Jo Ann Allen Boyce, of the Historic "Clinton 12," Dies at 84

Jo Ann Allen Boyce, a member of the pioneering group of Black students known as the "Clinton 12," has died at age 84. In 1956, Boyce and eleven other teenagers became the first to integrate a public high school in the state of Tennessee. They entered Clinton High School under the protection of the National Guard. Their arrival was met with violent protests from white segregationists. The students faced daily harassment and threats from hostile mobs. The group's courageous action in Clinton, Tennessee, came two years after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling. That decision declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Boyce and her classmates helped enforce that historic ruling. Their bravery marked a crucial early victory in the American civil rights movement.