Co-sponsored by the School of Law, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Office of the President, the symposium will include panel discussions featuring many of the key participants in the Supreme Court case, which outlawed the doctrine of “separate but equal” educations for white and African-American students.

“It’s exciting to bring together people in this state who played such critical roles in this historic decision,” said Patricia Sullivan, an authority on civil rights who came to USC from Harvard University and is an associate professor of history and associate director of the African American Studies Program.

“Brown v. Board is arguably the most important Supreme Court decision in the 20th century, certainly one of the most important. It dismantled Plessy v. Ferguson, which had legalized the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ and had been the law of the land for 50 years, and sparked the movement that would, over the next decade, transform the South and the nation.”

The panel’s participants also will discuss the legacy of Briggs v. Elliot from Clarendon County. Although lesser known than Brown v. Board, Briggs v. Elliott was the first case in the NAACP's challenge to public school segregation. The case was named after Harry Briggs, one of 20 parents who filed a suit against R.W. Elliott, the president of the Clarendon County School Board.

The parents sought bus transportation for African-American students and filed a lawsuit when their petition was ignored. A three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court denied their request to abolish segregation, but the panel did order the school board to begin the equalization of schools.

Briggs is one of five cases that is part of Brown v. Board. The U.S. Supreme Court put Brown ahead of the Briggs case so that the case would not be seen as merely a Southern case but one that represented every region of the country.

At the symposium, Matthew J. Perry will talk about school desegregation in South Carolina. Perry, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina since 1979, litigated the major school desegregation cases from the 1950s to the 1970s as the lead attorney for the NAACP in South Carolina. The new federal courthouse in Columbia will be dedicated in his honor April 23.

Robert L. Carter will participate in panel discussions on Briggs v. Elliot and the origins for Brown v. Board and will offer reflections on the consequences and legacy of Brown. As Thurgood Marshall’s top assistant in the NAACP’s legal service, Carter crafted the legal strategy that culminated with Brown v. Board of Education. He also examined the witnesses and presented the evidence in Briggs v. Elliot. He is a federal district judge in the southern district of New York.

Other panelists will include Millicent Brown, the plaintiff in Brown v. Charleston School District 20, the first case successfully to desegregate a public school in South Carolina; Joseph DeLaine Jr., a son of the late Rev. Joseph A. DeLaine, who led the fight against segregated schools in Clarendon County in the 1950s and spearheaded Briggs v. Elliot; and Oliver Hill, a former law school classmate of Thurgood Marshall's, who served as the NAACP's lead attorney in Virginia from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Randall Kennedy, a native South Carolinian and a professor of law at Harvard, and Charles Ogletree, also a law professor at
Harvard and author of the forthcoming book All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education (April 2004) will moderate.

On April 23, author Richard Kluger will attend a screening of "Simple Justice," a docudrama based on his definitive book Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality. The film focuses primarily on the Clarendon County case.

Kluger also will sign copies of the 50th-anniversary edition of the book, which includes a new chapter reflecting on the legacy of the case. Avon Kirkland, the film’s producer, will attend.

The symposium also will include an exhibition of the works of Cecil Williams, the premier photographer of the civil-rights movement in South Carolina, especially the unfolding of the Briggs v. Elliot case in Clarendon County.

"As one of the original parties in the lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court, South Carolina obviously played a key role in this monumental decision," Provost Odom said. "It is fitting that the University of South Carolina, with its campuse located throughout the state and its wealth of research and outreach initiatives, spearhead efforts to mark this historic decision."

For more information, call the African American Studies Program at 7-7248.

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