June 18, 2025 • 36 mins
In this conversation, Adam Velk discusses the historical significance of the Clinton 12, the first group of black students to desegregate a school in the American South. He shares insights into the challenges faced by these students, the role of community leaders like Reverend Paul Turner, and the ongoing impact of these events on the town of Clinton. He also emphasizes the importance of understanding this history, the significance of Juneteenth, and the need for open dialogue about race and civil rights today. Adam is the Museum Director, Green McAdoo Cultural Center located in Clinton, TN.
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(00:00):
Hey everyone, thanks for joiningin.
I'm very excited about our guesttoday.
We're going to be talking to himand listening to Adam Belt.
Adam is the museum director of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center
here in Clinton, TN. Adam, how you doing?
I'm doing great. How about you?
It's good to see you and I know the others aren't able to do
that, but I am glad to see you. I'm just wanted to ask, can you
(00:22):
tell us how long you have been here at the museum and can you
talk a little bit about your path and how you got here?
Yeah. So I have been at the Green
McAdoo Cultural Center here in Clinton since I think I moved to
Clinton. January 1st of 2021 was the was
the day that I landed here in Clinton and I started like 2
(00:45):
days later. So it has been about a year and
a half or no, I'm sorry, 4 1/2 years.
Jeez Louise. Was that around COVID time to
was that did you have to deal with COVID in any way?
Yeah, we caught, we got the tailend of COVID here at the center.
But about the time that I started, we got the vaccines
started rolling out and everything started to kind of
(01:08):
get back to to a new normal. That's awesome.
Yeah, where? Were you before here?
Yeah, so I've been in a lot of different places.
So originally I'm from the Chicago suburbs of Wauconda, IL
I got my degree in history at the University of Hartford in
Connecticut. And then I moved back to Chicago
(01:29):
and I did some work with the Adler Planetarium before going
down to Springfield, IL to get my master's degree in public
history in there. I, you know, did a bunch of work
with a couple of different places, but the main one was I
was with the Park Service, National Park Service, and I
worked at Abraham Lincoln's, theLincoln Home, National Historic
(01:49):
Site, Abraham Lincoln's home when he lived in Springfield,
IL. And so I was there for about two
years. I did a brief cup of coffee with
the White House for the NationalChristmas tree lighting and then
I went to Corpus Christi, TX to work at Padre Island National
Seashore. And then that gets me back up to
(02:12):
Clinton in January 1st of 2021. Wow.
But did I read that it says you were part of the International
Storytelling Center? Yeah.
So we did a actually was first couple months that I was here at
this center that the International Storytelling
Center in Jonesboro reached out to us and me to see if we would
(02:37):
take part in a program where we talked about history and we
talked about kind of the storiesthat we, you know, black stories
that we tell here in East Tennessee and how we talk about
them. So I was really fortunate that
early on I got to kind of be a part of that program and it was
like an online program where they did like 4 different shows.
(03:00):
I don't know if you want to callout that, but.
I got you. So I was just in one, but that
put me on the International Storyteller Center list.
Well, I was checking out the website and Green McAdoo, of
course, we know this, those of us who live here, it says that
it is devoted to honoring and telling the history of the
Clinton 12. I know you've told the story a
(03:21):
number of times, but for those who don't know, could you tell
us what that is about? Yeah, so, you know, our whole
center is, is really devoted to telling their story.
The Clinton 12 were the first 12students first.
Geez, sorry, let me, I don't know.
Whoopsies. All right.
They were the, so the Clinton 12, the 1st 12 black students
(03:45):
in, you know, the American Southto desegregate a school by court
order. So it was a really, really kind
of big moment for educational rights for black history.
You know, this was the first time that the federal government
came in through a court order and told a southern segregated
(04:06):
town that, hey, we live in a post run versus board world.
And that means you have to desegregate you over school.
And at this time, you know, pretty much every school, there
were three that I, I know of that had desegregated at this
point in time in formerly Confederate states.
And so most of these towns and school boards across the, the
(04:31):
entire South were, were holding out.
They, they didn't want to desegregate.
And so this court order comes in, comes to Clinton, TN and
says, you know, you have to desegregate by the upcoming
school year. And so really what happens is it
just creates this Crucible within this town.
You know, it's a story of how the Clinton 12 kind of deal with
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being the first to do so, right?How it is to desegregate a
school and what sort of challenges they faced.
And we see a lot of kind of personal kind of one off stories
of like this is what happened here in Clinton.
But you know, there's also kind of where this fits in the
(05:15):
broader sense of the movement aswell, right?
So a lot of the difficulties andchallenges that the Clinton 12
faced were also challenges that,you know, students who
desegregated schools felt acrossthe country.
And so really we use the Clinton12 as as an example, right, to
(05:37):
to shine a particular light on it.
And and hopefully people can walk away realizing, you know,
that this is, yes, this happenedhere in Clinton, but there's a
Clinton 12 in every school in America.
And so just being able to have that conversation, it's also a
story of how the town, the really, you know, the adults in
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this town respond to this court order, right?
How do the white citizens here in Clinton respond?
How do the black citizens here in Clinton respond, right?
What sort of things happen because of this, you know,
desegregation? And so it does get pretty messy.
I don't want to, you know, not to, not to spoil the whole
(06:21):
story, but it's not all holding hands in Kumbaya, that's what.
I'm saying because there was some violence, obviously the
school was bombed. Is that right?
Yes, yes, indeed you. Know hard stories of tanks
rolling into Clinton. Yeah.
So the first, oh, gosh, what wasit?
So by the end of the first week of desegregation, the National
Guard got called in by the governor of Tennessee at the
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time, Frank Clement. And so all of these National
Guardsmen start pulling up into town.
And so there's tanks lining the streets, right?
Driving down regular everyday roads that Clintonians, you
know, use, right? We've got helicopters on the
football field, right? So it was a very tough sight to
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see, right? And you see these old pictures
of Clinton, TN, and really you see this slice of Americana.
And I think that, you know, it'ssomeone who works in Clinton and
lived in Clinton, that kind of slice, right?
That idea still exists here in Clinton, right?
It is kind of this all American town, you know, seems kind of
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ideal to outsiders. But, you know, you combine that
with the idea of these tanks driving down your street, right?
And so it's a, it's a pretty jarring thing to see.
It wasn't there a book called A Tolerant Little Town.
Yes, I can't. Remember when the author came?
Yes. So we were very fortunate.
I believe it was last year, yearDoctor Rachel Louise Martin came
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to or finished her book called AMost Tolerant Little Town.
And she is a fabulous historian.She actually, the way that she
got involved with this particular story was that she
helped us when we first opened. So she was like a student.
She was like some sort of student intern, and part of her
(08:15):
work was to do the oral history here at the center, try and
gather as many oral histories. And so we've got just a big old
book of these conversations thatshe had with folks who were
involved in Clinton, right, who lived here and lived during this
experience, Members of the club,members of the, you know,
(08:35):
faculty of Clinton High School, other students, you know, other
citizens who were just here in the area.
And so she got involved when we first were opening.
And it was just kind of something that stuck with her.
