Supreme Court Case: Briggs V. Prince Edward County

Brown v. Board was one case comprised of four other cases, Briggs v. Elliot, Belton v. Gebhart, Bolling v. Sharpe, and Davis v. Prince Edward County.

Briggs v. Elliot Harry Briggs lived in Clarendon County, South Carolina with his wife and five children. He, as well as many other black families sued the school district because of the conditions of the schools they were forced to send their children (Ogletree 4). The black children in Clarendon County attended Scott Branch High school and Liberty Elementary School or Ramsay Elementary School. White children attended Summerton High school and Elementary School (Briggs v. Elliot Petition Page 2). The schools were segregated by race and the conditions in the black schools where not equal to

Clark went to Scott Branch School, where he met with sixteen black students ranging from ages six to nine. He performed an experiment involving four dolls; two boys and two girls, two were pink, and two were brown, signifying black and whites. Clark took the students one by one and told them to do these things: “Give me the white doll”.” “Give me the colored doll.” “Give me the Negro doll.” “Give me the doll you like to play with.” “Give me the doll that is the nice doll.” “Give me the doll that looks bad.” “Give me the doll that is the nice color” (Peter Irons 386). All sixteen of the children knew exactly which doll was black and which white. Ten children chose the white doll as the one they would want to play with, eleven said the brown doll looked bad, and nine said the white doll was the nice one (386). Clark believed that the racial segregation had the worst effect on children. The thing that mattered the most to them was not the fact that their school looked worse than the other schools, it was that they were separated from other kids their age for something they could not control

where the Board of Education refused to build new schools for black children though the population had grown immensely, and the black schools were not nearly as new as the white schools. Sousa High School was a brand new high school, and many black parents wanted their children to attend there. When black parents attempted to register their children to attend school at Sousa, the school denied their request even though there was abundant space in the classrooms (Ogletree 5-6). Sousa High School became an all-white school. Spottswood Bolling Jr. was one of the many children denied admittance into Sousa High. He was forced, along with all the other children, to go back to Shaw Junior High (6). Charles Hamilton Houston became the attorney for the families until he became unable to help them due to sickness. James Nabrit Jr. and George E. C. Hayes became the head attorneys (6). Originally Houston was just going to request a new school equal school for the black children, but Nabrit Jr. and Hayes wanted to attack segregation in general(6). They sued the Board of Education for Spottswood Bolling Jr. and all the other children (6). The case was filled in 1951 in the U.S. District Court. The issue was that they were unable to use the argument that they were breaking the Fourteenth Amendment because it applied only to states, and District of Columbia is not a state, so instead they used the Fifth Amendment (6). The decision on this case was