NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Bobby Cain, who integrated Clinton High School in Anderson County as part of the “Clinton 12,” died Sept. 22, 2025, in Nashville. He was 85 and became the school’s first African American graduate in 1957, one year before the “Little Rock Nine” integrated Central High School in Arkansas.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, Anderson County ended funding to bus Black students to Knoxville, leading Cain and other eligible students to attend Clinton High on Aug. 26, 1956. The first days brought threats and obscenities from white students, and violence followed; on his third day, Cain and another student were attacked by young white men after leaving campus for lunch. Protests and vandalism continued through the year, and then-Gov. Frank Clement deployed the Tennessee National Guard to enforce desegregation.
Cain remained at the school while several classmates moved away, becoming one of only two members of the group to graduate on May 17, 1957. He was assaulted in the cafeteria after the ceremony. “Despite the numerous threats to his life, the barrage of slurs, and the acts of cruelty Bobby faced on an every day basis, he still managed to persevere,” said Adam Velk, director of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center, which commemorates the integration of Clinton High School.
Cain earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Tennessee State University in 1961, served in the U.S. Army from 1963 to 1965, and worked for the Tennessee Department of Human Services, retiring as a supervisor in 2002 after 30 years. He was a lifetime member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, a member of Asbury United Methodist Church in Clinton, and an associate member of Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Nashville.
Cain remained active in preserving the history of Clinton’s integration, participating in events honoring the “Clinton 12,” including the 2007 unveiling of statues at the Green McAdoo Cultural Center, founded in 2006 at the former segregated Green McAdoo Grammar School. The group received recognition from Congress in 2021 through the efforts of fellow member Jo Ann Allen Boyce. “Every child across our country has access to an equitable public education system because Bobby Cain graduated from Clinton High School on May 17, 1957,” Velk said. “He is a hero not just because he was the first, but because of the circumstances in which he got his education.”
