Jo Ann Crozier Allen Boyce, one of the Clinton 12 who bravely integrated Clinton High School in 1956, passed away Dec. 3, leaving a powerful legacy.
CLINTON, Tenn. — Jo Ann Crozier Allen Boyce passed away on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at the age of 84. She was one of 12 Black students who enrolled at Clinton High School in August of 1956 after a federal court order called for integration in 1954.
"There are only a couple of people in all of the hundreds of oral history interviews I have done in the course of my career that I speak of as being wise women in my life. And she was one of them," Rachel Louise Martin, an author and historian, said.
She was 14 years old at the time she helped integrate the school. It was a tough time for those 12 students, and they faced lots of violence.
"The National Guard ended up having to come to town in order to quell the riots. The school was eventually bombed and completely destroyed. But through it all, the black students continued going to class," Martin said.
Months after enrolling at the school, her family moved to California.
"She went to Los Angeles in December of 1956 and went from riots and suddenly landed in a school that was not just desegregated, but actually integrated. It was a school where students of all races were thriving," Martin said.
But Boyce was more than that one part of her story. She met her husband and raised her family in California, and later had three children and several grandchildren, including the late Disney Channel actor Cameron Boyce.
"She was a loving mother, the fact that she was a loving and doting grandmother, you know, the fact that she was a beautiful singer, the fact that she, from a young age, wanted to become a nurse and ended up accomplishing that,' said Adam Velk, the director of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center.
And she leaves behind a lasting legacy, like the rest of the Clinton 12 and other black students who integrated schools during that time period.
"You walk into Clinton High School, you walk into any high school in America, you get to see that because to get to that point was a tremendous battle," Velk said. "And to see the fruits of that labor still paying off today, still being enjoyed by so many. I think that's really the legacy, and I don't know if we could be more thankful or grateful for the sacrifices that these students made."
There are three members of the Clinton 12 who are still alive — Regina Turner Smith, Minnie Ann Dickey Jones, and Gail Ann Epps Upton. They all still live in East Tennessee.
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