Memories of Clinton High School

Dear Jay Hamburg

Thanks for the article, "A Southern First Kept it Low-Key; he made history as back 57 graduate," about Bobby Cain graduating from Clinton High School in 1957 in today's Tennessean local section.

I especially appreciate the article since earlier in the week there was a story about Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, being the first school to integrate in the United States, which of course wasn't true, it was Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee.

I entered Clinton High School the year Bobby Cain graduated. It is interesting the memories I have of that period. I lived next door to Rev. Paul Turner, pastor of First Baptist Church, in Clinton, Tennessee.

A hero in his own right, Brother Turner had walked with the black students from their homes to school that first day so that they would not get beaten up. In return he was beaten himself on the way back to the church. I can remember seeing the scars later that day he incurred, as well as the cherry bombs that on occasion went off next door in his yard.

Later, he pastored Brook Hollow Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and ordained me as a minister. He always bore the scars of that trip that day to help black students, but I remember him as an unheralded hero called to Christian duty during a difficult time.

But the main memory I have of the times is not just the cross burnings, the ku klux klan, the speeches on the town square, the crowds, the policed troops and the curfews, but something else just as important and often forgotten.

The night was a little over 2 years later, on October 5, 1958. Saturday, the 4th of October, our band had been in a band contest in East Tennessee. We got back late that night, around midnight if I remember correctly. We put up our instruments and went home.

The next morning, early -- maybe 5 a.m. -- the entire Clinton High School was bombed and blown off the face of the earth, except for the band room and the gym. I have often thought that many of us have lived on grace since that day because no doubt the bombers were planting explosives in the building that night while we were there.

I remember the aftermath of that day. We had no school to attend and we were fearful we would not get an education. I remember that the citizens of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, allowed Clinton High School to use a little grammar school 13 miles away. I can never forget that first day riding that bus to Oak Ridge. When we passed the Oak Ridge radio station, WOKE, I remember tears coming to my eyes and being thankful that someone cared enough to provide a place for us to go to school.

For three years each day the students at Clinton High loaded up on buses and went to Oak Ridge and used the minature bathrooms and practiced band on a hill using crept paper to line the fields. Thankfully Drew Pearson, the columnist, took 1 dollar donations from his readers and in 1960 a new high school had been built and we were the first class to graduate from there.

Yes, Clinton High School, was FIRST to integrate in the south, not Central High in Little Rock. And the Bobby Cain's of this world deserve a lot more credit than they have received for the dignity they showed, and no doubt the fear they faced, as they made a mark on our High School that is written in permanent ink in our lives. Thanks for their story.

Dan Phillips