Sixty years ago, Mary Smith-Blackmon was one of the students who pioneered the integration of Canton High School. Along with Bobbie Ruth Chinn and Phill George, she transferred from Rogers High, the Black high school across town, to the predominantly white public school in 1965.
Reflecting on their journey, Smith-Blackmon recalled the violence that met them on their first day at the school.
“We tried to walk down the main walk into the building. We got hit with a few little items. They threw and they hit us with acorns that fell from those draping trees that were there, but we got in,” Smith-Blackmon told WLBT…