"The night before she first walked into Clinton High School in 1956, Jo Ann Allen beamed over her outfit with the excitement of any teenager starting ninth grade. Her grandmother had sewn the dress - white with a careful trim, pleats and a wide-pressed collar. With her best friend Gail Ann Epps Upton, she buzzed about clothes, classes and making new friends."
"Always buoyant, Allen would not have guessed that her daily walk down Foley Hill would soon be met with crowds of jeering segregationists and a bulwark of National Guardsmen. At 14, she was one of the so-called Clinton 12, the first Black students to desegregate a Southern public school following the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education."
""She embodied positivity and strength," said Kamlyn Young, Allen's daughter. "She was a lover of people. She loved life and always sought to see the good in people through all the adversity." Allen, who later married and changed her last name to Boyce, carried that spirit into every chapter of her life - as a pediatric nurse, a member of the family music group The Debs and co-author of,"
Jo Ann Allen Boyce was one of twelve Black students who integrated Clinton High School in 1956 at age 14, confronting jeering segregationists and National Guardsmen. She maintained positivity and strength through daily harassment and danger. She later became a pediatric nurse, performed with the family music group The Debs, and co-wrote This Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality, sharing her experience with student audiences nationwide. She died at 84 from pancreatic cancer, and family members and the Green McAdoo Cultural Center remembered her generosity, humility and inspirational spirit.
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