The Briggs v. Elliott case began as a simple request to provide bus transportation. In addition to having separate and very inferior facilities, black children had to walk to school, sometimes many miles.
PHOTO: Mr. Harry Briggs and wife Eliza, plaintiffs in the landmark case of Briggs v. Elliott, and Rev. J.A. DeLaine after they had been forced to leave South Carolina due to the repercussions of helping to initiate a petition to acquire school buses for black children in Clarendon County.
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Modjeska Simkins discusses the lack of basic amenities, and financial problems of the three room school house where her mother and sister worked.
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"B" is for Briggs v. Elliott (1954). Briggs v. Elliott was one of five cases, collectively entitled Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee, KS, et al., argued before the U.S. Supreme...
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Noted South Carolina historian Dr. Walter Edgar discusses the key issues in SC History. Desegregation and other social change in South Carolina is discussed: World War II – Catalyst for Change...
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In 1947 Judge J. Waties Waring's monumental ruling in the George Elmore suit (Elmore v. Rice) eliminated the all-white Democratic primary system in South Carolina. For the first time since 1876, the...
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Levi Pearson, and other parents whose children attended Scotts Branch High School, wanted the county to provide buses for their children. Mr. Pearson was encouraged by Rev. Joseph Armstrong DeLaine...
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Constructed in 1936, Dennis was the first high school for African Americans in Lee County, including Bishopville and nearby rural areas. In contrast with the much larger Bishopville High School, which...
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The building that housed Summerton High School from circa 1936 to the mid-1960s is located at 12 South Church Street in Summerton. In the middle of the twentieth century, the all-white high school was...
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The Plessy v. Ferguson decision set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education case...
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Beginning in the 1950s, Judge Matthew Perry, Jr became the leading civil rights lawyer in South Carolina. Judge Perry was the first African American federal judge in South Carolina. The Matthew J...
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Eliza and Harry Briggs, Sr. are listed as the first petitioners on the lawsuits from the 1940s and 1950s. Harry, a gas station attendant in Summerton, and his wife, Eliza, lost their jobs and were...