Orangeburg massacre

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Orangeburg massacre
Location Orangeburg, South Carolina, USA
Date 8 February 1968
Deaths 3
Injured 28
Perpetrator(s) 9 patrolmen

The Orangeburg massacre was an incident on February 8, 1968 in which local policemen in Orangeburg, South Carolina fired into a crowd of people who were protesting segregation, killing three and injuring 27. The incident pre-dated the Kent State shootings and Jackson State killings.

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[edit] About

In the days leading up to February 8, 1968, around 200 protesters had gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University (located in the city of Orangeburg) to protest the segregation of All Star Bowling Lane (now called All-Star Triangle Bowl), on US 301, now SC 33). The bowling alley was owned by the late Harry K. Floyd. Students continued their days of protesting by starting a bonfire. As police attempted to put out the fire, an officer was injured by a thrown piece of banister, according to an article in Nieman Reports at Harvard University[1]

The police believed they were receiving small weapons fire during the incident. Protesters insist that they did not fire at police officers, but did hurl various objects (and insults) at the police. Evidence that police were being fired on was inconclusive, and there is no evidence that protesters were armed or had fired on officers.

The officers responded by firing into the crowd, killing three young men, Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith, and wounding 27 others. Henry Smith and Samuel Hammond were SCSU students; Delano Middleton, a local high school student, was seventeen.

At a press conference the following day, Governor Robert E. McNair said the event was "one of the saddest days in the history of South Carolina." McNair also blamed the deaths on outside Black Power agitators, but subsequent investigations showed this to be untrue.

At trial, billed as the first federal trial of police officers for using excessive force at a campus protest, all nine defendants were acquitted. Cleveland Sellers was the only person imprisoned as a result of the incident. He represented the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and convicted of inciting the riot that preceded the shootings. Sellers was later pardoned for the offense and is now the director of the African-American Studies program at the University of South Carolina.

[edit] Media

Though this predated the Kent State shootings and Jackson State killings, and was the first incident of its kind on an United States university campus, the Orangeburg Massacre received relatively little media coverage. Historian Jack Bass attributed the media discrepancy to the fact that the victims at Orangeburg were young black men protesting segregation, and that the victims at Kent State were young whites protesting an increasingly unpopular U.S. war in Vietnam. In addition, the shootings happened at night, making coverage less tele- and photogenic. The students had no weapons and did not throw objects at the police. The only person convicted for the incident was a student.

[edit] Tributes

South Carolina State University's gymnasium is named in memory of the three men, and a memorial square was erected on campus in their honor. All-Star Triangle Bowl was integrated, and to this day the Floyd family has maintained ownership and operation of the business.

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