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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. |
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1935 |
Green McAdoo School (initially known as the Clinton
Colored School) built by New Deal Federal Emergency Relief
Administration, a precursor to the Works Progress Administration.
New Deal programs wanted to improve African American education. |
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1947 |
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.” |
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1947 |
Green L. McAdoo deceased, a Buffalo Soldier who served
in the 24th Infantry. 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. |
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1950 |
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). |
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1952 |
In his ruling announced on April 26, 1952, Federal District
Judge Taylor denied the lawsuit and upheld the position
of the county school board. |
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1954 |
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.” |
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1956 |
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. |
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1956 |
Registration of 12 African American students, who gathered
at the Green McAdoo School and then walked together to
the white high school (a procedure that they typically
followed every day), took place without incident on August
20, 1956. |
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School Street