And she felt like there's a bookhere.
Fortunately, she finished it. Yeah.
It's interesting. I've lived here six years and
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before I moved here and of course I work here at First
Baptist and I want to maybe mention Reverend Turner a little
bit later, but. Yeah, of course.
I had not not heard of the Clinton 12.
I had heard of the Little Rock 9, but I did not know about the
Clinton 12. And I guess I'm asking, do you
find that unusual or is that kind of consistent with the
story? Yeah, so you're not the only
(09:20):
person who, you know, hadn't heard of the Clinton 12 before
they moved here. I mean, there's still folks who,
you know, live in Tennessee who don't know that this story
exists. And we get plenty of folks
coming through who are like, wow, I can't believe I never
read about this in my school books, right?
And so there's a lot of different reasons for that.
(09:43):
So #1 you know, members of the Clinton 12 really weren't keen
on talking about their experiences, right?
It was a very traumatic experience for them to go
through. And so they weren't really
excited to talk about this, right?
So I've had family members who've told me I had no idea
that my grandmother or my, you know, cousin or whoever was, was
(10:06):
even a part of this. They never talked about what
happened. And so I had no clue that they
were, you know, I had no clue that my father was, you know,
part of this. So there's that aspect.
There's the aspect of, you know,people in Clinton really weren't
keen on talking about it either.Yeah, that's what I wanted to
(10:28):
ask you because it's one thing to read about something that
happened somewhere else. And then when you live in a
place where these events unfolded, I was going to ask you
what's been the growth or the acclamation of the town to what
happened. I mean, you've got parents and
grandparents who were alive whenthis happened.
Yeah. So it's a tough one to to kind
(10:48):
of parse through in terms of when we talk about history,
right. Most people are very excited to
talk about their local history. The, you know, they're very
proud. Oh, we had the, you know, I
don't know, we were the first place to invent the corn dog,
right? Like we were the first, you
know, those kind of fun, you know, little things.
We were a part of this really important battle, right?
(11:10):
This is a little bit of a tougher history, right?
So we do have these 12 kids who desegregated, which is very
important. And there's a lot of people who
take pride in the fact that thathappened.
However, the way in which this event kind of remained a pox on
the town is part of the reason why the story wasn't told.
(11:31):
After all of this happens, you know, Clinton gets kind of a bad
reputation. It's seen as this racist
backwater Hick town that, you know, they were so against
desegregation that they had to send the National Guard, right?
That they were so against desegregation that this town
blew up their school. And so Clinton really didn't
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want to talk about this either. They were they wanted to get
past this to the point that nobody talked about Clinton is,
you know, the Clinton desegregation crisis place.
They wanted to be known on for other reasons.
So today, you know, it's still asensitive topic for some people
(12:15):
are very defensive in my experience of the way in which
they want to look at this story.So a lot of people look at this
story and they want to believe that this is a story about how
the city of Clinton regular everyday individuals, you know,
the the town as a whole, you know, was this anti racist, you
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know, wonderful place where, youknow, it was the outsiders who
came in and didn't caused all the trouble and anything that
kind of any new piece of information that comes in and
pushes back on that theory, right.
People get very defensive about people go, well, no, that's not
really how it went. That's that's not no, that
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doesn't seem right. We were it was all the
outsiders, right. Yeah, So and then there's other
people who, you know, unfortunately view this center
from a pretty negative lens, right?
And they go this, you know, theysay we just need to move past
this. We just need to forget about
this. Let's move on.
(13:22):
We don't need to talk about whathappened here.
We don't need to, you know, havean entire museum devoted to it.
Why, like, move on, get over it,right?
I think that there's a lot more folks who are here in town who
do care about this history. I think the vast majority of
folks in this town believe that the center is a good thing and
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love the stuff that we do and wetalk about.
But, you know, there are folks here in Clinton and in Anderson
County who they don't want to hear this history, they don't
want to hear about, black history they don't want to hear
about. And it's a very small minority.
But, you know, the folks who were causing trouble here in
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Clinton during this time were a minority of people, right?
About 20 to 30, 3% of people were were causing the trouble.
I'd say that it's it's pretty close to that to this day still.
Whenever I come to the museum, Igravitate over to the display of
Reverend Paul Turner. Yeah, correspondence that was
(14:24):
going on at the time. And of course, he was passed to
a First Baptist Church, one of my my predecessors, years ago,
of course. Could you speak to his
involvement in integrating the high school and maybe some of
the involvement of the other ministers or business leaders
even? Yeah.
So, you know, Reverend Turner issomeone that we talk about, you
know, quite a bit here. He was, You know, when we talk
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about allies to activism, right,What it means to use your
privilege, you know, and I thinkthat there's a lot of well
meaning people, but, you know, it often comes down to when the
rubber hits the road, what are you doing, right?
Are you talking the talk or are you walking on the walk?
And Reverend Turner was someone who I think walked the walk
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quite a bit. And so his part of the story
here is that in December, the parents of the Clinton 12th had
pulled their kids out of school.So they pulled their kids out of
school because they felt that itwasn't safe.
There wasn't enough being done to keep, you know, the Clinton
12 safe. And so parents did exactly what
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you would expect parents to do, pull them.
I'm not having my kid get, you know, murdered or maimed because
of this. We expect, you know, we expect
more. Reverend Turner kind of catches
wind of this. And, you know, he's, he's an
important guy here in Clinton. And so he calls up the Clinton
12 parents and he says it's of the utmost importance that your
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kids go to school. This is a tremendous moment.
And we need to make sure that they continue to go to school.
I will personally walk them to school and make sure that they
get there safely. A number of the parents take
them up on it, right? So that first day when he walks
these kids down, things go pretty well, right?
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He's he's walks him down, drops him off and then he goes to make
his way, you know, to work back at, you know, First Baptist.
And when it happens is he's walking he a group of men and I
believe one woman jump him, right?
So they, I believe it was 5 people who who jumped Reverend
Turner. Now he's a he's a big dude.
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He's like 226 foot 1. I believe he's 33 at the time.
Big solid guy and five people jump him and they beat him up
pretty good. He managed to knock one of them
out in self-defense. But you know, he took quite a
beating. And you know, I, I think you're
maybe familiar with this idea that, you know, it's very easy
(16:59):
to be a good Christian when things are going well, right?
I can stand by, you know, the Bible verse and I can I can
stand by my religion when thingsare going well.
But when I'm faced with these sorts of problems, right.
How do we deal with how do we how do we treat other human
beings? How do we how do we, you know,
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stand up for those who can't? And it's going to be very
uncomfortable, right? I feel like we're probably on
the same page. We know what our religious
teachings tell us how we should treat other human beings.
But it's a hard thing to do. And so, you know, the real
solidness comes from, you know, when are you a good Christian
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when things are tough. And so Reverend Turner gets beat
up pretty badly. He's got you know, there are
people who you beat me up on my I'm walking away.
I I don't know how I would reactif I were in his shoes.
I know how I hope I would react,but there's a lot of people who
would walk away. Reverend Turner double S down.
He gets up on the pulpit the next day and or the that
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following Sunday and he he preaches and he says, you know,
these kids have a moral right toattend their school, which at
this point had never really beenargued.
