Scott’s Branch School/Briggs V. Elliot

Scott’s Branch School, previously located at Taw Caw Baptist Church outside Summerton and at a site on 1st St., moved to this location in 1937-38. The first school here was a white, ten-room frame building that enrolled African American students in grades 1-11. The current campus, completed in 1952, was the first school built through South Carolina’s equalization program, a statewide effort to preserve segregation by upgrading black schools. In the late 1940s, Scott’s Branch School became the focal point of petitions and lawsuits by local African Americans seeking equal resources for black pupils in Summerton schools. Facing fierce opposition, 20 families ultimately sued to desegregate local schools in 1950. Led by Rev. Joseph A. Delaine and the NAACP, these efforts resulted in Briggs v. Elliott in 1951, the first of five cases that led the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 to declare segregated schooling unconstitutional.

Summerton, South Carolina · United States