Bobby Cain, a member of the Clinton 12 who helped integrate Tennessee high schools in 1956, has died

NASHVILLE (AP) — Bobby Cain, who helped integrate one of the first high schools in the South in 1956 as one of the so-called Clinton 12, died Monday in Nashville at the age of 85, according to his nephew J. Kelvin Cain.

Bobby Cain was a senior when he entered the formerly all-white Clinton High School in Tennessee on a court order. He had previously attended a Black high school about 20 miles (32 kilometers) away in Knoxville and was not happy about leaving his friends to spend his senior year at a new school in a hostile environment.

"He had no interest in doing it because, you know, he'd gotten to rise up through the ranks at Austin High School as the senior and was finally big fish in the pond. And to have to go to this all-white high school -- it was tough," said Adam Velk, executive