Green McAdoo not just Clinton’s anymore
Historic Civil Rights landmark will become part of Tennessee State Museum system
During its meeting Monday night, Clinton City Council unanimously passed a motion to authorize transferring the Green McAdoo Cultural Center in Clinton to the Tennessee State Museum.
“The state will reimburse the City [of Clinton] or Green McAdoo Organization for the expenses associated with the day to day operation and upkeep and maintenance of that facility,” explained Councilman Jim McBride.
Earlier this year, when the Tennessee General Assembly passed the state budget, $100,000 was included in the budget for the Tennessee State Museum to use “solely for maintenance, restoration, and operational expenses of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center.”
Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and State Rep. John Ragan have been credited for securing the funds for the museum in the budget.
The motion passed by city council Monday includes authorization of a property transfer deed in which City of Clinton officials will transfer the Green McAdoo Cultural Center property to the State of Tennessee.
Clinton City Councilman Larry Gann described several of the concerns city officials have had in the past about what would happen to the museum in the future should the political climate change or financial sources for the museum drastically fall.
He said that by transferring Green McAddo Cultural Center to the state it would ensure that the museum would always be in operation.
Said Gann, “One of the concerns we’ve always had is what happens if there’s a political change in the environment, or if all of a sudden we start to get a short in the budget, what would happen to the museum? It is my understanding that once we’re part of the [state] museum we’re there for perpetuity. It’s not a take back issue. Once we’re in, we’re in.”
In other words, once Green McAdoo comes under the state museum’s purview, there it will remain, city officials explained.
Clinton City Manager Roger Houck apprised council members the process of transferring Green McAdoo to the state is well under way, and that he is currently in the process of “working out all the arrangements” with the state for a smooth transition.
The Green McAdoo Cultural Center was originally Green McAdoo School, a segregated elementary school for the community’s African American children that operated until 1965. In August 2006, the Green McAdoo School was reopened as a museum and cultural center to honor the 12 high school students that became the first black students to attend an all-white high school in the South following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education--the Supreme Court case that overturned the segregation ruling in schools.
