Clinton is the county seat in Anderson County

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The Southern Gospel group "The McKameys" are from Clinton

Integration

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, federal judge Robert Taylor ordered Clinton High School to desegregate with "all deliberate speed" in the fall of 1956. The integration of Clinton High School was the first among Tennessee public schools. Anti-integration campaigners from outside Clinton, inspired by media coverage and by white supremacist John Kasper, travelled to Clinton to protest the decision to integrate the high school. After violence was narrowly averted on the lawn of the Anderson County Courthouse on September 1, National Guard troops were called into the city for two months to keep order.

The twelve black students who attended Clinton High School that fall became known as the "Clinton 12". On the morning of each school day they walked together down Broad Street from Foley Hill to Clinton High. On the morning of December 4, Rev. Paul Turner of the First Baptist Church was severely beaten after escorting the twelve students to school. The twelve students were Jo Ann Allen (now Boyce), Bobby Cain, Theresser Caswell, Minnie Ann Dickey (now Jones), Gail Ann Epps (now Upton), Ronald Hayden, William Latham, Alvah J. McSwain (now Lambert), Maurice Soles, Robert Thacker, Regina Turner (now Smith), and Alfred Williams. On February 10, 2006, Williams, Cain, and Soles re-enacted their walk to school from Foley Hill to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1956 integration. According to the city manager of Clinton, bronze statues of the Clinton 12 are being constructed, and will be displayed outside the former Green McAdoo School, where the twelve students attended school before 1956