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The
Story of Desegregation in Clinton,
Tennessee
Fifty years ago, 12 young people from
East Tennessee walked into history and
changed the world.
O n January 4,
1956, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme
Court’s ruling in Brown
vs. Board of Education, a
Federal District Court judge suspended
his previous decision in McSwain
vs. Anderson County. Judge Robert Taylor
ordered Clinton High School to desegregate for the coming school term.
Students and their
families, preachers and
teachers – the
entire town prepared for
the change, and on August
27, 1956, most of the students
gathered at Green McAdoo School
and walked down Foley Hill. In
the late spring of 1957, Bobby
Cain, the oldest of the Clinton
12, was the first Black student
to graduate from an integrated
public high school in the
South.1
In 1950, African
American parents challenged
the unfairness of the school
system, especially the lac k
of black high school education
in Anderson County. In August
1950, four black youth eligible
to attend Clinton High School,
except for their race, attempted
to enroll at the school but
were rejected by school officials.
On December 5, 1950, a group
of citizens filed a lawsuit
which became known as McSwain
et al. v. County Board of
Education of Anderson County,
Tennessee (104 F. Supp. 1861, 1952).
The filing of the case surprised
many Clinton residents. As
historian Janice McClelland
observed, “A
great many people held, and
still hold, that white Clintonians
may not have welcomed the
idea of desegregation, believing
that, so long as colored schools
were ‘equal,’ there
was no reason to breach time-honored
community custom and integrate
the school system.”2 The
county had recently made improvements
to the African American school,
not placing it on the same
level as white schools, but
certainly improving the comfort
of students with the cafeteria
and inside restrooms. To many
white residents, their good
will was evident in the renovation
as well as the renaming of
the school in honor of Green
McAdoo.
When the McSwain case finally
received a hearing on February
13, 1952, in the U.S. District
Court of Knoxville, Judge
Robert L. Taylor presiding,
the local citizens were represented by a powerful
group of activist African American attorneys.
Z. Alexander Looby and Avon N. Williams of Nashville
would later gain great fame from their role in
the Nashville Civil Rights struggle and Student
Movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Carl
A. Cowan of Knoxville was a locally respected
African American counsel, but most importantly
was the presence of Thurgood Marshall of the Legal
Defense Fund of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in New York
City. Marshall’s involvement meant that
the NAACP considered the proceedings about Clinton
to be of national significance and that the case
had the potential of being yet another building
block in the NAACP’s patient 3legal strategy
of undermining segregation.
In his ruling announced
on April 26, 1952, Federal
District Judge Taylor denied the lawsuit
and upheld the position of the county
school board. Judge Taylor rejected the
argument presented by Looby, Williams
and Marshall that white and black students
were “similarly
situated” and therefore it violated
the separate but equal doctrine
for African Americans to attend high school
in another county. Taylor argued: “Plaintiffs
pinpoint their case upon Clinton,
and confine their proof to the effect
of this alleged discrimination upon Clinton
Negroes. It is a situation that exists
in hundreds of towns, in Tennessee and
out, where Negro students who live near
a white school must pass it by and go
to a Negro school located at varying distances
beyond, and it exists at all levels, from
the elementary school to the college,
or university.”
The judge responded: “This ‘similarly
situated’ theory is the doctrine
of equal protection carried to its ultimate
extreme. Counsel for plaintiffs deny they
are attacking segregation of races, but
in the situation here stated, their action,
as will be seen from a review of the facts,
can be nothing else.”4
From testimony given
in cross-examination, Judge Taylor said
that the students “are not aggrieved
at present arrangements. Nor are they
happy in their role of hostility toward
defendants [white education officials]
who are their neighbors and personal friends.”5
Judge Taylor was also
not convinced that the African American
families were terribly inconvenienced
by separate schools. He even argued the
point that probably half of the white
students were in worse shape and had just
as much a reason to claim a denial of
equal protection, and that the African
American Austin High School in Knoxville
had superior facilities in several ways
than the white schools in Anderson County.
