Dawn of Desegregation

People usually think of Brown v. Board as the breakthrough in school desegregation. However, the Brown decision included four 14th Amendment cases, as well as a 5th Amendment case. The first, and perhaps most important, of the Brown cases was Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al. from South Carolina. In Dawn of Desegregation: J. A. De Laine and Briggs v. Elliott, Ophelia De Laine Gona, the daughter of J. A. De Laine, relates her father's efforts in filing Briggs.

The memoir serves as a history of the landmark case and a tribute to her father's role in the early Civil Rights movement in America. Drawing from her father's own writing and papers, as well as accounts by eyewitnesses and her personal experience, the author creates a gripping account of what happened many years ago in South Carolina.