Briggs v Elliott
By
John C Abercrombie
It has always been difficult for Blacks to obtain an education in America. It in many locations it was illegal to teach Blacks to read or write. Many slave holders feared that literacy would allow Black slaves to exchange ideas, know of revolts, and other actions that would hamper their efforts to control these people for the purposes of enriching the slave owner’s financial status.
The Briggs v Elliott case originated in Clarendon County, South Carolina. The county seat is in Manning. The area was developed for lumber and textile mills, although there were other mills operating. Clarendon also boasts one of the largest man-made lakes in the United States, Lake Marion was completed as part of the New Deal project in 1941.
While there was a school for Blacks in Clarendon County, it was difficult to reach. Some students had to cross a stream or row across it when it was flooded, then walk up to 9 miles just to reach the school known as Scott’s Branch School in Summerton. The roads were not well maintained and during rain, were muddy. During the winter months when the days were short, students had to leave in the dark and did not get home until after dark.
In the beginning, the Black parents only wanted a bus. Clarendon County had 33 buses for White students, but 0 for Blacks.
The issue became heated when a young boy drowned in the newly created Lake Marion reservoir which separated some of the Black communities from the school. Reverend Joseph Armstrong DeLaine urged Levi Pearson to sue for a bus. That case became known as Levi Pearson v Clarendon County and School District 26 but had to be withdrawn when it was discovered that Pearson’s residence straddled the county line and he paid taxes in a different district and did not have standing to bring suit in Clarendon.
The act of filing suit required great courage, since standing up for one’s rights was perilous and filled with negative consequences, such as being fired from your job, businesses not doing business with you etc. Even relatives, friends and neighbors were subject to the same treatment. While it may seem unfair, it was normal in those times.
With the denial of the Levi Pearson v Clarendon suit, DeLaine met with National NAACP attorneys who refused to accept the case, however chief legal counsel, Thurgood Marshall changed his mind if DeLaine would obtain 20 petitioners from Clarendon County. DeLaine got 100.
Marshall agreed to represent the plaintiffs because it represented an opportunity to campaign against unequal, segregated education. That campaign had started in 1935 under Charles Hamilton Houston.
Houston had a 3 point strategy
• First, he wanted to ensure that Black teachers received salaries equal to those of White teachers.
• Second to ensure transportation for Black students to and from their schools
• Third to ensure that states provided graduate and professional education and training for Blacks.
Houston’s strategy was based on using the “separate but equal’ doctrine established in the 1896 Plessy v Ferguson to force states to provide true equality to Black and White students. He did not demand integration. He was succeeded by his former student Thurgood Marshall who continued the strategy; however, later Marshall became convinced that the effort required a full attack on the constitutionality of segregated schools.
During pretrial hearings, Marshall was encouraged to argue for true equality by asking for an end to segregated schools as the only to truly end the disparate education of Blacks. At trial, Marshall introduced evidence showing Black schools were grossly unequal to those of Whites;
• In facilities
• Teacher to student ratios
• Class size
• Expenditures per student
The attorneys representing the state of South Carolina sought to defuse the argument by announcing that Governor, James Francis “Jimmy” Byrnes was going to introduce a new sales tax to raise money to improve the states Black schools.
Marshall presented testimony from sociologist Kenneth Clark documenting the harmful effects of segregation on the lives and psyches of Black children in South Carolina.
The Briggs case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court and incorporated with 4 other cases as part of the brown v Board case argued by NAACP attorneys Robert Carter and Thurgood Marshall. May 17, 1954, the Supreme court unanimously declared Segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
Despite the case’s favorable outcome, its South Carolina plaintiffs suffered tremendous hardships for their decision to pursue justice for their children.
Reverend DeLaine was shot at, his house was burned to the ground, and he was eventually forced to flee the state. Harry Briggs, the lead plaintiff, lost his job as a gas station attendant.
Levi Pearson, the plaintiff in the first attempt to obtain only a school bus, had his loans called in, and he had to watch his crops for 1948 rot in the fields because he could not rent the machinery to harvest them. Other plaintiffs and supporters of the case were harassed; fired from their jobs as teachers, matrons, and housekeepers; and kicked off the land of white landowners for whom they were sharecropping.
