FiscalFusion

Jo Ann Allen Boyce, a member of the historic “Clinton 12” who helped integrate Clinton High School in Tennessee, died Wednesday at her Los Angeles home at age 84. Her daughter, Kamlyn Young, said Boyce died from pancreatic cancer, which she had lived with for a decade. Clinton High School was integrated in 1956, two years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and a year before the crisis at Little Rock Central High. Unlike the carefully selected Little Rock Nine, the Clinton 12 were simply the Black students who lived within the school district.

As a 14-year-old, Boyce was excited to attend the previously all-white school she once had to walk past on her way to a segregated school in Knoxville. But integration sparked fierce resistance from local white residents, the Ku Klux Klan and outside segregationists, leading to violent protests and the National Guard’s deployment. Boyce later recalled that while the first day was calm, by midweek the crowds grew hostile and frightening. Inside the school, some children were kind or neutral, and she was even elected vice president of her homeroom, but others harassed the Black students with slurs, signs and thrown objects, making it difficult for her to focus on schoolwork. After high school, Boyce briefly joined a female singing group and then built a long career as a pediatric nurse.

She frequently spoke at schools about her experiences and co-authored the 2019 children’s book “This Promise of Change.” Although her family initially supported integration, escalating violence forced them to leave Clinton for Los Angeles in December 1956. Only two of the Clinton 12 ultimately graduated from the school. Despite the trauma, Boyce later said she hadn’t wanted to leave, believing in the importance of her role. Her daughter said Boyce was strong, determined and fueled by optimism. Boyce told friends that several former classmates who mistreated her later apologized, and she tried to forgive them.

She wrote fondly about her childhood in Clinton, where she attended a Black primary school, participated in church music and performed in plays and talent shows. Boyce is survived by her sister Mamie Hubbard, three children and three grandchildren. Her grandson, actor Cameron Boyce, died in 2019 at age 20 from an epileptic seizure..