Appalachian History Series – Walking the Hill: The Clinton Twelve and Appalachian Tennessee’s First Integrated High School A Mountain Town Drawn Into a National Story On the map, Clinton looks like one more small town in the ridge country north of Knoxville. The courthouse square sits above the Clinch River, with the Cumberland Plateau rising in long, timbered ridges to the west and the Great Smoky foothills not far to the east.


