Bobby Lynn Cain

Bobby Cain, who integrated Clinton High School in East Tennessee, dies at 85. Cain, part of the “Clinton 12”, persevered through harassment and assaults.

Bobby Cain, who integrated Clinton High School in Anderson County as part of the “Clinton 12,” died Sept. 22, 2025 at the age of 85. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout).

Bobby Cain, a towering figure in Tennessee’s civil rights movement and one of the first Black students to integrate a public high school in the South died Monday at the age of 85 in Nashville. One year before the “Little Rock Nine” integrated Arkansas’s Central High School, Cain was the first African-American graduate of Clinton High School in East Tennessee and was among the “Clinton 12”, a group of Black students who were eligible to attend the school on Aug 26, 1956. The school’s integration followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared segregated public schools unconstitutional. Anderson County ended funding to bus Black students across county lines to Knox County, leaving Cain with little choice but to go to Clinton, a small town located about 30 minutes from Knoxville. It became one of the first communities in the South to implement court ordered desegregation. In an interview with Bill Carey of Tennessee History for Kids in 2017, Cain said he didn’t want to leave all of his friends at Austin High School where he first attended in Knoxville and that his senior year was just something he had to get through. “It makes me feel good for my grandson to see what his grandfather has done in the past,” Cain said in 2023. “Hopefully people don’t hold onto the negativity and can see that we overcame what we went through during a moment in time.”Adam Velk, Director of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center, a museum that commemorates the integration of Clinton High School, said that Cain’s contributions are still felt today. “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,” said Velk. “He was given no choice but to be a part of one of the most difficult social experiments in American history. He is a hero not just because he was the first, but because of the circumstances in which he got his education. The integration efforts of the “Clinton 12” were met with significant resistance. On the first day of classes, white students stood on the steps of the school shouting threats and obscenities as Black students entered the building. Violence also followed. On his third day at Clinton High, Cain and another student were assaulted by a group of young white men after leaving the school’s campus for lunch. Cain later recounted in interviews that the attackers struck them with sticks until police intervened and took the students into custody for their own safety. A sculpture depicting the “Clinton 12” at the Green McAdoo Cultural Center in Clinton. The first statue on the left represents Cain.Cain and his classmates endured repeated harassment for the remainder of the school year. White mobs staged protests and riots outside of the school and vandalized the building. Tensions were so high that then-Gov. Frank Clement deployed the Tennessee National Guard, the first time a Southern governor used state troops to enforce school desegregation. Several members of the Clinton 12 eventually transferred from the area and moved away. Cain remained and was one of only two to graduate from Clinton High School and was attacked in the school cafeteria following the ceremony. It was an assault that left emotional scars over what he felt should have been a day of celebration.“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,” Velk said.Cain went to Tennessee State University, a historically Black university in Nashville, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1961. He then served in the United States Army from 1963-1965. Following his military service, he went on to have a long career with the Tennessee Department of Human Services, retiring as a supervisor in 2002 after 30years. Cain was a lifetime member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and faithful member of Asbury United Methodist Church in Clinton. He was also an active associate member of Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Nashville.With dozens of awards and accolades to his honor, Cain remained committed and tied to his Clinton experience and its history. He participated in numerous ceremonies honoring the Clinton12, including the 2007 unveiling of the statues outside of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center founded in 2006. The museum is the site of the former Green McAdoo Grammar School, which served as a segregated school for African American students from 1935 to 1965. The “Clinton 12” were also formally recognized by Congress in 2021 through the efforts of fellow member Jo Ann Allen Boyce, who worked to secure the honor.“Our heart breaks at the news of Cain’s passing,” said Velk. But we hold Bobby Cain as a hero for the changing world as we know it, and for providing inspiration to communities everywhere along the way.”

 Complete service arrangements will be announced soon.