Harry Briggs Jr., at center of school desegregation lawsuit, dies at 75

By Seanna Adcox August 16

“Harry Briggs Jr., who as a young boy in South Carolina was at the center of a lawsuit that culminated with the U.S. Supreme Court outlawing segregated public schools, died Aug. 9 at his home in New York. He was 75.

Samuels Funeral Home in Manning, S.C., announced the death. No cause was disclosed.

Mr. Briggs’s parents, Harry and Eliza Briggs, were the first two of more than 100 signers of a 1949 petition seeking equal treatment for black students in Clarendon County, S.C. Harry Jr. — then 8 years old — was the third. The petition said black children were forced to attend schools that lacked adequate heat, lighting and running water.

The case began in 1947 with black parents seeking a bus for their children, who were walking up to nine miles to school each way. Harry Jr. was among those who walked as white students traveled the same road in buses….”