ON THIS DAY: August 27

ON THIS DATE IN TEENAGE HISTORY (1956), the Clinton Twelve integrated a formerly all-white high school in east Tennessee. A pair of white supremacists stirred up an angry anti-integration mob during the first week of school at Clinton High, making the mornings difficult for the 12 African American students. “Let me tell you, it definitely wasn’t a good time with all those people calling us the n-word,” remembered Alfred Williams 50 years later. In May of 1957, Clinton 12 member Bobby Cain became the first African American to graduate from a formerly all-white public school in the South.