A Trip to Clarendon County
Marjorie and I recently went to see a play in the Dock Street Theater in Charleston called, The Seat of Justice. The play relates the story of the court case in South Carolina that went to the supreme court in 1949 along with the famous case Brown Vs. The board of education (in Topeka Kansas).
Trish and I went to Clarendon County to see what it's like in rural South Carolina now, 2004. We stopped at this Archives and History Center in Manning, the largest city in the County.
We talked with Janet E. Meleney She was good enough to spend over an hour telling us about the case and interesting facts about the county and its populous. Manning isn't very big and I don't think she gets hundreds of visitors a day so I think she was happy to be able to help us (have someone to talk with), although I think we made her later for her lunch appointment.
Here is a bit of the Clarendon County story. Hopefully this will peak your interest enough to go and read more on the issue. There is lots of info on the web, I have provided several links to get going.
Although the story begins with the beginning of slavery in North America we'll pick it up after the civil war when slavery had come to an end. This period is know as the reconstruction period. The South, that had been completely destroy in many areas, was being "reconstructed". Not only physical infrastructure, but also relations between northerns and southerns. It was also hoped that blacks and white might be able to learn to get along in spite of the long history of violence. Some did, but of course losing the war and their most valuable asset (slaves) was a pretty hard one-two punch for most southerner whites. For poor southerns (po white trash) they also had to face the competition of newly freed slaves for the few jobs that existed. If you think reconstruction in Iraq is a mess, this reconstruction period was 10 times worse.
During this "reconstruction" period blacks made many social advancements. Blacks in South Carolina vastly outnumbered whites, and the newly-enfranchised voters were able to send so many African American representatives to the state assembly that they outnumbered the whites. Many were able legislators who worked to rewrite the state constitution and pass laws ensuring aid to public education, universal male franchise, and civil rights for all. Not only that, but many whites were prohibited from voting until they were granted a pardon form Washington.
After about 10 years of "reconstruction" a bill came to congress that threatened to split the congress north and south as the election of Lincoln had before the war. This threat of another civil war was more that anyone north or south wanted to contemplate, so a compromise was made. The North would remove occupying forces from the South and Southern congressmen would allow the bill to pass. This was the start of what may have been the worst period for blacks in North America. Although easy to say as a white male, it was arguably worse than slavery. As soon as the Union troops left the South, Southern states moved to reinstate as much of the Southern slave holding culture as they could get away with without incurring the wrath of Washington and face another occupation by federal troops. The "jim crow laws" were the first to come, then came the KKK. All over the South chapters of the KKK had formed to protect white folk. Blacks who during the slavery era had immense value and hence were treated as any other precious property were now of no discernable value and in fact a hindrance to many whites. Laws that prevented the killing of slaves where of course obsolete. During this period the KKK lynched and otherwise terrorized and killed thousands of blacks in the South. Northerners had turned their backs to their suffering and they were left on their own to deal with Southern White Justice.
This lead to an incident where a very white looking African American named Homer Plessy who was sitting in the front of the bus was discovered and told he must sit in the back of the bus. He went to court and the Separate but Equal doctrine was upheld my the supreme court of the United States, not just Southerners. This separate but equal notion was spread to schools and schools were segregated all through the South. until the NAACP took it on themselves to start addressing this issue.
Thourgood Marshall who was a lawyer for the NAACP was looking to challenge and overturn the Seperate but Equal doctrine that had ruled race relation in the South since the end of the reconstruction period after the civil war. The Separate but equal doctrine espoused that segregation was legitimate as long as the services were equal in quality. This doctrine was upheld in the Supreme Court of the United stated in the Plessy Vs. Fergeson decision.
Now our story begins. A black man named Harry Briggs lived near Summerton SC in Clarendon County whose children needed school bus service to the school 9 miles round trip away. Ha asked for bus service for his children, but was turned down on the premise that there was no money for black schools. The white schools were brand new and complete with running water and all he wanted was bus service to the black school where there was no running water. He was convinced to file a petition with the County by Thurgood Marshall. The twenty petitioners were severely persecuted by the white populous of Clarendon County. The minister who was also the superintendent of the black schools lost his job and his church was burned. A garage mechanic who had worked for the white proprietor for 30 years was fired. The original complainant was not allowed to gin his cotton at the local gin and was force to take to further to Manning. His petition for bus service was ignored and he filed a suite Briggs vs. Elliot which was part of the famous Brown vs.. Board of Education case which demanded integrated school systems throughout the South. Although the case was successful, segregation continued for many years as Southern state governments dragged their feet in providing equal facilities for all students. South Carolina at the time of the ruling tore down all of the existing schools and built new schools for both blacks and white. In Clarendon county this lead to whites sending their children to private schools in order to avoid sending them to integrated public schools. Only 1/3 of the counties populous has a 12th grade education.
Clarendon County is still largely segregated. Public schools in Clarendon County are almost all black and the white kids go to private schools. Harry Briggs left the county before he got justice for his children, the minister Rev. J.A. De Laine was awarded the congressional gold medal. Thurgood Marshall became a Supreme Court Justice, I believe the first black man to hold the office. There is currently an exhibit commemorating the events in Charlotte NC at the Levine Museum of the New South
For a more in depth version of the story http://www.usca.edu/aasc/briggsvelliot.htm