February 8, 1968 – Orangeburg, South Carolina Massacre of Black Protestors

On this night, police opened fire on some 200 unarmed Black students from South Carolina State University who were protesting segregation at Orangeburg’s only bowling alley. When the shooting stopped, three students were dead and twenty-seven wounded. Many people today still know about the shooting of white student anti-war protestors only two years later at Kent State, which killed 4 students and wounded nine others, but hardly anyone could tell you about the greater massacre in Orangeburg.

The three young men who were murdered: Henry Smith and Samuel Hammond, both SCSU students, and Delano Middleton, a local student at Wilkinson High School.

As the History Channel website recounts, Harry Floyd, owner of All-Star Bowling Triangle bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina, claimed his bowling alley was exempt from segregation laws since it was private property. He stated he did not want to “offend” his long-time white clientele.

Orangeburg was the site of two mostly Black universities: South Carolina State (SC State) and Claflin University. Many students became involved in the civil rights movement and wanted to work on upending the effects of racism within their own small town.

On February 5, 1968, a small group of students from both SC State and Claflin went to All-Star Bowling Lanes to protest its whites-only policy. Floyd refused them entry and they left peacefully, but word spread.

The next night a larger crowd returned to the bowling alley and were met by police who threatened to blast them with water from firehoses. The students fought back by taunting them and lighting matches. A plate glass window was broken, and the police began beating students with billy clubs.

By night’s end, fifteen students had been arrested and at least ten students and one police officer were treated for injuries.

South Carolina Governor Robert McNair insisted “Black Power” leaders [the common bugagoo before Black Lives Matter and “Antifa”] were inciting the student unrest and called in the National Guard to intimidate the students and repress the anticipated violence.

National Guardsmen with rifles and fixed bayonets in Orangeburg on February 8, 1968. Getty Images via Business Insider

The student protestors were joined by Cleveland Sellers, a native South Carolinian and civil rights activist. Sellers’s activism had put him on the government’s radar and earned him a reputation as a “Black militant” [obviously worse than being a “white” militant].

By February 8, Sellers and hundreds of students had gathered on SC State’s campus to protest racial segregation at the bowling alley and other privately-owned establishments.

The students started a large bonfire in front of the campus entrance. They taunted law enforcement and threw rocks and other objects at them. Eventually, the police chief ordered the fire be put out. As firefighters extinguished the fire, a police officer was struck with a heavy wooden banister.

Unsure of what was happening and claiming to have heard gunshots, some police raised their guns and opened fire in the darkness upon the protestors for several seconds. When it was over, twenty-eight students lay on State’s campus with multiple buckshot wounds; three others had been killed. Almost all were shot in the back or side.

As reported by the Zinn Project, the Governor and law enforcement officials on the scene claimed police had fired in self-defense:

The Associated Press’ initial account, carried in newspapers the morning after the shooting, misreported what happened as ‘an exchange of gunfire.’ The source, an AP photographer on the scene, subsequently revealed that he heard no gunfire from the campus.”

Cleveland Sellers was arrested for inciting a riot. He was tried and sentenced to one year of hard labor. He was finally pardoned 23 years after the incident.

The U.S. Justice Department charged the nine police officers who admitted shooting that night with abuse of power. However, neither of two South Carolina juries would uphold the charges.

Cleveland Sellers stands beside the historic marker on the S.C. State University campus at the 2000 Orangeburg memorial. By Cecil Williams.