Eliza Briggs | Road Trip

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 forced to leave Clarendon County. Their case, Briggs v Elliott was joined by four other cases from Delaware, Kansas, Washington, DC and Virginia to become the 1954 landmark case of Brown v Board of Education.

CREDIT: Interview by Esther Lemon, Cecil Williams, 1982