Dawn of Desegregation

Ophelia De Laine Gona

Description

At the forefront of a new era in American history, Briggs v. Elliott was one of the first five school segregation lawsuits argued consecutively before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952. The resulting collective 1954 landmark decision, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, struck down legalized segregation in American public schools. The genesis of Briggs was in 1947, when the black community of Clarendon County, South Carolina, took action against the abysmally poor educational opportunities provided for their children. In a move that would define him as an early—although unsung—champion for civil rights justice, Joseph A. De Laine, a pastor and school principal, led his neighbors to challenge South Carolina's "separate but equal" practice of racial segregation in public schools. Their lawsuit, Briggs, provided the impetus that led to Brown.

In this engrossing memoir, Ophelia De Laine Gona, the daughter of Reverend De Laine, becomes the first to cite and credit adequately the forces responsible for filing Briggs. Based on De Laine's writings and papers, witness testimonies, and the author's personal knowledge, Gona's account fills a gap in civil rights history by providing a poignant insider's view of the events and personalities—including NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall and federal district judge J. Waties Waring—central to this trailblazing case.

Though De Laine and the brave parents who filed Briggs v. Elliott initially lost their lawsuit in district court, the case grew in significance when the plaintiffs appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Three years after the appeal, the Briggs case was one of the five lawsuits that shared the historic Brown decision. However, the ruling did not prevent De Laine and his family from suffering vicious reprisals from vindictive white citizens. In 1955, after he was shot at and his church was burned to the ground, De Laine prudently fled South Carolina in order to save his life. He died in exile in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1974. Fifty years after the Supreme Court's decision, De Laine was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of his role in reshaping the American educational landscape.

Those interested in justice, human rights, and leadership, as well as in the civil rights movement and South Carolina social history, will be fascinated by this inspiring tale of how one man's unassailable moral character, raw courage, and steely fortitude inspired a group of humble people to become instruments of change and set in motion a corrective force that revolutionized the laws and social practices of a nation.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Black school
• Foray
• Substitute teacher
• Bubba
• Demotion
• Cross burning
• Demagogy
• Desegregation busing in the United States
• Ridicule (film)
• Persecution
• Armistice Day
• Desegregation
• Slavery
• History of the Americas
• African American
• George Stinney
• United States
• Oppression
• FL
• Black
• KY
• LA
• TN
• MS
• SC
• NC
• AR
• Armistice
• Earl Warren
• VA
• GA
• Ridicule
• Brown v. Board of Education

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611171747
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Dawn of Desegregation
The Reverend Joseph Armstrong De Laine, circa 1970. Courtesy of South Caroliniana Library
Dawn of Desegregation

