Well, before they integrated Clinton High School, we went to Austin, ole' Austin High School in Knoxville at the time. So, we had to travel like 13 miles a day. We had to come from on Broad Street and walk downtown to catch the bus at 7:30 each day, and we would always arrive at Austin High School at about 8:15 in the morning before we went to class. Then, the year of 1956, our parents received notice that they were going to integrate Clinton High School at the time. So, they asked our parents how would we feel. Ya know, at the time I didn't want to leave my school, because I was known there at this all-black school, and, by us being colored, going to an all-white school, we knew we were gonna have problems, but we didn't know we were gonna have the kind of problems we did.

Mr. Brittain was the principal. I didn't see much of Mr. Brittain. But, when I seen him, he was always very upright with me, ya know. He never did show animosity towards me or nothing like that; he had a job to do. He had around 800 whites going to school here and 12 blacks. So, he had to do his duty. He had to mind his P's and Q's all the time, because he had kids a whole lot larger than he was. He was a little man: you got kids, you got kids weighing 200 and something, and you weighing around 140-130 something, you got some strong young men in your school.

The integration would have had a little bit of conflict anyway, but I don't think you would of had near as much if John Kasper hadn't come to Clinton. You would have had some, because it would've been in a different atmosphere. You would've still have people going to use that word regardless, because the first thing they say, "Well, I don't want my kid going to school with that nigger." Stuff like that. Well, I told one white lady one time, she was calling me that, and I said, "Let me tell you something, I say you don't have to be W-H-I-T-E to be a N-I-G-G-E-R." I said, " You can be one of them just as good as you can be white. You know what I mean? I never was no nigger." And, I said, "Well, I heard you use it, but I don't let it get under my skin." But, back then, I did let it get under my skin, 'cause you're young. If one of us blacks would call you a word, a nasty word in your face, you wouldn't like it; you'd be mad, too, at the time, and that's the same way it was with us.

The very first day we enrolled into Clinton High School, people were so hostile towards us. People we grew up with, we played with, whites, you wouldn't ever thought they had that kind of prejudice in their heart. The truth is, there's everyone--the one you played football with, grew up with, sit on the container wall down yonder on Main Street and watch the traffic go back and forth and looked north, because this was the only way you could get to the North, go back to Ohio and different places, because you had to come through Clinton. When they integrated Clinton High School, the people, the very people ... I didn't know [those] people had so much prejudice in their hearts, [like] when you've got those kinds of words for 12 little blacks trying to get an education. I didn't wanna go down there no more then they wanted me down there. I didn't wanna be in this school. I'd preferred to stay at Austin, but it was the law. Supreme Court passed a law that we had to go to Clinton High School. We didn't have any other alternatives but to go to school here.

The first, very first day, it was terrible, it was terrible. You got around 800 whites and 12 blacks, and you separate them [the blacks], you got maybe one going to class here. You got hecklers calling you that "N" word all day and constantly throwing pebbles, real small gravels, rocks, and things at ya. And then, you got people on the outside, out there on the sidewalk, calling you those words before you go into class, that "N" word, and come out [with them] saying, "Kill those 'N's,'" and all this. Hey, it wasn't a good feeling to be in an environment like this. And, I mean, you couldn't study. How can you study when a teacher's got you up front, and you got a bunch, you got 30 kids, I mean, 30 kids in the back of you throwing at you and sayin' bad words to ya? How can you sit down and open a textbook and get something out of that, because you fearing for your life all the time while you are in that classroom? And, you don't know what's going through their head or what they got in their heart, what they want to do towards you that day, because, see, you constantly fight.

It was so bad in Clinton, they really had to call the State troopers in, and then, from the State troopers, they had to get the National Guard in here. It was terrible, it was so bad that we had to go home and have people strolling our streets, up on Broad Street, all through the night, riding, and giving us protection. The National Guard was constantly riding, ya know. They would ride from town, across up Broad Street, and back downtown, just make their rounds.

So, at the time, I was around 19 years old, because I was one of the oldest ones. If I was to graduate, I'd have been probably 19½, if I was graduating. And so, at the time, when my incident came up, I had a young brother named Maurice Soul, and we were getting out of school, and I noticed a crowd in the hall. It's crowding around him up there, around the music, around the band room, up there at the end of school. And, I was hearing 'em tell, like "Kill that 'N,' kill him," and like that. So, I was late that afternoon getting outta school, because I had to go to my locker and get some books and things out of my locker.

When I got there, I noticed one of my brothers, I already did carry a knife, and so that knife was my only protection, and so that's the firs' thing dawned on me at the time, that you gotta knife in your pocket, and you got around 60, uh, maybe almost 100 of them talking 'bout killing your brother. That's the first thing you think, that's your weapon, that's your protection and everything, so I pulled the knife, and, when I pulled the knife, sure, the kids scattered, ya know, just, disbanded, so many of them disbanded. They went their separate ways. So, at the time, somebody went and got Mr. Brittain, the principal, at the office, and he came, he got me, took me to the office, and then held me there until the authority came. When the authority came, they took me out of the school.

The next day, I came back to school, and was suspended. Ya know, my grades were failing, because I couldn't keep up with my grades, trying to study and all this going on, too. How can you study when you got so many people who got animosity towards you and trying to hurt you, and you're trying to sit there with a textbook? You wouldn't know a pronoun from an adjective. They would ask ya, because you had so much on mind at the time trying to take care of yourself, and then you've [got] this environment, and it wasn't a good environment. Well, after I got suspended from school, I went on and got me a job. Worked real hard, done like the rest of the kids, just knocked around and everything. Maurice never did graduate from Clinton High School; he done went and dropped out of school. Then, he went in the service and got his diploma in the Armed Forces. Somebody who graduated was Bobby Cain. And then, after Bobby Cain, Gail, and then Mrs. Caswell, and then the young bunch come right along behind them, then they started graduating.

