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Briggs v. Elliott
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Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott, 342 U.S. 350 (1952), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, challenged school segregation in Summerton, South Carolina. It was the first of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional by violating the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Following the Brown decision, the district court issued a decree that struck down the school segregation law in South Carolina as unconstitutional and required the state's schools to integrate. Harry and Eliza Briggs, Reverend Joseph A. DeLaine, and Levi Pearson were awarded Congressional Gold Medals posthumously in 2003.
The case began in 1947 when Levi Pearson wrote a letter to the Clarendon County School District requesting that black children be provided with the same bus transportation that white children in the district received:
"A Petition on behalf of my children and all other school children in School District #26, Clarendon County, South Carolina, was mailed to you, since that date I have had no communication from you with regard to this petition nor has any efforts been made to furnish bus transportation to Negroes in this School District. Please advise me if efforts are being made to furnish school bus transportation."
— Levi Pearson, October 1, 1947
In Clarendon County, white children attended schools with a teacher for every grade, class sizes no higher than 30 students, brick schools with heat, indoor toilets, water fountains, modern textbooks, gyms, auditoriums and libraries. However, Black children attended school in abandoned hunting or Masonic lodges and often drafty cabins adjacent to churches. Black children brought coal or wood to burn in oil drums for heat, and purchased textbooks that were discarded from white students. For restrooms, they dug and used privies and toted water from the local wells. One first grade teacher in Summerton handled 67 students; one second grade teacher was recorded as having a class of 79.
Prior to Levi Pearson's letter, the school board reserved all of its 30 buses for white children. Because of this, Pearson's children had a 9-mile journey, one-way, to attend the nearest Black school. The Black children of Clarendon County often had harsh commutes to attend school, including rowing paddle boats to cross bodies of water. In the neighboring Jordan community, some children walked up to 16 miles to and from school each day, and children had to frequently gather wood for heaters within schools. Levi, his brother, Hammett Pearson, and neighbor Joseph Lemon raised $700 to buy the local children a used school bus to use ($8,336 in today dollars), but frequent maintenance led them to ask the local school superintendent, Roderick M. Elliott, for their own bus. Elliott refused, saying that black citizens did not pay enough taxes to warrant a bus and that asking white taxpayers to fund that burden would be unfair.
To advance his efforts for safe transportation for Black children, Pearson retained South Carolina attorney Harold Boulware and rising NAACP star Thurgood Marshall. Marshall argued that, since the local school board already provided bus transportation for white students, the county was in violation of the United States Supreme Court's "separate but equal" decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The case, which was brought against Clarendon County District 26 on behalf of Pearson's son James, met with immediate resistance. As a result of his lawsuit, Pearson v. Clarendon County, Levi Pearson suffered from acts of domestic terror, such as gun shots fired into his home, as well as economic consequences: local banks refused to provide him with credit to purchase farming materials and area farmers refused to lend him equipment.
In 1948, Pearson v. Clarendon County was dismissed on a technicality when the superintendent noted that Pearson's large property covered multiple district lines. When Levi Pearson's brother, Hammett Pearson, learned of the issue, he offered to replace his brother in the lawsuit.
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Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott, 342 U.S. 350 (1952), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, challenged school segregation in Summerton, South Carolina. It was the first of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional by violating the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Following the Brown decision, the district court issued a decree that struck down the school segregation law in South Carolina as unconstitutional and required the state's schools to integrate. Harry and Eliza Briggs, Reverend Joseph A. DeLaine, and Levi Pearson were awarded Congressional Gold Medals posthumously in 2003.
The case began in 1947 when Levi Pearson wrote a letter to the Clarendon County School District requesting that black children be provided with the same bus transportation that white children in the district received:
"A Petition on behalf of my children and all other school children in School District #26, Clarendon County, South Carolina, was mailed to you, since that date I have had no communication from you with regard to this petition nor has any efforts been made to furnish bus transportation to Negroes in this School District. Please advise me if efforts are being made to furnish school bus transportation."
— Levi Pearson, October 1, 1947
In Clarendon County, white children attended schools with a teacher for every grade, class sizes no higher than 30 students, brick schools with heat, indoor toilets, water fountains, modern textbooks, gyms, auditoriums and libraries. However, Black children attended school in abandoned hunting or Masonic lodges and often drafty cabins adjacent to churches. Black children brought coal or wood to burn in oil drums for heat, and purchased textbooks that were discarded from white students. For restrooms, they dug and used privies and toted water from the local wells. One first grade teacher in Summerton handled 67 students; one second grade teacher was recorded as having a class of 79.
Prior to Levi Pearson's letter, the school board reserved all of its 30 buses for white children. Because of this, Pearson's children had a 9-mile journey, one-way, to attend the nearest Black school. The Black children of Clarendon County often had harsh commutes to attend school, including rowing paddle boats to cross bodies of water. In the neighboring Jordan community, some children walked up to 16 miles to and from school each day, and children had to frequently gather wood for heaters within schools. Levi, his brother, Hammett Pearson, and neighbor Joseph Lemon raised $700 to buy the local children a used school bus to use ($8,336 in today dollars), but frequent maintenance led them to ask the local school superintendent, Roderick M. Elliott, for their own bus. Elliott refused, saying that black citizens did not pay enough taxes to warrant a bus and that asking white taxpayers to fund that burden would be unfair.
To advance his efforts for safe transportation for Black children, Pearson retained South Carolina attorney Harold Boulware and rising NAACP star Thurgood Marshall. Marshall argued that, since the local school board already provided bus transportation for white students, the county was in violation of the United States Supreme Court's "separate but equal" decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The case, which was brought against Clarendon County District 26 on behalf of Pearson's son James, met with immediate resistance. As a result of his lawsuit, Pearson v. Clarendon County, Levi Pearson suffered from acts of domestic terror, such as gun shots fired into his home, as well as economic consequences: local banks refused to provide him with credit to purchase farming materials and area farmers refused to lend him equipment.
In 1948, Pearson v. Clarendon County was dismissed on a technicality when the superintendent noted that Pearson's large property covered multiple district lines. When Levi Pearson's brother, Hammett Pearson, learned of the issue, he offered to replace his brother in the lawsuit.