Due to the designation of this landmark case as the “Brown case” or the “Brown decision” in American legal history, the sacrifices of these South Carolinians who filed the first major case to challenge the constitutionally of segregated schools have frequently been overlooked in the nation’s history books.
This post is part of a larger offering on the significance of the Brown v Board case.
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Remembering Harry Briggs
Harry Briggs Jr., who was part of a lawsuit that ended school segregation nationwide, will be laid to rest Friday in Manning, SC.
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Law
Many are intimidated at the thought of the law, but there is no need when there are so many sources to help you understand, whether you are looking at a particular case of just gaining an understanding, the place to start is with our Amazon affiliate link below
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Dawn of Desegregation:
J. A. De Laine and Briggs v. Elliot At the forefront of a new era in American history, Briggs v. Elliott was one of the first five school segregation lawsuits argued consecutively before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952. The resulting collective 1954 landmark decision, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, struck down legalized segregation in American public schools.
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Politics and Social Sciences
We are often just witnessing to the changes to the law that come from decisions our politicians make. Many of them don’t have any view except their own. It is time that you understand what it takes to get a seat at the table where the ideas, laws and policies are formed. You do it by understanding the process and looking into it and it starts here with our Amazon affiliate link below
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Rev. Joseph DeLaine and the Briggs v. Elliott Case 1950
As a teacher at the Macedonia Baptist High School in Blackville, SC., DeLaine saw that discrimination was not just racial. Despite his being a popular and effective teacher, the school’s trustees would not give him a permanent appointment unless he left the African Methodist Episcopal Church. That along with the racial disparity in treatment and money spent on minority children as opposed to that afforded white children (2 to 3 times lower) prompted him to file the civil rights case known as Briggs v. Elliott .(1) In 1950,
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History
We often hear people, places or events that we don’t know anything about. The place to inform yourself is with our fascinating link below
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Uncommon Courage: The Story of Briggs V. Elliott, South Carolina’s Unsung Civil Rights Battle
Although most history books cite Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas as the litigation that ended school segregation, a little-known case from Clarendon County, South Carolina actually spearheaded the civil rights movement. In 1954, Briggs v Elliott had little immediate impact on daily life in public schools for African Americans. But in its symbolic, unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court put segregationists on the defensive. The law was finally on the side of those who wanted to make the guarantee of equal treatment in the Fourteenth Amendment a reality.
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Brown v. Board of Ed. 1 – Full Audio Case Reading – Episode # 1
This is a full audio recording of the U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education I (1954). This case concerned segregation in public schools. The opinion of the court is read by a fellow LibriVox Volunteer.
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U.S. Supreme Court Transcript of Record Brown v. Board of Ed. of Topeka,
Shawnee County, Kan.; Briggs v. Elliott; Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Va.; Gebhart v. Belton et al. The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 contains the world’s most comprehensive collection of records and briefs brought before the nation’s highest court by leading legal practitioners – many who later became judges and associates of the court. It includes transcripts, applications for review, motions, petitions, supplements and other official papers of the most-studied and talked-about cases, including many that resulted in landmark decisions.
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Brown v. Board of Ed. 2 – Full Audio Case Reading – Episode # 2
This is a full audio recording of the U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education II (1955). This case concerned desegregation in public schools. The opinion of the court is read by a fellow LibriVox Volunteer.
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Briggs v Elliott at Lander University 11 13 18 Nov. 13, 3:30pm, Carnell Learning Center
This S.C. case later inspired the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision before the Supreme Court of the United States. Delivered by Dr. Kimberly Richburg, a native of Clarendon County whose uncle participated in the case, this lecture presents a vivid illustration how, in a rightly constituted democracy, the powerless still possess power.
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Briggs v Elliott at Lander University 11 13 18 Nov. 13, 3:30pm, Carnell Learning Center
This S.C. case later inspired the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision before the Supreme Court of the United States. Delivered by Dr. Kimberly Richburg, a native of Clarendon County whose uncle participated in the case, this lecture presents a vivid illustration how, in a rightly constituted democracy, the powerless still possess power.
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In the Briggs case, we see the extent that officials were willing to to to in order to deny these American citizens the rights that they were willingly giving to others. It took the death of a student to arouse enough action to do something about it. Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall did outstanding work on this case. Both are covered in seperate posts on the site.