At the time, I had animosity in my heart after they suspended me. I had hate in my heart. I would have killed one of them just as quick as they would have hurt me. That hate stayed in my heart for a long, long time, so, by me being a Christian, I learned how to cope with that hate. I turned hate into love, because you got to love. You can't hate; when you hate, listen, you can't make it to heaven. You can't see your Maker, so you can forget that, so that was just about my incident. Then, they bomb the school. The kids had to go to Oak Ridge out there at one of the elementary schools until they repaired the school over here, the middle school now. It was some terrible times. It was really bad, but right now, it's still hatred in Clinton. You wouldn't think it here, but it's still [there]. You still got people carrying a lot that animosity in their hearts. They still carries it, they might not show it, but they got it deep down inside. You can feel it when you go different places. They might put on a shiny face in front of ya, but down in their heart, you can tell the atmosphere: the way they talk to you, you know, you can tell the tone of a person's voice that they still got hatred in 'em because hey, you can feel it.

"Hey", I told 'em one time, I said, "I don't want to be here no badder than you want me down here. I think I'm just as good as you are." See, that's what I am. And, like I told a teacher one time. I said, "Let me tell you something." I said, "You say you love me? How can you not love me down here, and you say you love the Lord? Somebody you ain't never seen before? And, you can't fellowship with me? You can't be my brother down here and my sister down here? How can you think you're going up there? You ain't going up there, so you can forget it until you learn how to use that L.O.V.E. down here. You can forget about trying to love the Lord, because, first of all, he's love. And, you can't love your black brother down here, ain't going to be no race when you get to heaven. We going to be in all in one. One body, one soul, and that's it."

There were other kinds of threats. I tell you one thing, one night somebody came up from Broad Street, set some dynamite off, and it went off up there, and it done some damage up there to our houses. My people, they worked in Oak Ridge at the time, and they went about their business. When we get ready to plan to come to town, we couldn't come one at a time. We had to come in, two or three of us would come together you know, 'cause they would jump on us, no kidding. I remember one incident. I came to town with a girl I liked, a little black girl I liked. I got in a fight down there; they had to take me down to the police station to rescue me ... keep these guys from jumping on me. It was terrible. It wasn't good.

They say that Mr. Turner got beat up, but I don't remember it. But, he was a nice man. He would come up on the hill and walk with us and talk with us, you know. He assured us, gave us consolation that this is what was going be and that he was going stick to what he was going to do, 'cause they said it wasn't right in the sight of the Lord, and he was right.

Kids are still Kids

I can remember playing touch football ... with Jerry Shattuck. We would choose up among us. I choose you, then he chooses a black, then I choose a white, then he chooses a black, then I choose a black, and he chooses a white. Just like that. Then, we'd just get out there and have a good time. Then, when we got through playing touch football, we'd go over here to Hoskins drugstore, and we'd get some custard ice cream, then go across the street over there to the old court house ... used to have a container wall. We'd sit on that container wall and watch the traffic go up and down the road. You know, we'd get hungry; we'd go up to Richey Creme. We used to go up there and get hotdogs and sit there and eat and laugh and talk, then we'd go our separate ways. They go home, we go home. It was just one of those things.

I could probably tell ya something about Jerry Shattuck, Lawyer Shattuck. Now, Jerry, he went to school when they integrated Clinton High School. At the time, and tell you the truth, Jerry didn't show no animosity towards us or nothing like that. So, I'd say he and his family probably accepted [the integration], because they knew we had to go to school there. We didn't have another alternative. We couldn't go back to Austin, because the Supreme Court had passed a law that they going to integrate Clinton High School, and they had to.

Mr. Williams Today

I enjoy my job at Clinton Elementary, and I like to give the kids candy an stuff. I take a liking to giving these kids candy. An' I tell 'em, I love every last one of 'em. 'Cause listen, I wouldn't hurt one of these kids. You know why? 'Cause they're God's little angels ... I love the little ones and everything, and so I don't have any problems here or nothing like that. I would have liked to go on to graduate ya know, 'cause if they could have just transferred me back to school somewhere else, it would've been much better for me. But, at the time that was my incident, I had a friend, Bobby Cain, he went on to graduate ... yeah, the first black boy to graduate. Then, he went on from there to Tennessee State, and then he got his diploma as a social worker. Me and him, we grew up together, and he lived in Nashville.

So, he came back home, ya know, and worked here for a while, and then he went in the Army. He came out as first or second lieutenant, and then he married a girl of Clarksville, Tennessee. She was a schoolteacher, and he had one kid. His daughter went on, I think, to marry a lawyer down in Nashville somewhere. So, Bobby done went on and done what he was supposed to do. But, he doesn't like to bring it up. He doesn't like to come to the reunion when they have it or nothing like that. 'Cause, the night he graduated, they cut the lights out on him and hit him and then cut the lights back on. He never did find out who did it. They coulda killed him, because he was the only black, the first black to graduate.

But, it gradually began to get better and better, but it still ain't what you'd say it ought to be. But, that's just the way it is, ya know, and that's my life story right there. I turned that hate into love. And, I can look back on my life now and say, "Thank you." See, that's what I tell people.

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