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Oct 8, 2017 · The following spring, in 1958, Gail Ann Epps became the first African American female to graduate from a public integrated high school in Tennessee. Sadly, on Sunday morning, October 5, 1958, Clinton High School was bombed and much of the school was destroyed.
On August 26, 1956, the Clinton 12 integrated state-run Tennessee public schools—they were very brave! Their first day of school went well, but challenges began to pop up. “The Halting and Fitful Battle for Integration.”
The Tennessee Education Interactive Map can be used to find key information for specific addresses, school districts, State Board of Education members, state representatives, state senators, and CORE regions throughout Tennessee.
- Introduction
- Brown Comes to Tennessee
- The Nashville Plan
- Resistance and Resolve
- September 9
- The Witching Hour
- The Turning Point
- A Long Road Ahead
- Appendices
At high noon, Nashville time, on Monday, May 17, 1954, all nine justices of the United States Supreme Court in Washington joined in a declaration that legally-sanctioned racial segregation in the public schools is a violation of the US Constitution's promise of equal protection of the laws. The unanimous decision, covering five consolidated cases k...
As late as 1950, one third of Tennessee's counties provided no high school instruction at all for black students; only those teenagers willing to pay tuition and commute daily to an all-black facility in another county had any chance of earning a high school diploma. To rectify this, a group of black parents in Clinton, the seat of Anderson County,...
Anticipating Judge Miller's almost certain approval of a grade-a-year desegregation plan to begin in September 1957, Superintendent Bass was by then convinced that the time for change was at hand. The Supreme Court had twice ruled unanimously against segregation, yet three years of local argumentation had yielded nothing; if the Nashville school bo...
In the sultry heat of late July, more than a month before the beginning of the new school term in Nashville, John Kasper seemed to emerge out of nowhere as the sparkplug of a string of protest rallies in the city. He claimed to be president of the Tennessee Citizens Council, but reporters quickly learned that he was the "outside agitator" who had s...
A late-night thunderstorm swept across the city, leaving the air dense with humidity, and Monday dawned gray and sultry as Kasper and his followers emerged from the gloom to take up their stations at three schools north of downtown and three more east of the Cumberland River. The special police units were soon in place around the same schools. It w...
For a few hours after the half-day session had ended and Nashville's first venture into school desegregation was an accomplished fact, the prevailing mood among parents and children, school personnel, city officials and the police was a profound sense of relief. With white rage simmering just beneath the surface on that sultry late-summer morning, ...
Joe Casey, a young patrolman in his fifth year on the force, got home after midnight from his twelve-hour shift in the Fehr School neighborhood. It had been a long day, and a rough night. As was his habit, he put away his hat and holster on the high shelf of the closet by the front door, where his pistol would be safely out of the sight and reach o...
On Tuesday, September 10, news of the bombing of Hattie Cotton kept Patricia Watson and all her classmates out of school for a week. Repairs to the building proceeded on a fast track, and classes resumed there on the 17th, but Patricia Watson had transferred by then to an all-black school. At Clemons School on the 10th, Joy Smith was back, along wi...
Appendix A: Beginning of School Desegregation in Nashville, September 1957
The African American children named below were the first to enroll in formerly all-white public schools in the city. Sixteen were admitted to the first grade at six elementary schools when the fall term began on September 9, and three others could not enroll at a seventh school for technical reasons; another three had pre-registered on August 27, but were not present on opening day.
Appendix C: Nashville by the Numbers, A Time Table
1957: Eleven black children establish permanent desegregation of Nashville public schools when they enroll at the first grade level in five elementary schools; the Nashville and Davidson County schools systems enroll approximately 60,000 students, (80% white, 20% black). 1963: Nashville and Davidson County governments merge, creating one political jurisdiction of 400,000 people (83% white, 17% black) and one unified (though still largely segregated) school system with about 85,000 students (7...
Apr 30, 2024 · The lawsuit compelled city officials to voluntarily desegregate schools starting with the first grade. On the first day of school the following year, thirteen African American children entered Memphis City Schools without any disturbances.
Jul 20, 2007 · In support of a national Commission study on school desegregation, this report provides both to the Commission and the public a complete assessment of the school desegregation status of the 136 public school districts in Tennessee.
Jun 23, 2022 · Twelve young African-American students walked into history in Clinton, Tennessee, in 1956. They were the first students to desegregate a state-supported high school in the south.
