{"id":40,"featured":0,"modified":"2025-01-24 21:15:03","latitude":32.776307000000002744855009950697422027587890625,"longitude":-79.931647999999995590769685804843902587890625,"title":"U.S. Eastern District Federal Court - Briggs v. Elliott, 83 Broad Street","address":"83 Broad Street, Charleston, SC 29401","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/4e670f13deaf332cc72f790a945fb695.jpg","creator":["Joseph Williams"],"description":"

The unjust principle of \u201cseparate but equal,\u201d sanctioned by the infamous Supreme Court case Plessy<\/span> v. <\/span><\/i>Ferguson<\/span> in 1896, took many forms\u2014arguably the most profound of which was its manifestation in the public school systems across the South. Despite its unconvincing pretensions, the accommodations made for African American students were undeniably separate but by no measure equal. While white students benefited from professional teachers, the most up-to-date textbooks, and comfortable building accommodations, Black schoolchildren by and large were denied many of these assets, which are now considered essential for a proper education. One of the most egregious impediments, however, was the fact that publicly-financed school buses ferried white students to and from school each day of the school week while no arrangements for the transportation of Black children were made whatsoever. Instead, Black families sometimes carpooled with one another, but more often than not it meant that Black students had to travel to school on foot.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an effort to counteract this injustice, in the sleepy town of Summerton in Clarendon county, Harry Briggs, Jr., a gas station attendant, and his wife Eliza, a maid, pooled their financial resources together\u00a0with twenty-one families in order to purchase a bus to transport their children to and from school. While initially successful, continuing to finance the maintenance of the vehicle proved very difficult. Ultimately, Harry Briggs, Jr. petitioned the superintendent of the school district, R.M. Elliott, to provide busing for Black families. This proposal was promptly rejected.\u00a0 The local chapter of the <\/span>National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) t<\/span>hen began to circulate a legal petition to redress this grievance, and eventually over one hundred citizens in the county signed the petition. In the ensuing legal challenge, Briggs was listed as the plaintiff and Elliott was listed as the defendant.<\/span><\/p>\n