J. A. De Laine and Briggs v. Elliott
Ophelia De Laine Gona
2011 University of South Carolina
Cloth edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2011 Paperback edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2012 Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press, 2012
www.sc.edu/uscpress
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows:
Gona, Ophelia De Laine.
Dawn of desegregation : J.A. De Laine and Briggs v. Elliott / Ophelia De Laine Gona.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57003-980-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Briggs, Harry, d. 1986-Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Elliott, R. W.-Trials, litigation, etc. 3. DeLaine, Joseph A. (Joseph Armstrong), 1898-1974. 4. Segregation in education-Law and legislation-South Carolina-Clarendon County-History-20th century. 5. African Americans- Civil rights-South Carolina-Clarendon County-History-20th century. 6. Civil rights movements-South Carolina-Clarendon County-History-20th century. 7. African American clergy-South Carolina-Clarendon County-Biography. 8. African American civil rights workers-South Carolina-Clarendon County- Biography. I. Title.
KF228.B75G66 2011
344.73 07980975781-dc22
2010048790
ISBN 978-1-61117-174-7 (ebook)
In Memoriam
Joseph Armstrong De Laine
July 2, 1898-August 3, 1974
His was a voice crying in a wilderness,
Questioning an unjust, intolerable system
That cruelly brutalized and dehumanized
The very souls of his people.
Courageously taking a perilous stand,
He put truth in its proper perspective,
Never straddling the fence,
But boldly calling the shots as he saw them.
A respected leader, he challenged the status quo,
But resolutely kept his covenant with God.
Buttressed and undergirded
By unselfish motives, Christian dedication,
And an unassailable moral character,
He forged onward, carrying on when hope was gone
With raw courage and steely fortitude,
Far beyond the call of duty.
With burning zeal and dogged determination,
He used himself as a catalyst and a human sacrifice,
Stimulating and inspiring people,
Setting in motion a powerful correctional force
That came out of Clarendon to revolutionize
Thought and social practice throughout a nation.
Teacher, clergyman, and good shepherd.
A prime mover and a martyr
In the 20th century struggle for justice and equality.
His life was a testament
To an unshakeable belief in his church s motto,
God, our father; Christ, our redeemer; man our brother.
His memory is a tribute
To honest leadership, tenacious faith, personal sacrifice, and abiding love.
Ophelia De Laine Gona, after an essay by L. Charles Williams
A few of us were not the type to accept injustice or unjust methods. J. A. D E L AINE
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
P ART 1 Before
1. Briars of Discrimination
2. Spokesman for the Disenfranchised
3. The Challenge
P ART 2 Quest for Equality, 1947-1951
4. Ups and Downs
5. Transition
6. June 8
7. Across the Rubicon
8. An Offer That Was Refused
9. Warnings
10. Showdown on Main
11. A Not-So-Merry Christmas
P ART 3 Outcomes, 1951-1955
12. Liar, Liar
13. Moving On
14. Federal District Court
15. Verdicts
P ART 4 After 1955
16. New Evil
17. Armageddon
Epilogue
Notes and Sources
Index
Illustrations
The Reverend Joseph Armstrong De Laine
Map of South Carolina
Map of Clarendon County
Unidentified elementary school building
Spring Hill Elementary School
Members of the Committee on Action
James Brown
Four activist clergymen
Liberty Hill Elementary School
Scott s Branch School
1950 addition to Scott s Branch School
Summerton Grade School
Summerton High School
Judge J. Waties Waring
Some Briggs plaintiffs with families and supporters
Local and state NAACP officials
Lee Elementary School
The De Laines viewing their burned home
Preface
A powerful corrective force came out of Clarendon.
AFTER L. C HARLES W ILLIAMS
As the United States of America approached the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court s momentous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ( Brown ) decision, my brothers-Joseph A. De Laine, Jr., and Brumit B. De Laine-and I were troubled. We knew that, of the five different legal cases that shaped that historic decision, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al . ( Briggs ) was the seminal one. The first of the Brown cases to arrive at the Supreme Court, Briggs came out of poor, rural Clarendon County, South Carolina. Even before it was argued in the courts, Briggs had already caused a major revolution in South Carolina s education system. As the case that changed the NAACP s approach to fighting segregation, as the case responsible for others being heard at the same time, as one of the Brown cases, and as the one that provided the most damning evidence of the ills of segregation, Briggs had a key role in ending public school segregation and in laying the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Yet, despite the fact that Briggs changed the course of human events, its key role in shaping the nation s future had been largely overlooked. My brothers and I were mindful of this because we were aware of the leadership role our father, the late Rev. Joseph Armstrong J. A. De Laine, had assumed in Briggs , the case that signaled the dawn of desegregation.
The twenty Briggs plaintiffs did not spontaneously decide to sue for the end of public school segregation. Instead Briggs was the outcome of a long, arduous struggle for justice, a crusade fraught with perils and retaliation. Before Briggs got to the courts, many people had lost their jobs and their homes, or had their lives threatened. And for more than a decade subsequently, danger and reprisals continually plagued the plaintiffs, their leaders, and their supporters.
On the eve of the anniversary of the Brown decision, my brothers and I worried that the names and struggles of the Briggs heroes would soon be lost to memory. We wanted it to be appreciated that legal segregation began its long overdue collapse, not because of a case generally associated with Kansas, but because a few humble, poorly educated people in an out-of-the way South Carolina place dared to take a stand for equality. We felt that everyone should know more of the human price that had been paid to end legal segregation in schools. Additionally we wanted our father s writings and notes regarding the genesis of Briggs to be interpreted correctly. We jointly decided that I should research and document the facts. This was something that our father-fervent in his desire to have the complete story of Briggs told-had asked me to do forty-five years earlier. I didn t do it then because I didn t know how.
Over the intervening years, others-including my father-did what I did not. They wrote about Briggs , not always accurately. Even so, no one adequately explained how and why Briggs happened. Now that I am making a serious effort to do what was requested of me, most players in this remarkable drama have gone to their eternal resting places and I have reached my twilight years. My father, Rev. De Laine, has been dead thirty-five years and my mother almost ten. To write this account, I needed more than my own incomplete recollections. I had to seek whatever written sources I could find and to tap the memories of the few participants who still lived. Fortunately, despite the burning of our Summerton home in 1951 and his abrupt departure from South Carolina in 1955, my father left published materials and extensive personal records that included letters, legal documents, and undated news clippings relevant to the Briggs case. Because he made carbon copies of practically every document he typed (using only his index fingers) and kept many of them, there were often different versions of the same document.
Using the writings and the files he left, as well as oral histories provided by eyewitnesses to that unique page in history, I was able to identify the major events and circumstances in the heroic saga of Briggs . Collating the facts, I wrote-as faithfully as I could-this account of how Briggs came into being. Given the passage of time between the events and their documentation, the fallibility of human memory, and the existence of a few conflicting sources, what I have written can only be an approximation of what actually happened. In two or three instances, I had to make judgment calls regarding the truth.
In contemplating the hardships and misery that the petitioners suffered in retaliation for their act, I asked myself over and over, Why did they do it? What force could have been strong enough to make those twenty plaintiffs, so far removed from the mainstream of American life, risk their lives and livelihoods to challenge the establishment? Before reaching the end of my first draft, I began to understand how my father s unyielding persistence, fearless leadership, constant encouragement, abiding faith, and personal sacrifices inspired the steadfast courage of others that resulted in two educational revolutions: the regional one in South Carolina and the national one throughout the