In the end, Judge Taylor decided Clinton
African Americans had little to complain
about and the problems and inconveniences
of separate schools were “too small
to be regarded as a denial of constitutional
rights.”6
Brown v. Board of Education
The federal courts ruling,
while strongly in favor of school segregation,
also told local officials that unless
the African American schools remained
close in quality to the white schools
of the county, the county could expect
a different type of court ruling from
Judge Taylor. The legal setting changed,
however, on May 17, 1954 when the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in Brown
v. Board of Education that segregation
was unequal and struck down the separate
but equal foundation of Jim Crow segregation.
Two-and-one-half weeks later, the U.S.
Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, in a
hearing where the Clinton black families
were again represented by Looby, Williams,
Cowan, and Marshall, reversed Taylor’s
1952 ruling and returned McSwain
et al. v. County Board of Education of
Anderson County to federal
district court for a new decision “in
accordance with the decision
of the Supreme Court in Brown et
al. v. Board of Education.”7
Anderson County and
City of Clinton officials
moved quickly to upgrade African American
school facilities in a last ditch effort
to calm local African American residents
and to delay school desegregation. For
example, the city and county agreed to
fund and construct a regulation-size basketball
court and gymnasium at Green McAdoo School
in 1954. Janice McClelland points out: “The
better educational interests of the county’s
black children, and certainly
an interest in equal educational opportunities,
hardly seems to have been a consideration
of the school board until pressed to take
an interest. Much, too, can
be read into the major expenditures that
were made for the construction of entirely
new facilities for the black students
of Anderson County between the years 1954
and 1958.” McClelland
believes that “the board’s
attitude towards its black
students is made clear not only by the
eleventh-hour expenditures it made on
black educational facilities, but by its
legal actions and public sentiments. The
Anderson County Board of Education, in
fact, made every effort to prevent desegregation
by legal means” until the summer
of 1955 when it decided that a policy
of delay was best—eventual desegregation
could not be avoided. Neighboring
Oak Ridge had quietly ordered the desegregation
of its city schools that same
year since Oak Ridge was still under federal
jurisdiction at this time, operating separately
from the state system of education and
the decision there was to comply with
Brown v. Board of
Education quickly. In
reaction, the county education board created
an “integration
committee” to develop an integration
plan and authorized the county
attorney to ask the federal district court
to grant “’a
reasonable period of time
to allow for completion of this study.’” Members
of the committee included
the principal of Green McAdoo School,
white and black principals across the
county, presidents of black and white
PTAs, and various county and city officials.8
Clinton High School
is Ordered to Desegregate
 The
policy of delay worked for
a few months, hindering integration
for the 1955-56 school year.
On January 4, 1956, Federal
District Judge Robert L. Taylor
in his final decree followed
the Supreme Court’s Brown decision
and ordered the Anderson County
School Board to end segregation
by no later than the fall
term of 1956. Once the ruling
requiring integration, confined
at this time solely to the
high school, became the law
of the land, most Clinton
residents accepted it. No
public displays of outrage
or attempts to stop the process took place
in the summer of 1956. Registration
of 12 African American students
took place without incident
on August 20, 1956.
On August 27, 1956, 10 of
the Clinton 12 gathered at
the Green McAdoo School and
then walked together to the
white high school (a procedure
that they typically followed
every day), without incident.
By the next day, Tuesday,
there were threats, violence,
and large, agitated crowds,
fired up by the harangues
of John Kasper. The tension
level escalated overnight
and on Wednesday, August 29,
1956, Federal Judge Robert
L. Taylor issued a temporary
restraining order, forbidding
Kasper, five Clinton residents,
and "all other persons who
are acting or may act in concert
with them. . . from further
hindering, obstructing, or
in any way interfering with
the carrying out" of integration
in Clinton.9 When Kaspar and
his followers continued their
protests and agitation that
very day, addressing a crowd
of 1,000 to 1,500 and bragging
that the restraining order
was meaningless and the Brown decision
was not the law of the land.
