Last updated: March 11, 2022
Place
Linden Elementary School
NPS/KLEIN
Quick Facts
The history of Oak Ridge goes well beyond the Manhattan Project. Linden Elementary School became a symbol of unity and healing in the midst of the Jim Crow-era South.
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in “Brown vs. Board of Education” that separate but equal was unconstitutional. Oak Ridge High School, being on a federal reservation, desegregated in the fall of 1955 with few protests. Meanwhile, African American students from nearby Clinton, Tennessee had to ride a bus 30 minutes to a Black Knoxville high school. To change this, U.S. District Judge Robert Taylor ordered Clinton High School to integrate by the fall of 1956. Twelve Black students registered at Clinton High School that fall. Protesters, mostly from outside the area, harassed the students, teachers, and Principal. Soon thereafter the Tennessee State Police and the Tennessee National Guard were called in to protect the students from interference in their education.
Election day was December 5, 1956. Several pro-segregationists were running in the local elections. That same day Reverend Paul Turner, pastor of First Baptist Church, along with other community leaders, walked the African American students to Clinton High School in a show of solidarity. On his way back to his church, several men assaulted Reverend Turner. The news of his beating affected the outcome of the local election; the pro-segregationists were defeated.
Two years later on October 5, 1958, Clinton High School was rocked by over 100 sticks of dynamite in a racially-motivated bombing. Although no one was injured, students at Clinton High School now needed a safe, undamaged place to attend classes. Linden Elementary School, one of several schools in Oak Ridge whose student body population had decreased after the end of the Manhattan Project, offered to help. Volunteers had Linden Elementary ready for the new students in just three days. On October 9, the Oak Ridge High School marching band welcomed the staff and students to their temporary school by playing the Clinton High School alma mater.
No arrests were ever made in the Clinton High School bombing.
Continue Your Journey
Linden Elementary School remains a school to this day in a different location, with approximately 500 local students. The original school building has since been torn down and is now the site of LaSalle Park.