Clarendon County, S.C.: Confronting the Shame of the Past

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Since he retired two years ago, Elliott has carried that message to churches, radio stations and Lions Club meetings. On May 17, Brown's 50th anniversary, he will take part in a forum on South Carolina public television on the ruling's legacy. So far he has received a cold shoulder from many of the town's whites. But his goal, he insists, is not only to thaw Summerton's race relations but also to improve its dismal schools and economy, which in recent years has lost bids to attract large employers because of their concerns about the low-skilled work force. Those stigmas "make it hard for any community to progress and attract business today," says Dwight Stewart, chairman of the Clarendon County Council, who, along with Summerton Mayor Beth Hinson Phillips, is one of the few whites to openly back Elliott's campaign.

Some blacks in Summerton are also wary of Elliott's efforts. It's not because they doubt his convictions but because they fear that the biracial group he recently helped create, the Summerton Revitalization Corporation, wants to bigfoot on what they insist should be a black-led local commemoration of the Brown anniversary. "Mr. Elliott is very sincere," says Joe De Laine Jr., 71, son of the late Rev. Joseph De Laine, who led the fight to get Briggs v. Elliott heard in court but then had to flee South Carolina after Ku Klux Klansmen attacked his house. "But we [blacks] can't stand there muted for this commemoration, listening to others tell us what we and our families did." It will be hard to agree on how to achieve integration in Summerton when blacks and whites can't even agree on how to celebrate it. --By Tim Padgett