Most of the arguments came from a very passive standpoint of,
you know, oh, this is the law, you know, the loss that we have
to do this. So we're going to follow.
(18:27):
I don't know if I agree with it,but I'm a law abiding citizen.
We're we, we followed the rule of the land, right?
And really by saying that it takes the target off of your
back, right? I'm not saying that this is OK,
but my hands are tied. Reverend Paul Turner goes out
and says these kids have a moralright.
So it's not someone else decidesthat this is OK.
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It's no, I stand by this right. I I think that these kids
deserve the right to go to this school.
So he double S down and he continues to walk the kids to
school. The following week when school
resumes and this time a lawyer, Sidney Davis and one of his
folks from his church, Leo Burnett, they decide, hey, we're
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going to walk with Reverend Turner as well.
We're going to walk with the Clinton 12.
It's time for us to to, you know, walk the walk as well.
It's a really fascinating kind of story.
You know, it's a tough part of the story because, you know,
some of the things that ReverendTurner had to, you know, grapple
with because of this is tremendously difficult, right?
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Some of those people that, you know, were causing trouble who
were, you know, espousing this, you know, this racist hatred,
right, who were doing everythingthey could to to harm the the
Clinton 12, right. Those were some of the people
who were sitting in his, you know, congregation just a couple
months prior who subsequently left when they felt that
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Reverend Turner wasn't, you know, being hateful enough.
Wild but. Yeah.
Well, shortly after we moved here, I think there was an
anniversary or a gathering of the Clinton 12 and Lori and I, I
guess to represent or commemorate the walk of Reverend
Turner. We we walked down that that hill
to the school. Wouldn't recommend it.
(20:15):
Yeah. And you mentioned this because
you said at the time the relatives did not really know
what the the students went through.
Have there been any books or articles that these 12 have
written? Since the time.
To share their stories. Yes.
So one of them, Joanne Ellen Boyce, she wrote about her
experience with this author, DebLevy, and it's a book called
(20:39):
This Promise of Change. And she wanted to write a book
that adults could enjoy, but also could reach a younger age
group, right? So she tells her story through
poetry, right? So she writes these poems that
that kind of talk about what that experience was like for
her. You know, for the most part,
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none of the other, you know, members of the Clinton 12 have
really kind of talked about their experience widely, you
know, in the sense that they've,you know, written books or
anything. They have given interviews.
A number of them. Some of them still refuse to
this day. And, and quite frankly, I don't
blame them. It's a tough it That's a tough
traumatic event that a person isto go through.
(21:24):
To not want to talk about it, tonot want to relive that or
rehash that is a completely normal human thing.
When I ask you about something else, but before I leave the
topic of the Clinton 12, are there any enduring lessons to be
taken from these stories? And I know it and some people
would say it happened a long time ago, but you could also
make a case that it really didn't happen all that long ago.
(21:46):
Yeah, do. You find there any lessons when
you have students come to the museum and they look at the
exhibits and everything. What kind of?
Oh, gosh, I think I think there's a lot of different
takeaways from this museum that,you know, students have taken
away. We can look at members of the
(22:07):
Clinton 12, right? And the courage that they had,
right? I, you know, I think we talked
about this when I first moved here.
I, I, I joked with you that, youknow, in essence, you know, you
and I do the same thing. We interpret what it means to be
human. I just use, you know, newspaper
(22:30):
articles and books that are a little bit more recent.
But I got. It you know, I, you know, you
look at members of the Clinton 12 and you see the, the courage,
right? You see what it's like to, you
know, persevere while facing your fears, right?
So, so that's one big take away.We, we also realize, you know,
(22:54):
that the difficulties that people face when they have to
make tough decisions, right? And I hope that people walk away
when when they come visit the center and especially students,
I want them to know that, you know, in a lot of these
instances, you know, these are, you know, it's OK to make a
decision that's best for you, right?
(23:15):
Because these are real people making real decisions in real
time. So what we do celebrate, you
know, Bobby Kane for graduating.And we know that his parents,
you know, continued to, they said, you got to keep going to
the school, right? You don't get to quit Clinton
High School. And we do celebrate Bobby Kane
and his family for it. Do, you know, we also recognize
(23:38):
that, you know, for other kids, you know, like Joanne's family,
like they made a decision that was right for their family and
they're not worse because of it,right?
They didn't feel that this was asafe place for them, right?
They, they felt the economic burden of, you know, being, you
know, part of the family of a Clinton 12 member.
(23:58):
So, you know, we, we, we hope people take that away.
And then, you know, I think for a lot of the folks, it, it comes
back to this idea of what it means to to be an actual ally.
Like, how do we, how do we show up for those that we care about
right in, in, in what it means to care about someone?
(24:21):
Remember, I talked to Diane Nash, I met Diane Nash a number
of years ago. And for those of you who don't
know, she was a member of the Civil rights movement pretty
high up there. She was like, you know #2
behind, you know, John Lewis, she was big deal.
And it's Nick, this Student Nonviolent Coordinating
(24:41):
Committee. And, you know, she talked about
her experience and she said, youknow, one of the things that,
you know, we often talked about was the idea of a gothic love,
right, which was this idea that we, we love those, we love
everybody. We love the people who are
within the movement. We love people who are outside
the movement. And she said, and we loved you
(25:02):
guys, even though you hadn't been born, if we knew that you,
you know, you guys were going tobe coming after us.
And so, you know, the things we did, we did out of love.
And even in instances of those who were, you know, awful to
them, they still found ways to love them.
And so I think when it comes down to it is, you know, one of
(25:23):
the big takeaways is how do we show up?
How do we love each other? How do we help out those who
need help? How do we stand up and do more
right? We look at some of these, you
know, allies like Reverend Turner.
And, you know, this is a man whohad power, who had standing
within his community. And he he, you know, stuck his
(25:43):
neck out. He paid a little.
He paid a price for doing it, but it was the right thing to
do, you know, So I hope that people walk away with this idea
of I can do more. I can find ways to to better my
community. I could find ways to stand up
for those who can't, how I can advocate more because I do
(26:03):
believe that's a big part of this story, you know, because
apathy is arguably worse than anything else.
And for people who say, you know, I really hate this, but
it's just kind of out of my hands.
There's nothing I can really do about it.
Like, that's arguably worse, right?
That's that's a really tough thing.
And so I want the students and Iwant adults who, who come
(26:25):
through this museum to realize, OK, I've learned quite a bit,
but now I'm ready to use what I've learned to energize me for
my next steps. How can I make my community
better? I've.
Got a few more minutes with you and I know a lot of your work is
with education there at the museum and we're recording this.
I'm talking to you right before Juneteenth and we talked about,
(26:48):
you know, the weather is one of those things we can't control.
Necessarily, but. I think most people would would
know about the Emancipation Proclamation from Abraham
Lincoln and I've got January 1, 1863.
But for those who don't know andand it was signed into federal
holiday in 2021. Can you tell us a little bit
(27:08):
about Juneteenth and its importance?