The lawsuit was held in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina in the November of 1950. A panel of three judges, including Judge John J. Parker, Judge George Bell Timmerman, Jr., and lifelong Charlestonian native and College of Charleston alum <\/span>Judge J. Waites Waring<\/span>, presided. Having presided over a similar civil rights case\u2014<\/span>Elmore <\/span><\/i>v.<\/span> Rice<\/span><\/i>\u2014several years prior, in which he decided in favor of the plaintiff and effectively ended the white primary throughout South Carolina, Waring earned a notorious reputation as a so-called race traitor among the white community. Notable South Carolina politicians openly denigrated him in public speeches and private citizens even went so far as to send malicious letters to him and his wife. Years later, Waring confided to a friend that it was his desire for his beloved hometown to one day \u201csee over the fog of prejudice which has engulfed this land of ours since the fall of the Confederacy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the case was originally intended to simply expand bus access to include Black students (albeit on segregated buses), Waring convinced the lawyer who would be arguing in favor of the plaintiff, Thurgood Marshall, that the prosecution should go even further:\u00a0 this case should strike at the very notion of \u201cseparate but equal,\u201d which had been legally enshrined by <\/span>Plessy <\/span><\/i>v<\/span>. Ferguson<\/span><\/i>. Originally hesitant, Marshall decided that Waring was indeed right.\u00a0 Consequently, the case was a foregone conclusion: the panel of judges decided on a two-to-one basis in favor of the defendant,with Judge Waring being the only opposition vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps providentially, however, this allowed for the civil rights attorneys to appeal this case even higher up the federal court system. Eventually, <\/span>Briggs<\/span><\/i> v.<\/span> Elliott <\/span><\/i>was consolidated along with four other civil rights cases around the nation\u2014including <\/span>Brown <\/span><\/i>v.<\/span> Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas<\/span><\/i>. Combined, these five cases would be brought before the Supreme Court and together would result in a decision invalidating the very idea of separate but equal and mandating the desegregation of public schools as soon as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the <\/span>Brown <\/span><\/i>ruling, Judge Waring presciently acknowledged that \u201c[w]e don\u2019t have a Negro problem here in the South; we have a white problem.\u201d<\/span> Consequently, after the ruling, as Waring expected, there was considerable white public backlash, with legislators and educators employing legal maneuvers to impede integration at all costs. Lamentably, that \u201cfog of prejudice\u201d that Waring alluded to so many years ago still casts a shameful shroud over America to this very day.\u00a0 For such prescient insights into civil rights issues, the College of Charleston has recently posthumously honored Judge Waring with one of its most illustrious honors, the Founders\u2019 Medal, which recognizes his undying commitment to ensuring a just and equal society for all.<\/span><\/p>","sponsor":null,"subtitle":null,"accessinfo":null,"lede":"The unjust principle of \u201cseparate but equal,\u201d sanctioned by the infamous Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, took many forms\u2014arguably the most profound of which was its manifestation in the public school systems across the South.","website":null,"related_resources":["Leon F. Litwack, <\/span>Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow <\/span><\/i>(New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).
<\/span>","The Times and Democrat<\/i>, July 21, 1951.
<\/span>","Tinsley E. Yarbrough, <\/span>A Passion for Justice: J. Waites Waring and Civil Rights <\/span><\/i>(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1987).<\/span>","Walter J. Fraser, Jr., <\/span>Charleston! Charleston!: The History of a Southern City<\/span><\/i>, (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989).<\/span>"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/4e670f13deaf332cc72f790a945fb695.jpg":{"id":332,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Plaintiffs and co-signatories for the Briggs v. Elliott case","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/4e670f13deaf332cc72f790a945fb695.jpg","description":"Photographed here are the plaintiffs and co-signatories for the <\/span>Briggs v. Elliott <\/span><\/i>case.  Harry Briggs can be seen right-of-center in a gray suit.  His son, Harry Briggs, Jr., for whom the case is named, is positioned directly in the middle of the third row farthest from the camera.  Courtesy of the University of South Carolina, Special Collections.<\/span>"},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/48b20c1935fe676657c1dafa8a788dad.jpg":{"id":313,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"83 Broad Street","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/48b20c1935fe676657c1dafa8a788dad.jpg","description":"

Originally constructed in 1896, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina has adjudicated federal law within the state for over a century and notably was the site where Judge Waring offered his influential dissenting opinion in the <\/span>Briggs v. Elliott <\/span><\/i>case, in which he argued in favor of school integration -- an opinion that would in turn inform the  landmark decision against segregation by The Supreme Court in <\/span>Brown v. Board of Education <\/span><\/i>just two years later.<\/span>  Courtesy of the Lowcountry Digital Library.<\/span><\/p>"},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/68edb503b195190ff7a1187de3dd4e0f.jpg":{"id":331,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"J. Waties Waring","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/68edb503b195190ff7a1187de3dd4e0f.jpg","description":"In spite of the fact that he grew up under the tutelage of his father, who was a Confederate veteran, J. Waties Waring went on to become one of the most vociferous advocates for civil rights in South Carolina.  In the aftermath of publishing his dissenting opinion against the decision made in <\/span>Briggs v. Elliott<\/span><\/i>, in which he called for desegregation, he and his wife were threatened with violence and ultimately decided to flee from his hometown.  He only returned twice:  once to celebrate the <\/span>Brown v. Board of Education <\/span><\/i>ruling and finally to be buried.  Courtesy of the South Carolina University of South Carolina, Special Collections.<\/span>"},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/90cd393577cb8265542a3733a09a3f95.jpg":{"id":266,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Court House Today","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/90cd393577cb8265542a3733a09a3f95.jpg","description":" Situated at what is popularly referred to as the Four Corners of Law in downtown Charleston -- the intersection of buildings representing religious laws with a church as well as local, state, and federal governments -- the building that once heard the Elliott case still functions largely in the same capacity today as it did so many decades ago. We would do well to remember that at one point in time each of these four corners served as the societal foundation for maintaining and justifying Jim Crow segregation throughout the South. Courtesy of the author."}}}