Briggs v. Elliott
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Briggs v. Elliott (Court citation:347 US 483) was the first filed of the four cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1954, officially overturned racial segregation in U.S. public schools. The case challenged segregation in Summerton, South Carolina.
Originally litigated by NAACP lawyer Robert. L. Carter, the Briggs case was notable for introducing into evidence the experiments of Kenneth and Mamie Clark, who used dolls to study children's attitudes about race.
Although Brown resulted in a legal victory for the NAACP, it was a hollow victory for those associated with Briggs. Reverend Joseph De Laine, the generally acknowledged leader of Summerton's African-Americans at the time, had his church burned and moved to New York City in 1955 after surviving an attempted drive-by shooting. Harry and Eliza Briggs, on behalf of whose children the suit was filed, lost their jobs and moved north. As of 2004 Summerton's schools remain effectively segregated, with nearly all White students now attending the private Clarendon Hall, leaving the public schools almost entirely African-American.