Yeah, so you know when we talk about the Emancipation
Proclamation, right? 19 or 1863, Abraham Lincoln
signs it and largely the Emancipation Proclamation when
it was written did nothing. The ongoing I don't want to see,
I don't know if it's a joke, butyou know, it's it freed nobody
(27:32):
essentially, right, because the Emancipation Proclamation
excluded Northern slaveholding states, and it only affected
southern slaveholding states whodidn't recognize his power,
right? They were part of the
Confederacy, so they didn't recognize his power.
So none of those slaves were freed.
None of the northern border states who own, you know, with
(27:53):
slaves still or enslaved people,none of them had to end that.
So we don't get the enforcement of that until after the Civil
War or 1865. And as that news spreads, right,
(28:14):
is the enforcement in the 13th Amendment.
And as it starts to spread, we get these celebrations that
happen. People now have their freedom.
And so Juneteenth is really a celebration that comes to be
because it is the last place West.
So it would have been Galveston,TX happened on June 19th where
(28:39):
they finally, a couple months after the war was over, they,
you know, the, the word got to them.
A general, I believe, kind of came through and said this, this
is the way it goes there. You know, no more, you know,
you're not allowed to, you know,keep enslaved people.
The idea of slavery is now abolished.
(29:02):
And so they, you know, the, the community in Galveston really
celebrated because it was, this is the, you know, the last leg.
We know Texas has finally been, you know, has finally ended
slavery. We were the last state to do so.
So we celebrate. And so it was a celebration that
(29:25):
started pretty locally in Galveston for a number of years.
As the years have gone on, the celebration has kind of grown a
bit, right? So we see a a growth in, in
people who decide they want to celebrate it, right?
It's a very big moment in American history.
It's a very big moment in black history.
(29:47):
And so yes, we want to celebratethe, you know, abolishment of
slavery, the ability for us to be freed individual.
So it slowly starts to to gain alot of steam and it becomes a,
you know, it became a federal holiday in 2021, which I, you
know, not to take too much credit here, but you know, we
(30:09):
announced that we were doing Juneteenth months before Joe
Biden in the presidential administration.
So I'd like to think that they caught wind that Green McAdoo
was doing their first one and sothey were like, well if Green
McAdoo is doing it then. Absolutely.
We should do it too. Yeah, well.
(30:30):
What would you like folks to know?
I've got one or two other questions for you and you've
been great, Adam. I just appreciate your time.
Why would you want people to know about Green McAdoo?
The center, yeah, you know well.Who was green McAdoo?
I don't think I asked you that. Let's get to that because I see
you smiling and let's let's hit that.
Yeah, so, so Green McAdoo was a former Buffalo Soldier who lived
(30:54):
in Clinton. So he served 20 years helping
settle the, you know, western frontier.
And when he came back, he workedas a custodian for the Anderson
County Courthouse. And he was very involved in, you
know, encouraging civic engagement for for black folks.
He himself was black. And so after he passes away,
(31:15):
Anderson County decides to rename the Clinton Collared
School, which had been built in the 19 E as part of a New Deal
project. They rename it from the Clinton
Colored School to the Green McAdoo School.
And so that's how we get our namesake.
A lot of students, a lot of folks went to this school when
it was a school. It was the segregated black
(31:36):
school here in Clinton. But to get to the what was the
other question? Now what?
Would you like to know about theCultural Center itself?
You know, I'd, I'd like the one thing I would like for people to
know about this center is like, it's OK to to come in with a
very open mind, right? That it's OK to have your
(31:58):
notions or your preconceived notions kind of broken.
It's OK to, you know, learn moreand challenge your thoughts and
be wrong in some cases. I know that me personally, I've
been wrong maybe thousands of times, and I know a lot of other
people have, too. But in those instances, it's a
(32:19):
really amazing opportunity for growth, right?
What do we do with the new knowledge that we have?
And this is really what our center allows people to do is it
gives you an opportunity to growin some senses.
This is a place for everybody. This is a place for people to
ask questions. I'm happy to yap and talk about
(32:39):
any questions that people have. You know, I this is a very safe
environment to have tough questions, right?
Whether you're a young kid who's, you know, not afraid to
ask me why we had slavery or whether you're an adult who's
who asks what this story means of, you know, today, how it
(33:02):
still affects us today, how it, you know, might affect the
movement, right? How we continue this story or,
you know, even what can I do now, right?
What I learned all of this, whatcan I do to to affect change?
We're happy to have those conversations.
And it's not a, you know, me just I mean, there's a pretty
good amount of lecturing. I do talk quite a bit.
(33:23):
I have a lot to say about this story.
Y'all haven't figured this one out but but.
Of course, we live, when you live somewhere, you tend to take
things for granted. But what a tremendous resource
we have here with the center. And I'm, I'm grateful that that
we've been able to connect obviously since our time here.
And I want to let you out of here on this one.
(33:46):
And I think you may have alludedto it.
What keeps you motivated and engaged in this work?
Because it seems like the trajectory of your life has been
telling the story and you find yourself now, this is where you
are right now. What?
What kind of keeps you going? Yeah.
So I think I think that there's two big pieces to it.
The first one is it's just that,you know, I think the history is
(34:09):
incredibly interesting. It just, these stories are
incredibly interesting and I think that they give you the
chance to understand what it means to be a person, right?
How to be a good person, how to be a courageous person, right?
How do we, how do we learn from these stories?
They're all here. We've got so many stories and
(34:31):
there's so many avenues to be able to find those answers,
right? You can find it here at the
Green McAdoo. You could find it at the Puppet
Museum in Georgia, right? But it's through history that we
get a better understanding of ourselves.
And so I think that that's a bigpiece of it and why I I'm so
energized by this work. I think the other piece of it is
(34:53):
that, you know, this particular story, right, civil rights was
something that really kind of grabbed me when I was, you know,
a young person and something about these stories about the
struggle, right? The idea of when you look me in
the eye, do you see my humanity,right.
(35:14):
That's the basis of, you know, the civil rights movement.
When you look me in the eye, do you see my humanity?
And just found that to be one ofthe most heartbreaking and
beautiful questions. And it really comes back to the
what it means to be human, right.
And so I, I'm really interested in the civil rights movement.
(35:35):
And I feel as though, you know, we owe it.
We owe it to those who came before us, very similarly to the
idea of a Gothic club that DianeNash talked about.
We owe it to, you know, I owe itto the people who come after me
to do everything I can to make this a wonderful place.
(35:55):
And I think that you can learn that in this story.
And I think the people who livedthrough this, I have so, so much
love and respect for them. I feel so grateful and honored
that I get to share this story. I think it's a tremendous
responsibility. And you know, you do it for
them, right? You do it for them.
(36:16):
You do it for all the people that that worked so hard to, you
know, get the rights that we getto enjoy today.
And, you know, we fight, we fight for them, we continue to
fight for them and we always fight for them and we never give
up because they never did either.
And it's important. So it's that's kind of the, the
(36:38):
reason that I, I, I get so energized and stick with it.
Well, that's a that's a good word for us to finish on.
And Adam, I appreciate so much your time and with us today.
