The recently passed Tennessee budget includes $100,000 for the maintenance, restoration, and operation of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center in Clinton, a press release said.
The funds were secured in the budget by Tennessee Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally and Representative John Ragan, both Oak Ridge Republicans, the press release said.
The Green McAdoo Cultural Center commemorates the Clinton 12, the first black students to integrate a public high school in the South, the release said.
“The story of the Clinton 12 is a pivotal event in the history of our state and our region that must never be forgotten,” Ragan said in the press release. “The Green McAdoo Cultural Center serves an important function in our community to remind us of this important history. I am proud the state will play a part in furthering the important mission of the center.”
“The Green McAdoo Cultural Center stands as monument to one of the seminal events in our nation’s history,” McNally said. “We are proud that our Anderson County’s history includes the Clinton 12 and the remarkable story of the South’s first integrated public school. This money will ensure that the memory of the Clinton 12 does not fade with time.”
The Green McAdoo Cultural Center opened on August 26, 2006, the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of Clinton High School. The center serves as a museum honoring the 12 high school students that became the first black students to attend an all white state-supported high school in the south following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, the press release said.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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