Bobby Cain, one of the first Black students to integrate public schools in the South in 1956, died Sept. 22 in Nashville, where he had lived for decades, his son-in-law, Paul Frank, confirmed. Cain was 85.
Cain was part of Clinton 12, named for the first dozen Black students to go to Clinton High School in East Tennessee, among the first schools in the South to integrate after the landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision declaring public school segregation was unconstitutional.
Bobby Cain, right, sits with his grandson, Tobias Cain Frank, at his home in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. Bobby Cain was one of the first students to integrate Tennessee schools in 1956, at Clinton High School in Clinton, Tenn.
Cain said he was a reluctant integration pioneer.
“During that time, I had no choice, and the other 11 [Black] students in terms of doing what we did,” Cain said in a 2022 interview with The Tennessean with his then-teen grandson, who made a display that year honoring Cain’s place in history.
“It was a situation where we had no other choice but to go to Clinton High.”
Three years ago, Cain said he still was angry that he literally had to fight to attend Tennessee’s first integrated school.
On the first day, Aug. 27, 1956, the start of Cain’s senior year, white students lined up outside cursing and shouting threats as the Black students entered Clinton High School, about 30 minutes outside Knoxville, he said.
“I didn’t know what they were going to do. Especially walking up the steps. They could have easily attacked us right there,” he said. “Nothing could’ve been done about it. I didn’t see any police.”
On his third day attending Clinton High School, several young men attacked Cain and one of his Black classmates when the two went to a restaurant off campus for lunch.
“They were whipping us and hitting us with sticks. You couldn’t fight all those people. That’s when the police came and took us to jail for our safety,” he said.
“It was rough the first week; the whole year was rough.”
White supremacists protested and rioted outside the school and vandalized it repeatedly, according to news accounts from the time.
Several of the Black students dropped out of school or moved out of Tennessee. Cain was one of only two of the Clinton 12 who graduated from Clinton High School.
But Cain had to fight on graduation day as well, he said. Right after the ceremony, a group of white students jumped him in the cafeteria and beat him.
“And I was really peeved. My graduation day was supposed to be your best day in high school. And I started swinging and I could care less. I was going to hit somebody,” he said.
A 1957 picture of Bobby Cain and his sister, Diane, when he became the first Black to graduate from Clinton High School in East Tennessee
Cain said when he got to his house, he grabbed a shotgun out of the closet and started walking out until relatives wrestled him to the ground.
“I was going to shoot anybody that was going to come over that hill that didn’t look like me. Because I was just upset. Really upset.”
Cain enrolled at Tennessee State University in Nashville and enlisted in the U.S. Army after high school graduation. He worked for several decades for the state of Tennessee government, eventually retiring as a supervisor in the Department of Human Services.
A 2007 picture of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, left, and Clinton 12 members Bill Latham, Alvah McSwain Lambert, Bobby Cain, and JoAnn Allen Boyce at the unveiling of memorial statues at the Green McAdoo Cultural Center & Museum in Clinton, Tenn. The statues honor the students who were the first to integrate a public high school in the South.
Through the decades, he returned to Clinton, Tennessee, several times for ceremonies honoring the Clinton 12, including the 2007 unveiling of statues of the students outside the Green McAdoo Cultural Center in the town of 10,000 people.
Cain is survived by his daughter, Yvette Cain-Frank of Nashville, his son-in-law, Frank, and his grandson, Tobias “Toby” Cain-Frank. No funeral arrangements were immediately available.
Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Bobby Cain, one of 12 who integrated Tennessee schools, dies at 85