And, and for those of you who have been tuned in to listen, we
appreciate you're being with us.And as always, thanks for
listening. Yeah, thank you for having.
Hey everyone, thanks for joiningin.
I'm very excited about our guesttoday.
We're going to be talking to himand listening to Adam Belt.
Adam is the museum director of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center
here in Clinton, TN. Adam, how you doing?
I'm doing great. How about you?
It's good to see you and I know the others aren't able to do
that, but I am glad to see you. I'm just wanted to ask, can you
(00:22):
tell us how long you have been here at the museum and can you
talk a little bit about your path and how you got here?
Yeah. So I have been at the Green
McAdoo Cultural Center here in Clinton since I think I moved to
Clinton. January 1st of 2021 was the was
the day that I landed here in Clinton and I started like 2
(00:45):
days later. So it has been about a year and
a half or no, I'm sorry, 4 1/2 years.
Jeez Louise. Was that around COVID time to
was that did you have to deal with COVID in any way?
Yeah, we caught, we got the tailend of COVID here at the center.
But about the time that I started, we got the vaccines
started rolling out and everything started to kind of
(01:08):
get back to to a new normal. That's awesome.
Yeah, where? Were you before here?
Yeah, so I've been in a lot of different places.
So originally I'm from the Chicago suburbs of Wauconda, IL
I got my degree in history at the University of Hartford in
Connecticut. And then I moved back to Chicago
(01:29):
and I did some work with the Adler Planetarium before going
down to Springfield, IL to get my master's degree in public
history in there. I, you know, did a bunch of work
with a couple of different places, but the main one was I
was with the Park Service, National Park Service, and I
worked at Abraham Lincoln's, theLincoln Home, National Historic
(01:49):
Site, Abraham Lincoln's home when he lived in Springfield,
IL. And so I was there for about two
years. I did a brief cup of coffee with
the White House for the NationalChristmas tree lighting and then
I went to Corpus Christi, TX to work at Padre Island National
Seashore. And then that gets me back up to
(02:12):
Clinton in January 1st of 2021. Wow.
But did I read that it says you were part of the International
Storytelling Center? Yeah.
So we did a actually was first couple months that I was here at
this center that the International Storytelling
Center in Jonesboro reached out to us and me to see if we would
(02:37):
take part in a program where we talked about history and we
talked about kind of the storiesthat we, you know, black stories
that we tell here in East Tennessee and how we talk about
them. So I was really fortunate that
early on I got to kind of be a part of that program and it was
like an online program where they did like 4 different shows.
(03:00):
I don't know if you want to callout that, but.
I got you. So I was just in one, but that
put me on the International Storyteller Center list.
Well, I was checking out the website and Green McAdoo, of
course, we know this, those of us who live here, it says that
it is devoted to honoring and telling the history of the
Clinton 12. I know you've told the story a
(03:21):
number of times, but for those who don't know, could you tell
us what that is about? Yeah, so, you know, our whole
center is, is really devoted to telling their story.
The Clinton 12 were the first 12students first.
Geez, sorry, let me, I don't know.
Whoopsies. All right.
They were the, so the Clinton 12, the 1st 12 black students
(03:45):
in, you know, the American Southto desegregate a school by court
order. So it was a really, really kind
of big moment for educational rights for black history.
You know, this was the first time that the federal government
came in through a court order and told a southern segregated
(04:06):
town that, hey, we live in a post run versus board world.
And that means you have to desegregate you over school.
And at this time, you know, pretty much every school, there
were three that I, I know of that had desegregated at this
point in time in formerly Confederate states.
And so most of these towns and school boards across the, the
(04:31):
entire South were, were holding out.
They, they didn't want to desegregate.
And so this court order comes in, comes to Clinton, TN and
says, you know, you have to desegregate by the upcoming
school year. And so really what happens is it
just creates this Crucible within this town.
You know, it's a story of how the Clinton 12 kind of deal with
(04:54):
being the first to do so, right?How it is to desegregate a
school and what sort of challenges they faced.
And we see a lot of kind of personal kind of one off stories
of like this is what happened here in Clinton.
But you know, there's also kind of where this fits in the
(05:15):
broader sense of the movement aswell, right?
So a lot of the difficulties andchallenges that the Clinton 12
faced were also challenges that,you know, students who
desegregated schools felt acrossthe country.
And so really we use the Clinton12 as as an example, right, to
(05:37):
to shine a particular light on it.
And and hopefully people can walk away realizing, you know,
that this is, yes, this happenedhere in Clinton, but there's a
Clinton 12 in every school in America.
And so just being able to have that conversation, it's also a
story of how the town, the really, you know, the adults in
(05:59):
this town respond to this court order, right?
How do the white citizens here in Clinton respond?
How do the black citizens here in Clinton respond, right?
What sort of things happen because of this, you know,
desegregation? And so it does get pretty messy.
I don't want to, you know, not to, not to spoil the whole
(06:21):
story, but it's not all holding hands in Kumbaya, that's what.
I'm saying because there was some violence, obviously the
school was bombed. Is that right?
Yes, yes, indeed you. Know hard stories of tanks
rolling into Clinton. Yeah.
So the first, oh, gosh, what wasit?
So by the end of the first week of desegregation, the National
Guard got called in by the governor of Tennessee at the
(06:43):
time, Frank Clement. And so all of these National
Guardsmen start pulling up into town.
And so there's tanks lining the streets, right?
Driving down regular everyday roads that Clintonians, you
know, use, right? We've got helicopters on the
football field, right? So it was a very tough sight to
(07:03):
see, right? And you see these old pictures
of Clinton, TN, and really you see this slice of Americana.
And I think that, you know, it'ssomeone who works in Clinton and
lived in Clinton, that kind of slice, right?
That idea still exists here in Clinton, right?
It is kind of this all American town, you know, seems kind of
(07:27):
ideal to outsiders. But, you know, you combine that
with the idea of these tanks driving down your street, right?
And so it's a, it's a pretty jarring thing to see.
It wasn't there a book called A Tolerant Little Town.
Yes, I can't. Remember when the author came?
Yes. So we were very fortunate.
I believe it was last year, yearDoctor Rachel Louise Martin came
(07:53):
to or finished her book called AMost Tolerant Little Town.
And she is a fabulous historian.She actually, the way that she
got involved with this particular story was that she
helped us when we first opened. So she was like a student.
She was like some sort of student intern, and part of her
(08:15):
work was to do the oral history here at the center, try and
gather as many oral histories. And so we've got just a big old
book of these conversations thatshe had with folks who were
involved in Clinton, right, who lived here and lived during this
experience, Members of the club,members of the, you know,
(08:35):
faculty of Clinton High School, other students, you know, other
citizens who were just here in the area.
And so she got involved when we first were opening.
And it was just kind of something that stuck with her.
And she felt like there's a bookhere.
Fortunately, she finished it. Yeah.
It's interesting. I've lived here six years and
(08:58):
before I moved here and of course I work here at First
Baptist and I want to maybe mention Reverend Turner a little
bit later, but. Yeah, of course.
I had not not heard of the Clinton 12.
