Liberty Hill Church

Front inscription

In 1867, five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Thomas and Margaret Briggs gave four acres of land to this African Methodist Episcopal church. The present building, completed in 1905, has been brick veneered. Meetings held here in the 1940s and 1950s led to local court cases, which helped bring about the U. S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling desegregating public schools.

Pioneers in Desegregation

Nineteen members of this congregation were plaintiffs in the case of Harry Briggs, Jr., vs. R. W. Elliott, heard in U.S. District Court, Charleston, in 1952. Although this court refused to abolish racial segregation in S.C. schools, this case, with others, led to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 landmark decision desegregating public schools.