Impact of the <cite>Briggs</cite> and <cite>Brown</cite> decisions on southern race relations
Rivera describes his reaction to <cite>Briggs v. State of South Carolina</cite> and the <cite>Brown</cite> decision as especially pivotal moments in the struggle for civil rights. He also mentions briefly a court case he covered in Florida. In addition, he briefly describes the impact of the end of de jure segregation on black-owned businesses, such as the <cite>Pittsburgh Courier</cite>, which he worked for as a photojournalist during these years. According to Rivera, these court decisions ended racial strife legally, but not in actuality.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Alexander M. Rivera, February 1, 2002. Interview C-0298. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
-
Was really with Brown, I think, was where the tape ends and starting to
get into the emerging civil rights movement. So I was wondering if you
could talk a little bit about your last few years as a correspondent for
the Courier and the kind of changes you saw in
terms of stories you were reporting on after Brown.
- ALEXANDER M. RIVERA:
-
Well, my last years with the Courier, I worked with
Thurgood Marshall on the cases that he was interested in. The big case
of course was the Clarendon County case. It was named because it was in
the Clarendon County that everything originated. The legal name was
Briggs versus the State of South Carolina, whatever
it was. In law, they take the name of the case alphabetically, and there
were twenty-some defendants in the case, and being Briggs, he was one of
the first. So they named it the Briggs case. That's all. But
they had twenty-some odd defendants. The case was started before the
NAACP got into it. A lawyer named Harold Boulware out of Columbia, South
Carolina, had the first case, and he lost it on a technicality that he
didn't bring it in the correct court. So it was thrown out
because they said it was not in the jurisdiction of the court that he
brought it in.
So then these people got very much disgusted and went to the NAACP and
asked them if they would take the case. Well, Boulware was also an NAACP
lawyer. So he remained with the case, but Thurgood Marshall said,
'Well, yes, we will take the case if you can get as many as a
dozen' - I think he asked
for - 'defendants, plaintiffs.' He was
surprised. They got over twenty. They got over twenty-some odd people.
He was surprised because it was a hotbed of racial prejudice, but these
people were determined. They knew that they were going to lose. Well,
they knew, first, they were going to lose their jobs. They lost their
jobs, and then they lost their farms, and their churches were
burned and houses were burned and all of that. But
they stuck it out. I was surprised. So Thurgood Marshall took it over,
of course, and then as they said the rest of it is history. He won the
case under Judge Waties Waring. He won it. He lost it in the federal
court and won, of course, in the Supreme Court.
Now, I think that was the last large case or story that I had with the
Courier, large one. I had several smaller
stories, but because of my location, I was on the front page of the
Courier every week. See I was assigned to North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. But there was always something
happening in these three states. Then the Courier
because I did write and take pictures, the Courier
sent me everywhere. They sent me outside of my territory to cover cases.
They sent me as far as Florida and then I went to Africa with Nixon.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
-
What was in Florida? What stories did you cover there? Would you
remember? You wouldn't have been there for the Tallahassee
rape case?
- ALEXANDER M. RIVERA:
-
No, this was a case where a black woman killed a white doctor. She was
going with him and they were, or at least they had an affair, whatever
it was. When he decided that the affair was over, she decided that it
was not over. She killed him. I'd have to look that case up,
but it was a very outstanding case. It was a man and the doctor had two
waiting rooms, white waiting room and a colored waiting room, but he had
this black woman that he was having an affair with. When he wanted to
call it quits, she wouldn't let him. She killed him. I had to
go down for that. I covered that case. I don't remember the
dates. I'd have to look it up. The case, the Clarendon County
case or the Brown versus Topeka Board case changed
everything. It changed everything for everybody in this country because
up until that time we had been the strictly segregated,
racially segregated country, white and black. With this
decision it became a desegregated country. The case of
Brown versus Topeka Board made Plessy versus
Ferguson case unconstitutional.
Of course, the court knew what the law should be. But they were troubled
about what affect their decision would have on the country in general
because they knew it was going to be such a tremendous change in
everybody's life, lifestyle. In the decision they hedged
because they said, 'Well, we're going to
rule.' Then they ruled against segregated, all segregation
based on race, but they ruled that it must proceed with all deliberate
speed. You remember that. All other cases ought not, not all other cases
but most cases as soon as the law was passed, there was immediate change
right immediately. The law became law immediately. But in this case
because of the situation the court said, 'We will move in all
deliberate speed.'
Well, this changed everything. Black newspapers went out of business
because they were, by and large, they were protest organizations. They
didn't have the same things to protest. The strife, racial
strife wasn't over, but legally it was over. So black
newspapers went out of business. The Courier was
one of them. They struggled for a while.