Judge Taylor ordered federal
marshals to arrest Kasper
for criminal contempt of court.
On August 30, Kaspar and counsel
appeared before Judge Taylor.
The federal court found
that the contempt citation
was legal, that First Amendment
rights had not been abridged,
and that Kasper had willfully
violated the restraining order.
Judge Taylor handed down a
one-year sentence to Kasper.
This aggressive federal action
was a first in the implementation
of the Brown v. Board
of Education decision.
A federal judge had ordered
agents of the federal executive
to intercede in a local police
matter to arrest and detain
suspects accused of violating
federal order.10
Kasper appealed
his conviction and served
little jail time, but
on June 1, 1957, the U.S. Court
of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
ruled in Kasper v. Brittain,
et al. (245 F. 2d 92) that Kasper's
detention and conviction
were legal.
Taking Kasper out of
the picture, however, did
not calm the situation. That
Labor Day weekend, white
pro-segregationists, led by
Asa Carter, arrived in Clinton
and began to rally many white
citizens to join them in protests
against the black students
and the prospect of integration.
Full scale rioting broke out.
Cars were overturned, windows
smashed, and African American
travelers, some of them serviceman
who happened to be coming through,
were frightened. Youngsters
and juvenile-minded adults
had taken over the town, threatening
to dynamite the mayor's house,
the newspaper plant, and even
the courthouse. The black
residential community was
also threatened by segretationists
driving through. The small
Clinton police force was overwhelmed,
and city officials asked Tennessee
Governor Frank G. Clement
for help. Other city residents
formed a "Home Guard" to protect
property and lives from the
white mob until state assistance
could arrive. The Home Guard
courageously confronted the
mob on the courthouse square,
but no violence resulted.
With the arrival of approximately
600 guardsmen, and their occupation
of the town, the worse of
the violence abated.11 The use
of the National Guard was
another first in the Civil
Rights Movement. The National
Guard stayed in Clinton for
the rest of September to keep
order.
Tensions Continued During
the Fall
During the fall, public
support for high school principal
David J. Brittain and the
peaceful integration of the
school remained very high,
with most citizens adhering
to the view that the "law
of the land" must be obeyed.
Nevertheless, even after crowds
dispersed, segregationists
continued to engage in intimidation
tactics. Crosses were burned
on the lawns of some high
school faculty members, as
well as at the homes of civic
leaders who supported integration.
Other incidents included rock
throwing and threatening phone
calls. As the intimidation
escalated, shots were fired
at the home of two black students
attending Clinton High School,
and dynamite blasts punctuated
the peace of the county. Kasper
returned to Clinton in November
and organized a Junior White
Citizens Council composed
mostly of high school students.12
Tensions continued in
spite of the state intervention,
especially once a slate of
pro-segregrationists challenged
city incumbents in municipal
elections. The segregation
of the schools was the key
issue. Harrasment and threats
escalated against the African
American children, their property,
and their institutions to
the point that the black parents
met at the Green McAdoo School
and decided they could no
longer send their children
to the white school. Then
in an amazing turn of events,
a white Baptist minister,
Reverend Paul Turner, Pastor
of the First Baptist Church,
along with Sidney Davis and
Leo Burnett, escorted the
black students from Foley
Hill to Clinton High School on
December 4, 1956, the day
of municipal elections. Once
the three white leaders left
the students at school, they
went their separate ways and
a white mob severely beat
Rev. Turner. In reaction to
the attack and other threatened
violence, Principal David
J. Brittain closed the high
school, and did not reopen
until December 10, 1956, during
which time Federal Judge Robert
Taylor had again reaffirmed
his court injunction forbidding
anyone with interfering with
the integration process.13
At a general assembly
of the student body on Decemter
10, the county attorney read
U.S. District Court Judge
Robert L. Taylor's injunction.
Agents of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation soon arrested
sixteen Clinton agitators
for violating the injunction
and arraigned them before
the U.S. District Court.
