Bobby Cain made history as the first Black student to graduate from an integrated high school in the South. He died in Nashville on Monday at the age of 85.
A year before the Little Rock Nine, twelve Black students in East Tennessee began integrating the previously all-white Clinton High School.
At the time a rising senior, Cain knew he would spend his last year of high school unable to play on the football team, unable to go to school dances, and, as it turns out, unable to walk at graduation without being assaulted by his white classmates.
Cain did not have a choice in attending Clinton High School for his senior year. While he lived down the street from the school, he spent most of his high school career taking long bus rides from Anderson County to Knoxville. But at the start of integration, the county would no longer pay for his tuition or transportation.
In a 2017 interview with WPLN News, Cain said he preferred the long bus rides to the cold shoulders he encountered at Clinton.
“It was difficulty, in terms of meeting new friends. The problem was, we didn’t have friends — at least I know I didn’t have any friends,” he said.
While the Clinton 12 broke racial barriers in the South, the Little Rock Nine received much more national attention when they integrated an Arkansas school a year later. Cain said those students were handpicked by the NAACP.
“We did not receive any protections. We didn’t have any support groups. They were escorted into the school by the 101st Airborne Unit,” he said. “They also received medallions from the president.”
After graduation, Cain attended Tennessee State University where he received a degree in social work. He spent several years in the military and working in state government, eventually retiring from the Tennessee Department of Human Services.
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