Orangeburg massacre facts for kids

The Orangeburg massacre refers to the shooting of protesters by South Carolina Highway Patrol officers in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on the South Carolina State University campus on the evening of February 8, 1968. About 200 protesters had previously demonstrated against racial segregation at a local bowling alley. Three of the protesters, African-American males, were killed and 28 other protesters were injured.

Aftermath

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 blamed the deaths on Black Power outside agitators and said the incident took place off campus, contrary to the evidence.

The federal government brought charges against the state patrolmen in the first federal trial of police officers for using excessive force at a campus protest. The state patrol officers' defense was that they felt they were in danger and protesters had shot at the officers first. All nine defendants were acquitted although 36 witnesses stated that they did not hear gunfire coming from the protesters on the campus before the shooting and no students were found to be carrying guns.

In a state trial in 1970, the activist Cleveland Sellers was convicted of a charge of riot related to the events on February 6 at the bowling alley. He served seven months in state prison, getting time off for good behavior. He was the national program director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1973, he wrote The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC. Sellers was officially pardoned by the governor of South Carolina in 1993.

The Smith–Hammond–Middleton Memorial Center, South Carolina State's on-campus arena, was renamed in honor of the three victims, opening the same year as the massacre.

Deaths

• Samuel Ephesians Hammond Jr., 18
• Delano Herman Middleton, 17
• Henry Ezekial Smith, 19

Legacy

• South Carolina State University's gymnasium is named in memory of the three men who were killed. A monument was erected on campus in their honor and the site has been marked. All-Star Triangle Bowl became integrated.
• On August 9, 2013, a work crew fixed a spelling error on the Orangeburg Massacre Monument. Delano H. Middleton's name was mistakenly listed as Delano B. Middleton. One theory for the incorrect initial is that it was pulled from Middleton's nickname "Bump". The error went unnoticed for over 40 years.
• In 2001 Governor Jim Hodges attended the university's annual memorial of the event, the first governor to do so. That same year, on the 33rd anniversary of the killings, an oral history project featured eight survivors telling their stories at a memorial service. It was the first time that survivors had been recognized at the memorial event. Robert Lee Davis told an interviewer, "One thing I can say is that I'm glad you all are letting us do the talking, the ones that were actually involved, instead of outsiders that weren't there, to tell you exactly what happened."
• A joint resolution was introduced in the South Carolina state general assembly in 2003, and re-introduced in each of the next three sessions of the legislature, to establish an official investigation of the events of February 8, 1968, and to establish February 8 as a day of remembrance for the students killed and wounded in the protest. However, the legislature never voted on the resolution.
• The Orangeburg massacre was the subject of two films released on the 40th anniversary of the massacre, in April 2008: Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre, 1968 by documentary filmmakers Bestor Cram and Judy Richardson; and Black Magic by Dan Klores.