Orangeburg Massacre
Nine highway patrolmen and one city police officer opened fire on a crowd of African American students, killing three and injuring twenty-eight.
The shootings were the culmination of a series of protests against racial segregation at a local bowling alley, marking the first instance of police killing student protestors at an American university.
As tensions in Orangeburg mounted over the next few days, Governor Robert McNair ordered hundreds of National Guardsmen and highway patrol officers to the city to keep the peace.
Dozens of fleeing students were wounded; Sam Hammond, Henry Smith, and Delano Middleton were later pronounced dead at the Orangeburg Regional Hospital.
Led by Charles McDew and Thomas Gaither (later known as a member of the Friendship Nine),[1] the approximately 1,000 marchers were assaulted by firemen and police officers with fire hoses and tear gas.
The college had been led for the preceding decade by President Brenner Turner, a conservative on civil rights who strove to maintain good relations with the white state government.
[3] Students were bound by a strict code of conduct and forbidden to form political organizations or take part in civil rights protests.
They associated black power with the radical rhetoric of the new Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leaders such as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.
[9][10] In his autobiography, Sellers wrote that he had returned to his home state because "I believed I could develop a movement by focusing attention on the problems of the poor blacks in South Carolina.
The lawyer explained that while the legal status of segregated bowling alleys was unclear, the fact that All-Star had a lunch counter meant that it was required to desegregate under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Sellers was present at the meeting, and, when asked for his advice, suggested that the students immediately occupy the intersections in front of campus and demand to speak to the chamber of commerce about the bowling alley issue.
Instead, Mayor E. O. Pandarvis, City Manager Bob Stevenson, and several Orangeburg business leaders came to the State College campus in an attempt to placate the students.
[41] In a journal article published a few months after the shooting, Washington Post reporter Jim Hoagland argued that this media silence may have contributed to the students' frustration and anger.
His main concern, shared by the police chiefs, was based on the unfounded rumor that the "plan of the black power people" was to attack utilities and burn down the city.
Journalist Jack Shuler argued that the arrival of these outside officials "disrupted any kind of communication among white leaders, the college campuses, and the African American community".
[48] By the evening of Thursday, February 8, tensions were high and the police had set up a command post (nicknamed "Checkpoint Charlie") at the intersection of Russell Street and US Highway 601 to monitor the State College campus.
Police intervened to stop them and called up additional Highway Patrolmen to Checkpoint Charlie and to a warehouse and freight depot across from Claflin College (see map).
[55] As Spell's squad turned to scale the embankment at the end of Watson Street, someone threw two white banister posts at patrolmen Donald Crosby and David Shealy.
[68] The most serious non-fatal wounds included those to Bobby Burton, whose left arm was paralyzed, and to Ernest Raymond Carson, who was hit by eight buckshot slugs.
[69] Three of those injured would later die of their wounds at the Orangeburg Regional Hospital: Samuel Ephesians Hammond, Delano Herman Middleton, and Henry Ezekial Smith.
[73] John Carson approached several officers in the waiting room and demanded to know why they had shot his younger brother, Ernest Raymond, eight times.
[75] Cleveland Sellers was arrested while awaiting hospital treatment; he would later be charged with inciting a riot, arson, assault and battery with intent to kill, property damage, housebreaking, and grand larceny.
[86] Most of the white reporters in Orangeburg failed to investigate official claims, interview key witnesses, or ask the police probing questions.
[89] SNCC chairman Rap Brown issued the most radical statement, calling for black people to take up arms in self-defense and to "die like men".
[90] In the State College newspaper The Collegian, students decried the inaccurate reporting in the mainstream press and argued for why the anti-segregation protests were justified.
[93] Dave Nolan argues that the subject of the protests may have played a role: by 1968, the white public was no longer supportive of demonstrations against segregation, whereas at the time the Kent and Jackson State students were killed, the Vietnam War was a highly charged national issue.
[79] Jack Bass and civil rights lawyer Eva Paterson argue that race was a key factor; the most famous of the three incidents (Kent State) was the one where the victims were white.
A group led by Steve Moore attempted to read a petition to the South Carolina Senate from the gallery, but was stopped and six students were arrested.
However, after the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence of Seller's involvement in the events that day, the judge directed a verdict of not guilty on that charge.
It was the subject of two films released after its 40th anniversary in April 2008: Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre, 1968 by documentary filmmakers Bestor Cram and Judy Richardson; and Black Magic by Dan Klores.
