John Bel Edwards: “50 years ago on a Monday in May, the Supreme Court revealed the soul of our Constitution when it said, ``. . . in the…”

“50 years ago on a Monday in May, the Supreme Court revealed the soul of our Constitution when it said, ``. . . in the field of education, separate but equal has no place.'' It was a moral decision just as much as it was a legal decision that ended discrimination in every place across America. Some of you remember that day. I was just born and can only imagine what it was like to experience that moment of truth. To hear those words ``has no place'' To see those headlines, ``Supreme Court bans . . . '' To feel the advance of justice. It was a glorious day in America and for all those families, children, teachers, and heroes of the last two centuries who risked their lives to move America to that moment. All of that effort and success and history was wrapped in the family name, Brown. But we can never forget that there were other families involved in that case. One of these cases began in my birth state of South Carolina. The African-American kids had to walk up to nine miles each way between their homes and their only school in Summerton. The white kids had 30 school buses to take them back and forth to their schools. The African American parents went to the Clarendon County School Board with a simple request--one school bus. The school board said no. So J.A. De Laine, a minister, convinced a humble farmer named Levi Pearson to sue the Clarendon County school district for buses. That case was Briggs v.…”