T he
Clinton 12 Meet Rosa Parks
The
Twelve Clinton students
were invited to a workshop
at Highland Center and met
with Rosa Parks in December
1956.
Bobby Cain
Attention
is often focused on Bobby
Cain, a senior, who
would be the first
African American graduate of a white
public high school in the
South since Jim Crow. David
J. Brittain, Clinton High
School principal, knew the
danger of allowing young Cain
to go through the graduation
ceremonies. He really feared
for Bobby's life. To protect
Bobby during graduation, Principal
Brittain organized a protective
student patrol comprised mostly
of the football team, who
were among some of the best
students in the class. After
the ceremony, when it came
time for the graduates to
go into the basement to change
out of their caps and gowns,
Bobby had to go it alone.
While he was in the basement,
the lights went off and someone
hit Bobby in the face.
Bobby's mother, the late Beatrice
Cain, was afraid someone had
put dynamite in their car
when she saw someone walking
away from it. Bobby considered
his graduation "a great honor - a great achievement." But
as a 16-year-old in 1956,
he felt more scared than heroic.
Bobby withstood immense pressure
and had no other black student
to look up to as a role model.
As the only Black senior eligible
to graduate, he knew the segregationists
meant to stop him from getting
the high school diploma he had earned.14
Regina Turner
How did
others of the Clinton 12 view
the events of the fall of 1956?
Regina Turner stayed at Clinton
High School through her sophmore
and junior years. "I refused
to leave. People told us "if
you quit, that will end the
ideas of desegregation. I
got angry and I guess I'm
stubborn." Nevertheless,
after two years she did give
up and went to her mother's
hometown of Tallahassee, Florida,
to live with an aunt and to
graduate from a still segregated
Black high school. "In Clinton,
it was just go to school and
come home. We couldn't go
to football or basketball
games or any social event
at school. I wanted more than
that." Also, she remained
angry, at times even angrier
than she was during that walk
through hateful crowds that
December day. Turner had always
resented that there was never
enough of anything in the
Black schools; students always
got leftover equipment and
books from some white school.
"Green McAdoo Elementary School
was never even painted inside,"
she recalled. She also remember
one confrontation between
black students and a white
student who was "a terrible
agitator and a leader of the
student White Citizens group."
Regina recalled that one
of the Black students, whom
she did not perceive as a
troublemaker, was expelled
and not the troublemaker.
"I was too angry to be afraid.
I hope I never get so angry
again. I was angry enough
to do something horrible and
not care."15
Jo Ann Allen
Jo Ann Allen,
another of the original 12
Black students, wrote that
she was "very
afraid,"
yet she had ambivalent feelings
about her family moving away
from the trouble. However,
she also recalled that in
Clinton, her education was
being compromised "because
of too many days out of school
because of the constant threats
of violence or death. This
bitter struggle was hindering
my forward motion. And, although
I didn't want to give up 'the
fight', my family packed up
and moved." She agreed with
Regina Turner that Blacks
were not treated fairly in
Clinton. "There was a time
in Clinton when I thought
I was pretty smart, but I
found myself working twice
as hard when we moved to California.
By classroom standards here,
I was very behind. It was
probably the second-hand Dick
and Jane books and the scarred
second-hand desks, and the
outdated educational programs
we had to endure when the
white children were through
with them." Jo Ann did, however,
praise one teacher. "I am
very grateful to an excellent
first grade teacher named
Theresa E. Blair, who gave
most of us Clinton Black kids
a wonderful start. Without
her, things would have been
worse, but she got us through
even using those second-hand
books."16
Jo Ann also stated,
"Our white neighbors who had
shared our food and toys and
friendship began to harass
us in the night, especially
if our parents were away.
