1. Civil Rights Movement in SC
8-7.2: Analyze the
movement for civil rights in
S.C., including the impact of
the landmark court cases
Elmore v. Rice and Briggs v.
Elliot; civil rights leaders,
Septima Poinsette Clark,
Modjeska Monteith
Simkins, and Matthew J.
Perry; the S.C. school
equalization effort & other
resistance to school
integration; peaceful
efforts to integrate
beginning with colleges &
demonstrations in S.C. such
as the Friendship Nine &
the Orangeburg Massacre.

2. Recap: Treatment of African Americans
• Post Reconstruction Era:
– US civil rights movement continued on from colonial times
– Jim Crow Laws
– Voting Restrictions
– Discrimination in the workplace
– Limited social, political, & economic opportunities
• African Americans sought recognition of their rights as
outlined in the Declaration of Independence in the
13th, 14th, & 15th amendments
– 20th Century organizations for equal treatment of African
Americans:
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP)
• Congress of Racial Equality
• National Association of Colored Women
• National Urban League

3. Civil Rights Movement Intensifies Post WWII
• “Victory abroad, victory at home” (Double V)
campaign of African Americans
• Influence of mass media
• Martin Luther King Jr.- Peaceful approach
• NAACP- Legal approach; laid ground work for
change
• Elmore v. Rice- white primary unconstitutional

4. Integrating Schools
• Brown v. Board of Education(1954)
– Clarendon County, SC started as a request for a bus to take their children to an
all-black school
– Parents at Scott’s Branch School felt that the “separate but equal” doctrine
(Plessy v. Ferguson) required school districts to pay for gas & repairs to the
used bus parents had bought to transport their children
– Original case was dismissed due to a technicality
• Modjeska Monteith Simkins & the NAACP:
– Brought a new case against the school system: Briggs v. Elliot
– State of SC agreed that separate schools for blacks was unequal, but claimed
that the state had initiated a building program that would bring black schools
up to par with white schools
– Court ruled for the school
– NAACP appealed the case to the Supreme Court
• Briggs v. Ferguson was one of five cases that became part of the landmark
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision
• Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson
• Ordered integration of schools with “all deliberate speed”
NAACP Vintage Film Part III: Brown vs. Board of Education (9:11)

5. SC Resists Integration
• Effort to improve black schools to be comparable
to white schools to keep under the “separate but
equal” doctrine
• Brown ruling was met with widespread
, sometimes violent, opposition & delay
• Governor Byrnes encourage resistance
• White Citizens Councils were established to
coordinate intimidation efforts towards blacks
who petitioned equal treatment & “traitor”
whites who supported the effort

6. Thurman’s Southern Manifesto
• SC Senator Strom Thurman
authored the Southern Manifesto
• Signed by all 3 Congressmen from
the Deep South
• Document condemned the Brown
decision for upsetting the
relationship of whites & blacks in
the south
• Encouraged resistance to
desegregation
– “white flight” private academies
– School choice
– Plans for voluntary closing of public
schools
• Took till early 1970’s before full-
scale integration occurred in most
SC schools

7. Brown Decision Prompts other Civil Rights Actions
• Rosa Parks & the
Montgomery Bus Boycott
– Supreme Court ruled city
buses could not be segregated
– SC bus companies ignored this
ruling
• Greensboro, NC lunch counter
sit-in prompted SC students
to follow their example
throughout the state &
initiated a new tactic
(Friendship Nine, Rock
Hill, SC)
• Grassroots demonstrations
echoed th4e national
movement led by Martin
Luther King, Jr.

8. SC Begins to Integrate
• Need for economic investment led SC to change
• Mass media showed protests & violence in other
southern states which did not promote investment in
the south
• 1963, SC slowly began & deliberately integrated public
facilities
• First Clemson College, then SC State, state colleges
were integrated without violence
• Mostly peaceful integration of public facilities in SC
– Except the violence of the Orangeburg Massacre
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 & Voting Rights Act of 1965
were enforced in SC & public schools were finally
desegregated

9. South Carolinians’ Involvement
• Septima Clark- equal pay for teachers
• Modjeska Simkims- helped with Elmore v. Rice & Briggs v.
Elliot
• Matthew Perry-Civil Rights Lawyer
• Friendship Nine- “Jail No Bail” tactic (1960’s)-3:35
• 1968, SC State College students protested at a bowling
alley in Orangeburg
– police were called in to keep the peace after several days of
protests
– police opened fire on the students
– injured dozens, killing three
– Officers were acquitted; one wounded student was convicted
of “riot” b/c of his activity at the bowling alley several nights
before the shooting
– Press & national media paid little attention to the event
– Overshadowed by riots that followed the assassination of
Martin Luther King, Jr. in April