Tribute for the 60th Anniversary of the Edwards V. South Carolina March

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYBURN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an important anniversary that brings the actions of my youth full circle to my service in this esteemed body.

Sixty years ago, a student-led march took place in South Carolina's capital city protesting state laws designed to maintain de jure segregation of Blacks and whites in my home state. The arrests that day, March 2, 1961, resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark breach of the peace ruling. The case, Edwards v. South Carolina, is still taught in law schools today. I was among the student protestors arrested that day for seeking equal justice and civil rights, and I am proud of the role this event played in protecting the right to protest peacefully in this country.

On that momentous day, approximately 200 high school and college students from all over South Carolina gathered at Zion Baptist Church in Columbia and marched to the State House to protest racial discrimination. As a 20-year-old student protest leader at South Carolina State College (now University), I left Orangeburg with several of my classmates to join in the march. We divided into groups, and I agreed to lead a contingency of students from my high school Mather Academy toward the State House grounds. When we approached the State House, law enforcement officers ordered us to turn around. It had been my intention to do just that, but the students I was leading wanted to press on. We marched on singing hymns and patriotic songs. 191 protestors were arrested for breaching the peace and spent the next three days in jail before being released on bail.

There were four separate bench trials that March and 189 students were convicted in Magistrate's Court despite the exemplary representation of NAACP attorney Matthew J. Perry and his colleagues, Lincoln Jenkins II and Donald Sampson. All but two of the protestors appealed their convictions, which were upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court.

On December 13, 1962, the Edwards v. South Carolina case, named for Benedict College protestor James Edwards, was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court by Matthew Perry. On February 25, 1963, the high court ruled eight to one in favor of the student defendants, reversing their convictions.

Justice Potter Stewart wrote in the majority opinion that a state cannot ``make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views.'' Since that ruling, Edwards v. South Carolina has been cited as the precedent in more than 70 breach of the peace cases.

Madam Speaker, I ask you and my colleagues to join me today in recognizing the contributions of the student protestors in Edwards v. South Carolina as we remember their protest 60 years ago. As one of the young people involved in this historic event, I can attest that we were committed to the fight for civil rights, and had no idea that our actions would contribute to preserving the right to peacefully protest for future generations.

Today similar tactics are being employed in movements like Black Lives Matter. I applaud their efforts and thank the City of Columbia, Historic Columbia and the University of South Carolina for the monument they have erected to memorialize this momentous event.

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