I had heard of the Little Rock 9, but I did not know about the
Clinton 12. And I guess I'm asking, do you
find that unusual or is that kind of consistent with the
story? Yeah, so you're not the only
(09:20):
person who, you know, hadn't heard of the Clinton 12 before
they moved here. I mean, there's still folks who,
you know, live in Tennessee who don't know that this story
exists. And we get plenty of folks
coming through who are like, wow, I can't believe I never
read about this in my school books, right?
And so there's a lot of different reasons for that.
(09:43):
So #1 you know, members of the Clinton 12 really weren't keen
on talking about their experiences, right?
It was a very traumatic experience for them to go
through. And so they weren't really
excited to talk about this, right?
So I've had family members who've told me I had no idea
that my grandmother or my, you know, cousin or whoever was, was
(10:06):
even a part of this. They never talked about what
happened. And so I had no clue that they
were, you know, I had no clue that my father was, you know,
part of this. So there's that aspect.
There's the aspect of, you know,people in Clinton really weren't
keen on talking about it either.Yeah, that's what I wanted to
(10:28):
ask you because it's one thing to read about something that
happened somewhere else. And then when you live in a
place where these events unfolded, I was going to ask you
what's been the growth or the acclamation of the town to what
happened. I mean, you've got parents and
grandparents who were alive whenthis happened.
Yeah. So it's a tough one to to kind
(10:48):
of parse through in terms of when we talk about history,
right. Most people are very excited to
talk about their local history. The, you know, they're very
proud. Oh, we had the, you know, I
don't know, we were the first place to invent the corn dog,
right? Like we were the first, you
know, those kind of fun, you know, little things.
We were a part of this really important battle, right?
(11:10):
This is a little bit of a tougher history, right?
So we do have these 12 kids who desegregated, which is very
important. And there's a lot of people who
take pride in the fact that thathappened.
However, the way in which this event kind of remained a pox on
the town is part of the reason why the story wasn't told.
(11:31):
After all of this happens, you know, Clinton gets kind of a bad
reputation. It's seen as this racist
backwater Hick town that, you know, they were so against
desegregation that they had to send the National Guard, right?
That they were so against desegregation that this town
blew up their school. And so Clinton really didn't
(11:54):
want to talk about this either. They were they wanted to get
past this to the point that nobody talked about Clinton is,
you know, the Clinton desegregation crisis place.
They wanted to be known on for other reasons.
So today, you know, it's still asensitive topic for some people
(12:15):
are very defensive in my experience of the way in which
they want to look at this story.So a lot of people look at this
story and they want to believe that this is a story about how
the city of Clinton regular everyday individuals, you know,
the the town as a whole, you know, was this anti racist, you
(12:38):
know, wonderful place where, youknow, it was the outsiders who
came in and didn't caused all the trouble and anything that
kind of any new piece of information that comes in and
pushes back on that theory, right.
People get very defensive about people go, well, no, that's not
really how it went. That's that's not no, that
(13:01):
doesn't seem right. We were it was all the
outsiders, right. Yeah, So and then there's other
people who, you know, unfortunately view this center
from a pretty negative lens, right?
And they go this, you know, theysay we just need to move past
this. We just need to forget about
this. Let's move on.
(13:22):
We don't need to talk about whathappened here.
We don't need to, you know, havean entire museum devoted to it.
Why, like, move on, get over it,right?
I think that there's a lot more folks who are here in town who
do care about this history. I think the vast majority of
folks in this town believe that the center is a good thing and
(13:42):
love the stuff that we do and wetalk about.
But, you know, there are folks here in Clinton and in Anderson
County who they don't want to hear this history, they don't
want to hear about, black history they don't want to hear
about. And it's a very small minority.
But, you know, the folks who were causing trouble here in
(14:03):
Clinton during this time were a minority of people, right?
About 20 to 30, 3% of people were were causing the trouble.
I'd say that it's it's pretty close to that to this day still.
Whenever I come to the museum, Igravitate over to the display of
Reverend Paul Turner. Yeah, correspondence that was
(14:24):
going on at the time. And of course, he was passed to
a First Baptist Church, one of my my predecessors, years ago,
of course. Could you speak to his
involvement in integrating the high school and maybe some of
the involvement of the other ministers or business leaders
even? Yeah.
So, you know, Reverend Turner issomeone that we talk about, you
know, quite a bit here. He was, You know, when we talk
(14:47):
about allies to activism, right,What it means to use your
privilege, you know, and I thinkthat there's a lot of well
meaning people, but, you know, it often comes down to when the
rubber hits the road, what are you doing, right?
Are you talking the talk or are you walking on the walk?
And Reverend Turner was someone who I think walked the walk
(15:08):
quite a bit. And so his part of the story
here is that in December, the parents of the Clinton 12th had
pulled their kids out of school.So they pulled their kids out of
school because they felt that itwasn't safe.
There wasn't enough being done to keep, you know, the Clinton
12 safe. And so parents did exactly what
(15:29):
you would expect parents to do, pull them.
I'm not having my kid get, you know, murdered or maimed because
of this. We expect, you know, we expect
more. Reverend Turner kind of catches
wind of this. And, you know, he's, he's an
important guy here in Clinton. And so he calls up the Clinton
12 parents and he says it's of the utmost importance that your
(15:54):
kids go to school. This is a tremendous moment.
And we need to make sure that they continue to go to school.
I will personally walk them to school and make sure that they
get there safely. A number of the parents take
them up on it, right? So that first day when he walks
these kids down, things go pretty well, right?
(16:15):
He's he's walks him down, drops him off and then he goes to make
his way, you know, to work back at, you know, First Baptist.
And when it happens is he's walking he a group of men and I
believe one woman jump him, right?
So they, I believe it was 5 people who who jumped Reverend
Turner. Now he's a he's a big dude.
(16:35):
He's like 226 foot 1. I believe he's 33 at the time.
Big solid guy and five people jump him and they beat him up
pretty good. He managed to knock one of them
out in self-defense. But you know, he took quite a
beating. And you know, I, I think you're
maybe familiar with this idea that, you know, it's very easy
(16:59):
to be a good Christian when things are going well, right?
I can stand by, you know, the Bible verse and I can I can
stand by my religion when thingsare going well.
But when I'm faced with these sorts of problems, right.
How do we deal with how do we how do we treat other human
beings? How do we how do we, you know,
(17:21):
stand up for those who can't? And it's going to be very
uncomfortable, right? I feel like we're probably on
the same page. We know what our religious
teachings tell us how we should treat other human beings.
But it's a hard thing to do. And so, you know, the real
solidness comes from, you know, when are you a good Christian
(17:43):
when things are tough. And so Reverend Turner gets beat
up pretty badly. He's got you know, there are
people who you beat me up on my I'm walking away.
I I don't know how I would reactif I were in his shoes.
I know how I hope I would react,but there's a lot of people who
would walk away. Reverend Turner double S down.
He gets up on the pulpit the next day and or the that
(18:06):
following Sunday and he he preaches and he says, you know,
these kids have a moral right toattend their school, which at
this point had never really beenargued.
Most of the arguments came from a very passive standpoint of,
you know, oh, this is the law, you know, the loss that we have
to do this. So we're going to follow.
