Rev Joseph Armstrong

Congressional Gold Medal, Civil Rights Activist. The award was posthumously presented in 2004 at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, by Congressman James E. Clyburn and Senator Fritz Hollings. DeLaine and three others were honored during a ceremony for their courage and persistence to end public school segregation, despite repeated acts of domestic violence against them. His son, Joseph DeLaine Jr., accepted the medal on his behalf. Reverend Joseph Armstrong Delaine was raised and educated in Manning South Carolina. He attended Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, and received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. He continued his studies by enrolling in Dickerson Seminary at Allen to pursue a Bachelor of Divinity degree. DeLaine was a Methodist minister and founded the local NAACP chapter in Clarendon County. He was a teacher for seventeen years that work to break down racial barriers. During his tenure he saw African American students being treated unfairly in Summerton, South Carolina. Black students were not provided a school bus and had to walk up to 10 miles per day to attend a segregated school. He worked with the parents, including Harry and Eliza Briggs Sr., to file a petition to the Summerton school board for a bus. He later organized the same parents with a lawsuit, Briggs v. Elliott to end public school segregation. The lawsuit was later merged into the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which declared that public school segregation was unconstitutional. DeLaine received black lash and became the target of hate crimes. He lost his teaching position, both his church and house was destroyed by fire. He also received death threats and gunshots were fired at his house. DeLaine retaliated by returning gunfire at his residence and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He left the state of South Carolina, never returning. He spent the rest of his life living in New York and North Carolina, where he passed away at in 1974. The warrant for his arrest remained active until the State of South Carolina Parole Board pardoned him in 2000. In 2006, he was inducted into the South Carolina Educational Hall of Honor at the University of South Carolina