Briggs Notes

§ Nov. 11, 1949 Petition of minors and their parents/guardians in County of Clarendon, SC to the District 22 School Board

http://www.palmettohistory.org/exhibits/briggs/

§ “The trial transcripts in the Briggs case is filed under Civil Action No. 2657 (1950), United States District Court, Charleston, S.C.” Irons, Peter. Jim Crows Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision. New York, NY, Viking 2002. p.356

§ Copies of selected pages from the Briggs pleadings

The following documents are available at: http://www.andover.edu/library/oldsitefiles/lyons/toc.html

“Brief for Appellants”(Briggs, et al.): Supreme Court of the United States, Oct. Term, 1952 (this brief appears to be complete)

“Brief for Appellees” (Elliott, et al.): Supreme Court of the United States, Oct. Term, 1952

Part I of the “Brief for Appellees” was not available at this website.

“Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae”, Supreme Court of the United States, Oct. Term 1952

In his dissent from the denial of relief to the Briggs plaintiffs, federal court  Judge Julius Waring stated:

“…these 66 plaintiffs have not merely expended their time and money in order to test this important Constitutional question, but they have shown unexampled courage in bringing and presenting this cause at their own expense in the fact of the long established and age-old pattern of the way of life which the State of South Carolina has adopted and practiced and lived in since and as a result of the institution of human slavery.”  Briggs v. Elliott, 98 F. Supp. 529, 540 (D.C.S.C. 1951)

Briggs was the first of the five Brown cases to be filed in federal court.