Briggs v. Elliott

"Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al.", ussc|342|350|1952, commonly "Briggs v. Elliott", was the first filed of the five cases combined into "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954), the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court officially overturned racial segregation in U.S. public schools. The case challenged segregation in Summerton, South Carolina.

Background

At the time "Brown" reached the Supreme Court, South Carolina was one of 17 states that required school segregation. South Carolina law required complete segregation. Article 11, section 7 of the 1895 Constitution of South Carolina read as follows: "Separate schools shall be provided for children of the white and colored races, and no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided for children of the other race." Section 5377 of the Code of Laws of South Carolina of 1942 read: "It shall be unlawful for pupils of one race to attend the schools provided by boards of trustees for persons of another race."

No one questioned that the Clarendon County schools were unequal. At the beginning of the appellate hearing at the U.S. District Court, the defendants admitted upon the record that "the educational facilities, equipment, curricula and opportunities afforded in School District No. 22 for colored pupils are not substantially equal to those afforded for white pupils".

The case began in 1947 as a request to provide bus transportation. In addition to having separate and very inferior facilities, black children had to walk to school, sometimes many miles. White children rode buses. The white school superintendent stated that black citizens did not pay enough taxes to support a bus and that asking white taxpayers to do this would be unfair.

In 1949 the NAACP agreed to provide funding and sponsor a case that would go beyond transportation and ask for equal educational opportunities in Clarendon County. The first step was to craft a local petition for educational equality. This was done by Rev. DeLaine and Modjeska Monteith Simkins, the noted South Carolina civil rights worker. The named plaintiffs, Harry Briggs, a service station attendant, and his wife, Eliza Briggs, who worked as a maid, were the first to sign. They both immediately lost their jobs. Mr Briggs relocated to Florida for the next ten years to support the family. Reverend Joseph Armstrong DeLaine, principal of the black Scotts Branch high school was fired, as were all the other signers. Simkins organized a national charitable effort for the relief of the oppressed blacks of Clarendon County. Eventually, more than 100 Clarendon residents signed the petition.

Decision

In 1952 the Supreme Court heard the case and returned it to the district court for rehearing after Clarendon County school officials sent a report on progress in making facilities equal. In March the district court again heard the case. The Court found that progress had been made towards equality. Thurgood Marshall argued that this may be true, but that the real issue was that as long as separation existed, the schools would be unequal. So the case was reappealed to the Supreme Court in May

Originally litigated by NAACP lawyer Robert L. Carter, the "Briggs" case was notable for introducing into evidence the experiments of Kenneth and Mamie Clark, who used dolls to study children's attitudes about race.

Outcomes

Although "Brown" resulted in a legal victory for the NAACP, it was a hollow victory for those associated with "Briggs". Reverend Joseph De Laine, the generally acknowledged leader of Summerton's African-Americans at the time, had his church burned and moved to New York City in 1955 after surviving an attempted drive-by shooting. Harry and Eliza Briggs, on behalf of whose children the suit was filed, lost their jobs. Harry spent more than a decade working in Florida to support the family. Eliza eventually joined her children in New York.

Eventually, the state of South Carolina awarded Eliza Briggs its highest civilian honor, the Order of the Palmetto. Reverend Joseph A. DeLaine, Harry and Eliza Briggs, and Levi Pearson were awarded congressional gold medals posthumously in 2003. [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ180.108] .

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 342
* [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=us/342/350.html Full Text of Decision on FindLaw.com]
* [http://www.usca.edu/aasc/BriggsvElliot.htm Good background with bibliography related to the case at The University of South Carolina-Aiken]
* [http://www.teachingushistory.org/tTrove/briggsvelliott.htm Briggs Petition] Petition of Harry Briggs, et al., to the Board of Trustees for School District No. 22. 11 November 1949. Clarendon County Board of Education, L14167. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.