LENOIR CITY, Tenn. — A woman who lived history is hoping her story will keep other students from repeating it.
JoAnn Boyce was a member of the Clinton 12, the first group of African American students to integrate Clinton High School. The group faced bigotry and abuse as they made history.
Boyce spoke to students at Lenoir City High School on Thursday.
"The message that I'm trying to get across to our students is that we need to understand each other no matter where we're from or what color of skin or what religion we are. we need to get together and understand," Boyce said.
She said we all live on one planet and need to be able to get along, and the only way to do that is to learn from each other. She said that students today have a great opportunity with all the diversity present in our country.
"We got to get out of this one group thing, being tribal is okay sometimes, but it's not good always. So I want them to change their hearts and the hearts of others who are feeling that there needs to be hatred or bigotry in our country. That's got to go," she said.
Gary Taft teaches social studies at Lenoir City. He hopes the students take to hear this valuable lesson.
"With everything that’s going on in the world today, there’s lots of friction related to immigration issues with different cultures, diversity, these are all real issues to them and they need to see this is not a new crisis. It’s a crisis that seems to repeat itself every decade or so and so I’m hoping that they can make the connection from the mistakes we’ve made before and improve on things going forward," said Taft.
On Monday, the eight surviving members of the Clinton 12 will be back at the old Clinton High School to make a commemorative walk down Foley Hill, the same walk they made to desegregate the school in 1956.