(18:27):
I don't know if I agree with it,but I'm a law abiding citizen.
We're we, we followed the rule of the land, right?
And really by saying that it takes the target off of your
back, right? I'm not saying that this is OK,
but my hands are tied. Reverend Paul Turner goes out
and says these kids have a moralright.
So it's not someone else decidesthat this is OK.
(18:48):
It's no, I stand by this right. I I think that these kids
deserve the right to go to this school.
So he double S down and he continues to walk the kids to
school. The following week when school
resumes and this time a lawyer, Sidney Davis and one of his
folks from his church, Leo Burnett, they decide, hey, we're
(19:09):
going to walk with Reverend Turner as well.
We're going to walk with the Clinton 12.
It's time for us to to, you know, walk the walk as well.
It's a really fascinating kind of story.
You know, it's a tough part of the story because, you know,
some of the things that ReverendTurner had to, you know, grapple
with because of this is tremendously difficult, right?
(19:31):
Some of those people that, you know, were causing trouble who
were, you know, espousing this, you know, this racist hatred,
right, who were doing everythingthey could to to harm the the
Clinton 12, right. Those were some of the people
who were sitting in his, you know, congregation just a couple
months prior who subsequently left when they felt that
(19:55):
Reverend Turner wasn't, you know, being hateful enough.
Wild but. Yeah.
Well, shortly after we moved here, I think there was an
anniversary or a gathering of the Clinton 12 and Lori and I, I
guess to represent or commemorate the walk of Reverend
Turner. We we walked down that that hill
to the school. Wouldn't recommend it.
(20:15):
Yeah. And you mentioned this because
you said at the time the relatives did not really know
what the the students went through.
Have there been any books or articles that these 12 have
written? Since the time.
To share their stories. Yes.
So one of them, Joanne Ellen Boyce, she wrote about her
experience with this author, DebLevy, and it's a book called
(20:39):
This Promise of Change. And she wanted to write a book
that adults could enjoy, but also could reach a younger age
group, right? So she tells her story through
poetry, right? So she writes these poems that
that kind of talk about what that experience was like for
her. You know, for the most part,
(21:00):
none of the other, you know, members of the Clinton 12 have
really kind of talked about their experience widely, you
know, in the sense that they've,you know, written books or
anything. They have given interviews.
A number of them. Some of them still refuse to
this day. And, and quite frankly, I don't
blame them. It's a tough it That's a tough
traumatic event that a person isto go through.
(21:24):
To not want to talk about it, tonot want to relive that or
rehash that is a completely normal human thing.
When I ask you about something else, but before I leave the
topic of the Clinton 12, are there any enduring lessons to be
taken from these stories? And I know it and some people
would say it happened a long time ago, but you could also
make a case that it really didn't happen all that long ago.
(21:46):
Yeah, do. You find there any lessons when
you have students come to the museum and they look at the
exhibits and everything. What kind of?
Oh, gosh, I think I think there's a lot of different
takeaways from this museum that,you know, students have taken
away. We can look at members of the
(22:07):
Clinton 12, right? And the courage that they had,
right? I, you know, I think we talked
about this when I first moved here.
I, I, I joked with you that, youknow, in essence, you know, you
and I do the same thing. We interpret what it means to be
human. I just use, you know, newspaper
(22:30):
articles and books that are a little bit more recent.
But I got. It you know, I, you know, you
look at members of the Clinton 12 and you see the, the courage,
right? You see what it's like to, you
know, persevere while facing your fears, right?
So, so that's one big take away.We, we also realize, you know,
(22:54):
that the difficulties that people face when they have to
make tough decisions, right? And I hope that people walk away
when when they come visit the center and especially students,
I want them to know that, you know, in a lot of these
instances, you know, these are, you know, it's OK to make a
decision that's best for you, right?
(23:15):
Because these are real people making real decisions in real
time. So what we do celebrate, you
know, Bobby Kane for graduating.And we know that his parents,
you know, continued to, they said, you got to keep going to
the school, right? You don't get to quit Clinton
High School. And we do celebrate Bobby Kane
and his family for it. Do, you know, we also recognize
(23:38):
that, you know, for other kids, you know, like Joanne's family,
like they made a decision that was right for their family and
they're not worse because of it,right?
They didn't feel that this was asafe place for them, right?
They, they felt the economic burden of, you know, being, you
know, part of the family of a Clinton 12 member.
(23:58):
So, you know, we, we, we hope people take that away.
And then, you know, I think for a lot of the folks, it, it comes
back to this idea of what it means to to be an actual ally.
Like, how do we, how do we show up for those that we care about
right in, in, in what it means to care about someone?
(24:21):
Remember, I talked to Diane Nash, I met Diane Nash a number
of years ago. And for those of you who don't
know, she was a member of the Civil rights movement pretty
high up there. She was like, you know #2
behind, you know, John Lewis, she was big deal.
And it's Nick, this Student Nonviolent Coordinating
(24:41):
Committee. And, you know, she talked about
her experience and she said, youknow, one of the things that,
you know, we often talked about was the idea of a gothic love,
right, which was this idea that we, we love those, we love
everybody. We love the people who are
within the movement. We love people who are outside
the movement. And she said, and we loved you
(25:02):
guys, even though you hadn't been born, if we knew that you,
you know, you guys were going tobe coming after us.
And so, you know, the things we did, we did out of love.
And even in instances of those who were, you know, awful to
them, they still found ways to love them.
And so I think when it comes down to it is, you know, one of
(25:23):
the big takeaways is how do we show up?
How do we love each other? How do we help out those who
need help? How do we stand up and do more
right? We look at some of these, you
know, allies like Reverend Turner.
And, you know, this is a man whohad power, who had standing
within his community. And he he, you know, stuck his
(25:43):
neck out. He paid a little.
He paid a price for doing it, but it was the right thing to
do, you know, So I hope that people walk away with this idea
of I can do more. I can find ways to to better my
community. I could find ways to stand up
for those who can't, how I can advocate more because I do
(26:03):
believe that's a big part of this story, you know, because
apathy is arguably worse than anything else.
And for people who say, you know, I really hate this, but
it's just kind of out of my hands.
There's nothing I can really do about it.
Like, that's arguably worse, right?
That's that's a really tough thing.
And so I want the students and Iwant adults who, who come
(26:25):
through this museum to realize, OK, I've learned quite a bit,
but now I'm ready to use what I've learned to energize me for
my next steps. How can I make my community
better? I've.
Got a few more minutes with you and I know a lot of your work is
with education there at the museum and we're recording this.
I'm talking to you right before Juneteenth and we talked about,
(26:48):
you know, the weather is one of those things we can't control.
Necessarily, but. I think most people would would
know about the Emancipation Proclamation from Abraham
Lincoln and I've got January 1, 1863.
But for those who don't know andand it was signed into federal
holiday in 2021. Can you tell us a little bit
(27:08):
about Juneteenth and its importance?
