facilities.21
 In 1947, the board of education began to
respond to those needs with the approval of a cafeteria and
interior restrooms. They also agreed to change the school
name to honor Green L. McAdoo. The board proclaimed: this
Negro leader, now deceased, took an active part in promoting
the civic interests of the Negro citizens of the Clinton community
while he lived. The school is to be called the Green McAdoo
Grammar School hereafter.22
McAdoo was a landowner and a valued employee
of the Anderson County Courthouse. His father was Jack McAdoo,
slave of the John McAdoo family who were among the first settlers
in Anderson County. (Of this family, William Gibbs McAdoo
Jr. became Secretary of the U.S. Treasury under President
Woodrow Wilson.) Green L. McAdoo served 20 years in the Army
with the 24th U.S. Infantry, based in Fort McIntosh, Texas,
in 1878; at Fort Sill, Indiana Territory in 1887; and in 1890
at Fort Grant, Arizona Territory. In 1896, Green McAdoo returned
home from the army and was employed as custodian of the Anderson
County Courthouse for the next 25 years.23
Due to the low enrollment of students at
other county black elementary schools (Claxton, Andersonville,
Oliver Springs, and Lake City), and the inferior facilities
at those buildings, the Green McAdoo Grammar School in Clinton
became the leading educational facility for African American
students in Anderson County.24
The educational level there was for the
1st through the 8th grade. Since the school’s
design provided for a stage, and the conversion
of two classrooms into an auditorium-like
space, the school became a popular secular
community meeting location. After graduation
from 8th grade, black students were bused
to Austin High School in Knoxville, or Lafollette
High School in Campbell County. No African
American high school was provided for black
students in Anderson County. In addition
to the public facilities, several young African
American women from Clinton attended the
Allen Home School for Negro Girls, a private
school for high-school aged girls under the
Methodist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.
 After
closing as a segregated school,
the Green McAdoo School served as home
to the Anderson County Headstart
Program until a new building
was built in 2002. Today, the building
remains locked, however, the dreams and
possibilities of the building’s
future are far from being over. Green
McAdoo has earned a pivotal role in the
City of Clinton’s
revitalization campaign.
Through
the efforts of the Green
McAdoo Cultural Organization
(GMCO) and the City of Clinton,
plans are underway for the
building to be transformed into the Green McAdoo Cultural
Center in August 2006. The
projected Green McAdoo Cultural
Center 2006 opening will coincide
with the 50th anniversary
of Clinton’s
desegregation story.
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19David J. Brittain, "A Case Study
of the Problems of Racial Integration
in the Clinton Tennessee High School," Ph.D.
diss., New York University, 1960;
Snyder E. Roberts, History of Clinton High School
1806-1971.
20Hoskins, Anderson
County Historical Sketches, 263.
21Anderson County Population
Totals, 1950 U.S. Census.
22Clinton City Board
of Education Meeting Minutes, December
1, 1948.
23Hoskins, Anderson
County Historical Sketches, 262.
24As related to the
GMCO by Hazel Moore,
Pat Henderson, Bronce Griffin, and Virginia
Smith.
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The
Story of Desegregation
in Clinton, Tennessee 
101
School Street