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Podcast: This Is Nashville
Episode: 'A Most Tolerant Little Town' tells the little-known story of school desegregation in East Tennessee
Description: Most people remember seeing photos in our history books of the crowds outside Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, taunting and threatening nine Black students as they tried to get to class. But the small town of Clinton in East Tennessee has its own story of integration that's largely forgotten. After a federal court order, twelve Black students enrolled in Clinton's high school in 1956, a year before the Little Rock Nine.
Rachel Louise Martin's new book, A Most Tolerant Little Town, tells the story of Clinton's desegregation. Martin spent almost two decades researching the story and...