Yeah, so you know when we talk about the Emancipation
Proclamation, right? 19 or 1863, Abraham Lincoln
signs it and largely the Emancipation Proclamation when
it was written did nothing. The ongoing I don't want to see,
I don't know if it's a joke, butyou know, it's it freed nobody
(27:32):
essentially, right, because the Emancipation Proclamation
excluded Northern slaveholding states, and it only affected
southern slaveholding states whodidn't recognize his power,
right? They were part of the
Confederacy, so they didn't recognize his power.
So none of those slaves were freed.
None of the northern border states who own, you know, with
(27:53):
slaves still or enslaved people,none of them had to end that.
So we don't get the enforcement of that until after the Civil
War or 1865. And as that news spreads, right,
(28:14):
is the enforcement in the 13th Amendment.
And as it starts to spread, we get these celebrations that
happen. People now have their freedom.
And so Juneteenth is really a celebration that comes to be
because it is the last place West.
So it would have been Galveston,TX happened on June 19th where
(28:39):
they finally, a couple months after the war was over, they,
you know, the, the word got to them.
A general, I believe, kind of came through and said this, this
is the way it goes there. You know, no more, you know,
you're not allowed to, you know,keep enslaved people.
The idea of slavery is now abolished.
(29:02):
And so they, you know, the, the community in Galveston really
celebrated because it was, this is the, you know, the last leg.
We know Texas has finally been, you know, has finally ended
slavery. We were the last state to do so.
So we celebrate. And so it was a celebration that
(29:25):
started pretty locally in Galveston for a number of years.
As the years have gone on, the celebration has kind of grown a
bit, right? So we see a a growth in, in
people who decide they want to celebrate it, right?
It's a very big moment in American history.
It's a very big moment in black history.
(29:47):
And so yes, we want to celebratethe, you know, abolishment of
slavery, the ability for us to be freed individual.
So it slowly starts to to gain alot of steam and it becomes a,
you know, it became a federal holiday in 2021, which I, you
know, not to take too much credit here, but you know, we
(30:09):
announced that we were doing Juneteenth months before Joe
Biden in the presidential administration.
So I'd like to think that they caught wind that Green McAdoo
was doing their first one and sothey were like, well if Green
McAdoo is doing it then. Absolutely.
We should do it too. Yeah, well.
(30:30):
What would you like folks to know?
I've got one or two other questions for you and you've
been great, Adam. I just appreciate your time.
Why would you want people to know about Green McAdoo?
The center, yeah, you know well.Who was green McAdoo?
I don't think I asked you that. Let's get to that because I see
you smiling and let's let's hit that.
Yeah, so, so Green McAdoo was a former Buffalo Soldier who lived
(30:54):
in Clinton. So he served 20 years helping
settle the, you know, western frontier.
And when he came back, he workedas a custodian for the Anderson
County Courthouse. And he was very involved in, you
know, encouraging civic engagement for for black folks.
He himself was black. And so after he passes away,
(31:15):
Anderson County decides to rename the Clinton Collared
School, which had been built in the 19 E as part of a New Deal
project. They rename it from the Clinton
Colored School to the Green McAdoo School.
And so that's how we get our namesake.
A lot of students, a lot of folks went to this school when
it was a school. It was the segregated black
(31:36):
school here in Clinton. But to get to the what was the
other question? Now what?
Would you like to know about theCultural Center itself?
You know, I'd, I'd like the one thing I would like for people to
know about this center is like, it's OK to to come in with a
very open mind, right? That it's OK to have your
(31:58):
notions or your preconceived notions kind of broken.
It's OK to, you know, learn moreand challenge your thoughts and
be wrong in some cases. I know that me personally, I've
been wrong maybe thousands of times, and I know a lot of other
people have, too. But in those instances, it's a
(32:19):
really amazing opportunity for growth, right?
What do we do with the new knowledge that we have?
And this is really what our center allows people to do is it
gives you an opportunity to growin some senses.
This is a place for everybody. This is a place for people to
ask questions. I'm happy to yap and talk about
(32:39):
any questions that people have. You know, I this is a very safe
environment to have tough questions, right?
Whether you're a young kid who's, you know, not afraid to
ask me why we had slavery or whether you're an adult who's
who asks what this story means of, you know, today, how it
(33:02):
still affects us today, how it, you know, might affect the
movement, right? How we continue this story or,
you know, even what can I do now, right?
What I learned all of this, whatcan I do to to affect change?
We're happy to have those conversations.
And it's not a, you know, me just I mean, there's a pretty
good amount of lecturing. I do talk quite a bit.
(33:23):
I have a lot to say about this story.
Y'all haven't figured this one out but but.
Of course, we live, when you live somewhere, you tend to take
things for granted. But what a tremendous resource
we have here with the center. And I'm, I'm grateful that that
we've been able to connect obviously since our time here.
And I want to let you out of here on this one.
(33:46):
And I think you may have alludedto it.
What keeps you motivated and engaged in this work?
Because it seems like the trajectory of your life has been
telling the story and you find yourself now, this is where you
are right now. What?
What kind of keeps you going? Yeah.
So I think I think that there's two big pieces to it.
The first one is it's just that,you know, I think the history is
(34:09):
incredibly interesting. It just, these stories are
incredibly interesting and I think that they give you the
chance to understand what it means to be a person, right?
How to be a good person, how to be a courageous person, right?
How do we, how do we learn from these stories?
They're all here. We've got so many stories and
(34:31):
there's so many avenues to be able to find those answers,
right? You can find it here at the
Green McAdoo. You could find it at the Puppet
Museum in Georgia, right? But it's through history that we
get a better understanding of ourselves.
And so I think that that's a bigpiece of it and why I I'm so
energized by this work. I think the other piece of it is
(34:53):
that, you know, this particular story, right, civil rights was
something that really kind of grabbed me when I was, you know,
a young person and something about these stories about the
struggle, right? The idea of when you look me in
the eye, do you see my humanity,right.
(35:14):
That's the basis of, you know, the civil rights movement.
When you look me in the eye, do you see my humanity?
And just found that to be one ofthe most heartbreaking and
beautiful questions. And it really comes back to the
what it means to be human, right.
And so I, I'm really interested in the civil rights movement.
(35:35):
And I feel as though, you know, we owe it.
We owe it to those who came before us, very similarly to the
idea of a Gothic club that DianeNash talked about.
We owe it to, you know, I owe itto the people who come after me
to do everything I can to make this a wonderful place.
(35:55):
And I think that you can learn that in this story.
And I think the people who livedthrough this, I have so, so much
love and respect for them. I feel so grateful and honored
that I get to share this story. I think it's a tremendous
responsibility. And you know, you do it for
them, right? You do it for them.
(36:16):
You do it for all the people that that worked so hard to, you
know, get the rights that we getto enjoy today.
And, you know, we fight, we fight for them, we continue to
fight for them and we always fight for them and we never give
up because they never did either.
And it's important. So it's that's kind of the, the
(36:38):
reason that I, I, I get so energized and stick with it.
Well, that's a that's a good word for us to finish on.
And Adam, I appreciate so much your time and with us today.
And, and for those of you who have been tuned in to listen, we
appreciate you're being with us.And as always, thanks for
listening. Yeah, thank you for having.
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