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ABSTRACT Throwing Down the Gavel: How the Federal Courts Intervened in Desegregating South Carolina's Public Schools and Were

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ABSTRACT Throwing Down the Gavel: How the Federal Courts Intervened in Desegregating South Carolina's Public Schools and Were ABSTRACT Throwing Down the Gavel: How the Federal Courts Intervened in Desegregating South Carolina’s Public Schools and Were Hindered by the State and Local Governments Madison Hoover Director: David Bridge, Ph.D. This thesis examines the jurisprudential and political development of desegregation in South Carolina from the Brown era through the post-Swann era. By analyzing the actions of local school boards, the South Carolina General Assembly, and political leaders within the state and in Congress, this thesis reveals that the S.C. state and local governments’ delay in desegregating its public schools was intentional and racially motivated. Further, this text reveals that these governmental actions both responded to and fueled racially discriminatory beliefs held by some white South Carolinians, and it demonstrates how these citizens’ actions reflect those beliefs. When desegregated schools started becoming a reality for South Carolina in the 1960s, white parents took advantage of private schools’ tax-exempt status and transferred their children to these institutions at alarming rates. Despite most of these schools admitting exclusively white students, the Internal Revenue Service did not revoke tax-exempt status for racially discriminatory private schools until 1970, and this change was not enforced until 1977. During this time, white parents also utilized the Tuition Bills that the South Carolina General Assembly passed in 1962 and 1963, which granted tuition vouchers for any student who wished to attend private school; however, in effect, this allowed for white students to leave the public school system in shocking numbers, as few private schools in the state admitted Black students. Public school desegregation in South Carolina became political from the start, and this thesis examines the actions of U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, local school boards, and South Carolina governors to demonstrate this underpinning and how it hindered progress toward integrated schools. Finally, this thesis illustrates the current public education system in South Carolina, and it highlights how the problems that lead to the initial suit in Briggs v. Elliott (1948) persist in the state even in 2021. APPROVED BY DIRECTOR OF HONORS THESIS: __________________________________________ Dr. David Bridge, Department of Political Science APPROVED BY THE HONORS PROGRAM: __________________________________________ Dr. Andrew Wisely, Interim Director DATE: _________________ THROWING DOWN THE GAVEL: HOW THE FEDERAL COURTS INTERVENED IN DESEGREGATING SOUTH CAROLINA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND WERE HINDERED BY THE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Baylor University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Program By Madison Hoover Waco, Texas May 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures. .iii Acknowledgments. iv Dedication. v Chapter One From Briggs to Brown I. .1 Chapter Two How Federal Courts Intervened in South Carolina’s Desegregation Plans. .17 Chapter Three Can Federal Courts Create Social Change?. .26 Chapter Four How the State and Local Governments Blocked South Carolina from Integrating Public Schools Following Swann and Related Cases. 45 Conclusion Thesis Summary and Current Consequences for South Carolina. 71 Bibliography. 78 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Revenue (in 1996 USD) for Public Elementary and Secondary Schools, South Carolina: 1969-70 to 1996-97. 46 Figure 2. Percent of Black Students Enrolled in Public School with White Students, South Carolina: 1954-55 to 1972-73. 50 Figure 3. Enrollment of Private Schools in Beaufort, South Carolina from 1964-65 to 1971-72. .62 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my thesis mentor, Dr. David Bridge, thank you for your guidance and active involvement in this thesis. Thank you for encouraging me to become more assertive in class discussions and holding me accountable for this project. Your advice and support helped me more than you may know, as I just started finding my voice and academic interests when I switched majors and took American Constitutional Development as a freshman. Thank you for always fostering an engaging and collaborative classroom environment. Most importantly, thank you for catapulting my writing skills and interest in greater justice for all. I will dearly miss your affinity for Taylor Swift and puka shell necklaces. Thank you for being an integral piece of my Baylor experience. To my parents, thank you for your unwavering love and support. Thank you for always empathizing with my frustrations and celebrating my accomplishments. When I attended class remotely during the pandemic, thank you for understanding the need for space to focus and bringing me notes of encouragement throughout the day. Thank you for reminding