In 1896, when the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate public facilities did not violate the Constitution, segregated schools became sanctioned by law. The "separate but equal" doctrine established by the Court's ruling meant that as long as they were equal, separate facilities for blacks and whites were legal. However, separate did not guarantee equal, and across the country public facilities for African Americans were inferior to those for whites.

In the 1940s, Clarendon County, South Carolina, was representative of the disparities that existed between black and white schools in the South. The county spent four times as much on white schools as on black schools. As a result of inadequate funding, black schools in the county were dilapidated and overcrowded and had fewer resources than white schools. For example, white students had new textbooks while black students had used textbooks, and the highest-paid black teacher still earned less than the lowest-paid white teacher. The 2,000 white students in the county rode buses, while the 6,000 black students had to walk to school. For a number of students, that meant walking as much as nine miles each way, a distance that kept some from attending school at all.

When repeated requests for buses were denied by the local school board, the Reverend Joseph Armstrong De Laine, a black minister and teacher, encouraged black parents in Clarendon County to formally challenge the school board and demand better conditions. In 1950, Harry and Eliza Briggs and fellow parent Levi Pearson petitioned county officials for buses. The petition was denied, but the parents persisted. By 1950, with the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and attorney Thurgood Marshall, 20 black parents sued the school board in an effort to equalize education.

On May 28, 1951, a federal three-judge panel ruled in Briggs v. Elliott that black schools were unequal to white schools. In the split ruling, the court ordered the schools "equaled," but ultimately upheld the constitutionality of the "separate but equal" doctrine. One white judge, J. Waites Waring, wrote a 28-page dissenting opinion, suggesting that segregated schools were inherently unequal.

The NAACP appealed to the Supreme Court. Briggs v. Elliott and four other cases were combined to form the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine.

While the black plaintiffs' actions may seem reasonable today, in a society in which segregation was often enforced with violence, they were considered radical and provocative. Harry Briggs, a Navy veteran, lost his job as a gas station attendant. Eliza Briggs, a domestic worker in a motel, was fired. De Laine's house and church were burned to the ground. Others involved in the case were harassed, denied credit, refused service in local stores, and eventually forced to move out of the state.

To escape the arrest warrant and death threats that stalked him in South Carolina, De Laine fled to Buffalo, New York, where he started a new church. Judge Waring, who sided with the black plaintiffs, was forced to leave the state.