Clinton, Tennessee (December 15, 1941 -February 4, 2021) age 84 yrs

Jo Ann Allen Boyce, one of the original Black students who helped desegregate public schools in the American South as a member of the Clinton 12. Boyce was just 14 when, in 1956, she and 11 other Black teenagers enrolled at Clinton High School, making them among the first to integrate a formerly all-white public high school in the South. The move came just two years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. As tensions escalated, including violent protests involving members of the Ku Klux Klan, the situation became untenable. Near the end of 1956, Boyce and her family relocated to Los Angeles. Only two members of the Clinton 12 ultimately stayed in Clinton to graduate: Bobby Cain (1939–2025) and Gail Ann Epps. Her legacy is commemorated at the Green McAdoo Cultural Center in Clinton, Tennessee, where life-size sculptures of her and her fellow Clinton 12 classmates stand as symbols of bravery, resilience and progress.