School desegregation case had South Carolina origins

When the famous 1954 Supreme Court ruling outlawing school segregation is remembered, Topeka, Kansas is often the focus because that was the home of the plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education.  But, as pointed out in a written remembrance provided by the Conversation USA, of which Clemson University is a subscriber, the story of the case had a start in rural Clarendon County, South Carolina seven years earlier.  That’s where black families pressed the county to provide school buses for their children, just as it did for white children.  The county refused, so with the help of the NAACP, 20 black families prepared to sue.  Even before the suit was filed, one of the parents, Harry Briggs, was fired from his job at a service station and had to leave the state to find a new job to support his family.  Dr. Roy Jones, executive director of Call Me MISTER and professor in the Clemson College of Education, contributed to the writing.