me to take study breaks, invest in friendships, and get out and smell the bluebonnets. When I told you I wanted to completely change my career path during the first week of college, thank you for trusting my capabilities and allowing me to march bravely into a field I had minimal connections to. Thank you for always prioritizing my education as the single greatest investment of our time and energy. For fostering a spirit of inclusivity, patience, and hard work in my life, I cannot thank you enough. I would not be the same woman, let alone student, without your love and dedication. To my sisters, Makenna and Mariah, thank you for being my built-in best friends. Thank you for the endless FaceTimes, phone calls, and pictures of Canyon. You always seem to call or reach out right when the universe knows I need a break, and I cannot thank you enough for maintaining our close family even when we are a thousand miles apart. Makenna, thank you for your infectious persona that never fails to make me smile. Mariah, thank you for never turning down a coffee run or a Hamilton singing session. To both of you, thank you for all the spunk and support you bring to everyone’s life, including mine. To educators, thank you for investing your time in the critical formation of the next generations. To my educators, thank you for getting to know me on a personal level and demonstrating interest in me beyond the classroom. To educators in South Carolina, thank you for continuing to work toward a better future by persevering and shaping your students’ lives. iv DEDICATION “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” -- James Baldwin No Name in the Street “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” -- Maya Angelou For a South Carolina that recognizes the faults of the past and actively works to improve its public education system for future generations of students. v CHAPTER ONE From Briggs to Brown I In 1947, the Pearson family sued the local county school board for a bus to transport their children to school in Levi Pearson v. Clarendon County and School District No. 26 (1948)1. Harold Boulware, an NAACP attorney from Columbia, South Carolina filed the suit. This case was ultimately withdrawn due to a technicality, however, as the court found Levi Pearson did not have legal standing since he paid taxes in a district other than the one where his children attended school. After this withdrawal, Boulware sought the help of Thurgood Marshall, who was the lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund at the time. Marshall initially denied Boulware’s request but agreed to involve himself in the case if a larger group of plaintiffs could be gathered to strengthen the case. Harry Briggs, along with over twenty additional parents, then filed a petition to the Clarendon County School Board for their children to receive transportation to school. Importantly, these parents did not ask for their children to receive the same accommodations as the county’s white students. Harry Briggs, and over twenty additional parents, only requested that the Clarendon County School Board provide their students with one bus. Given that the white students utilized thirty-three buses at the time, the parents found their request reasonable; however, R.W. Elliott, the president of the school 1 Information on Levi Pearson v. Clarendon County School District No. 26 (1948) comes from: Dulaney, W. Marvin. “Briggs v. Elliott.” South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, 7 Nov. 2016, www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/briggs-v-elliott/. 1 board, did not. Elliott denied the request, stating that the African American families did not contribute enough in taxes to merit spending money on a bus for their children. After this denial, Thurgood Marshall then represented Harry Briggs and the other Summerton, South Carolina parents by filing suit in the fall of 1950. While R.W. Elliott was the main defendant due to his role on the school board, Harry Briggs’s name appeared in the cases’ title because his name was first in the alphabetical list of all twenty parents and their combined forty-six school children. This lawsuit, Briggs v. Elliott (1952), “was the first school funding lawsuit that made it to the court in South Carolina” and later became one of the five cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education I (1954) (Allen 444). Marshall also strengthened the Clarendon County parents’ claims by now arguing not based on discrimination, like the argument in Pearson, but unconstitutionality. This reinvigorated approach was not his own idea, and “during the pre-trial hearing Thurgood Marshall was encouraged by Judge Waites Waring, who was one of the three district judges for the lawsuit, to change the lawsuit to attack separate but equal as unconstitutional” (Allen 444). Marshall took Judge Waring’s advice and now argued that the unequal facilities between the white and Black students of Clarendon County violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. While the defendants admitted that the facilities and educational opportunities were in fact unequal, the U.S.
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