Since most of the articles
I clipped were written by
the Southern press, there
was little or no condemnation
of what was happening to
us."17
Gail Ann Epps
For Gail
Ann Epps, the most horrible
feeling came September 1956
when the National Guard arrived. It
was a Sunday morning and we
were in church. Even though
we saw them as protectors,
it was just like war. Although
Epps was grateful that she
did not come into contact
with its members, one indirect
experience made a strong impression
upon her. She vividly remembered
what happened to James Chandler,
a Clinton sailor she was dating.
On one occasion when Chandler
came to visit her, he was
taken into protective custody
after being harassed and threatened.
He was caught up by a mob
shouting, Let's beat this
nigger, when he was on his
way back to Knoxville, and
the National Guard had to
rescue him, She recalled
his fear, both of the mob
and of the rather rough guardsmen.18
On May 17, 1957, exactly
three years after the Brown
v. Board of Education decision,
Bobby Cain graduated from
Clinton High School and became
the first African American
graduate of a state supported
public integrated high school
in the south. The following
spring of 1958, Gail Ann Epps
became the first African American
female to graduate from a
public integrated high school
in Tennessee. The fall before
her graduation, on October
5, 1958, Clinton High School
was bombed and much of the
school was destroyed. With
the assistance of Evangelist
Billy Graham, Columnist Drew
Pearson, and a host of local
citizens, the school was rebuilt.
Desegregation
of All Grades Did Not Occur
Until 1965
Not until 1965 would the
Green McAdoo School end its
days as a segregated blacks-only
institution. Finally, in that
year, the 10-year struggle
to desegregate public education
in Clinton and Anderson County
was over.
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1 Janice M. McClelland, "Clinton
Desegregration Crisis,"
Carroll Van West, et al.,
eds., Tennessee Encyclopedia
of History and Culture (Nashville:
Tennessee Historical Society,
1998), 182;
McClelland, "Structural
Analysis," passism;
June N. Adamson, "Few Black
Voices Heard: The Black
Community and the 1956 Desegregation
Crisis in Clinton," Trial
and Triumph: Essays in Tennessee's
African American History,
ed. Carroll Van West (Knoxville,
2002), 334-349;
in 2004, the Library of
Congress produced an exhibit
and a website titled "With
an Even Hand": Brown
v. Board at Fifty (www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown),
which covered the Clinton
events as the first example
of integration in the South.
2"Mt. Sinai Baptist
Church, Anderson County,"
and "Asbury United Methodist
Church, Anderson County,"
Rural African American Church
Survey Records. MTSU Center
for Historic Preservation;
Janice M. McClelland, "A Structural
Analysis of Desegregration:
Clinton High School 1954-1958,"
Tennessee Historical
Quarterly 56(Fall
1997): 296.
3 See the biographical
entries for Zephaniah Alexander
Lobby and Avon N. Williams
in the online edition of the
Tennessee Encyclopedia of
History and Culture (http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net)
4 McSwain
et al. v. County Board of
Education of Anderson County,
Tennessee (104
F. Supp. 862-3, 1952).
5 Ibid., 864.
6 Ibid., 872.
7 McSwain et al.
v. County Board of Education
of Anderson County, Tennessee (214
F.2d 131, 1954).
8McClelland, "Structural
Analysis," 299.
9Federal Judge Bans
School Picketing," Clinton
Courier-News, August 30, 1956.
10Russell W. Maddox,
"The Federal Executive and
Desegregation," Western
Political Quarterly 10(Sept. 1957: 739-740.
11Adamson, "Few Black
Voices Heard;"
McClelland,
"Structural Analysis."
12McClelland, "Clinton
Desegregation Crisis." 182.
13Adamson, "Few Black
Voices Heard;"
McClelland,
"Structural Analysis."
14George McMillan, "The
Ordeal of Bobby Cain," Collier's,
23 November 1956, 68-69;
June
N. Adamson, "Clinton High
School's First Black Graduate
was 40 Years Ago," Oak
Ridger,
16 May 1997, p. 1A.
15Adamson, "Few Black
Voices Heard," 342-346.
16Ibid.
17Ibid.
18Ibid.
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Who
are the Clinton Twelve?
101
School Street