On May 17, 2004 a new park will open in Topeka, Kansas, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, one of the five cases that were merged challenging the constitutionality of the “separate but equal” doctrine that had been the law of our land since 1898.  I do not begrudge the people of Topeka, Kansas, but as a former history teacher, I do have a problem with revisionism.

       Those cases became Brown for tactical, not technical reasons.  If the five cases were listed alphabetically, it would have been called Belton, because the Delaware case was Belton v. Gebhart.  If it had been named for the first one filed, it would have been called Briggs. Briggs v. Elliott was filed in South Carolina on May 16, 1950 – six months before Bolling v. Sharpe, coming from the District of Columbia, nine months before Brown, twelve months before Davis in Virginia, and 14 months before Belton.

     The heroic events leading to Brown got started when Reverend J. A. DeLaine accepted a challenge issued to him and others attending a 1947 meeting on the campus of Allen University in Columbia, and returned to Clarendon County and started organizing. His efforts led to a 1948 lawsuit filed by Levi Pearson asking that black children be provided school buses as the county was doing for white kids.  At the time, black children were walking nine miles one-way to attend school.  Pearson was thrown out on a technicality.

      In 1949, DeLaine and a group of parents met in the home of Harry and Eliza Briggs to sign a petition to which the school refused to respond.   Mr. Harry Briggs, a filling station attendant, was fired and his wife Eliza lost her job at a local hotel.  Reverend Delaine’s church was set on fire, and his home shot into by vigilantes.  When he fought back a warrant was issued for his arrest.  He was smuggled out of the state for his safety.

      On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court declared, “Separate but equal” unconstitutional.

     Shortly after his inauguration in 1971, Governor John West received a letter from Reverend DeLaine asking that he be allowed to return to South Carolina to live out his remaining years. As a member of Governor West’s staff, I was tasked with getting it done in a manner that would close this sordid chapter in our history and usher in a new beginning for the State of South Carolina.  We failed because one of the people who signed the warrant was still living and refused to relent.  Reverend DeLaine died and is buried in Charlotte, North Carolina.

      In three months, a case will be argued in the same courtroom where Briggs began.  In South Carolina today, the State accepts that it should provide a public education, but not necessarily an adequate education.  School districts with higher percentages of African American students have $313 fewer State and local dollars per student than school districts with low levels of African Americans.  This inequity translates into a gap of $8,000 a year per classroom and more than $1 million a year per school. That tells the story.

      Equal educational opportunities have not come to South Carolina yet. Hopefully, this case will be decided in a manner and in time to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Brown, with equity and fairness in Clarendon County and South Carolina.

     Today, stately pictures of Ms. Briggs and other principals in Briggs greet visitors to my Washington office, and as long as I serve, they will occupy a prominent place in my office.  Gestures of honor, like my office display or more publicly, the new park in Topeka, Kansas, are meaningful and appropriated.  But fulfilling the legal obligation to end “separate but equal” would be the ultimate honor for the brave men and women who sacrificed everything to insure their children and future generations receive a quality education. 

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