The Times and Democrat from Orangeburg, South Carolina • A4

A4 Sunday, February 4, 2018 The Times 00 1 more than regional interest. The traumatic events of 1968 President Lyndon decision not to be a candidate, Dr. Martin Luther assassination, Robert F. murder, the tumultuous Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Alabama Gov. George insurgent and ill-tempered candidacy, and Richard political resurrection in the November election largely relegated the events in Orangeburg to obscurity.

Only publication of Orangeburg by Jack Nelson and Jack Bass helped to keep the story alive. But FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover managed, with some success, to suppress circulation of the book because he believed it was too critical of the Bureau. In the past five decades, historians have with only a few exceptions ignored Orangeburg while rarely failing to devote attention to the student uprisings at Berkeley and Columbia University and the killings in 1970 at Kent State and Jackson State. Nor is the Massacre included among the many impressive exhibits at the new Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Stanley current documentary on historically black colleges and universities, Them We are barely mentions Orangeburg while focusing on Jackson State in 1970. The events in Orangeburg did not fit neatly into the anti-war protests of the late 1960s nor do they find a place in the bloody confrontations over civil rights that occurred in Alabama and Mississippi earlier in the decade. But those events do fit into the tradition of student activism on the campuses of South Carolina State and Claflin, and in the Orangeburg community. The years before A dozen years before the Massacre, students at S. C.

State went on strike, refusing to attend classes, in protest against both the actions of the White Citizens Council in Orangeburg and the authoritarian policies of the college president, Benner C. Turner. Fourteen students were suspended in 1956 and Student Government Association President Fred Henderson Moore was summarily expelled. In February 1960, just days after the sit-ins began at the Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, South Carolina State and Claflin students launched their own sit-in at the local Kress lunch counter on the town square. On March 15, 1960, nearly 1,000 students peacefully marched to challenge segregation in Orangeburg, only to be met by law enforcement officers and fire department hoses.

Nearly 400 were arrested among them James Clyburn and Willie held behind chain-link fences at the infamous Pink Palace on St. John Street. Non-violent protests and demonstrations continued month after month in the early 1960s. In 1967 S.C. State students went on strike in staying out of class in opposition to the autocratic policies of longtime President Turner.

Turner subsequently retired. Therefore the events of February 1968 can be meaningfully comprehended only as a part of the larger and longer tradition of student activism on the Claflin and South Carolina State campuses. John Stroman was a senior chemistry major at S.C. State from Savannah, Georgia, and he liked to bowl. Stroman and James P.

Davis, a 26-year-old Air Force veteran and freshman, were denied admittance to the All Star Bowling Lanes on Russell Street in the shopping center in the fall of 1967. The following semester, a determined Stroman sought student support in an effort to open the establishment to black patrons, but most students showed little interest in cause. The newly formed Black Awareness Coordinating Committee (BACC) insisted there were more important issues confronting black people than bowling. In late January 1968 Stroman persuaded fellow student John Bloecher to go bowling alone. Bloecher had no difficulty.

He was white. But when Stroman and several black students arrived a bit later and attempted to join Bloecher, the owner of the All Star Lanes, Harry Floyd, quickly escorted all of them from the premises. Undeterred, Stroman led a small group of about 30 students back on Monday, Feb. 5, and Floyd ordered them to leave. Orangeburg Police Chief Roger Poston declined to make any arrests.

The students departed and Poston ordered the All Star Lanes closed much to the disgust of Floyd. At the time there was some legal uncertainty and confusion as to whether a bowling alley was covered under the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As the situation escalated, additional Highway Patrolmen as well as SLED Chief J.P. Strom arrived in Orangeburg. Stroman and another group of students returned to the bowling alley Tuesday night, and 15 of them agreed to be arrested for trespassing.

Then a young man cursed a police officer and he was arrested. Word of the arrests quickly spread to the campuses and more students rushed to the scene. S.C. State Dean of Students Oscar Butler managed to diffuse the tense situation by negotiating a release of the arrested young people. Cleveland Sellers was among those who had arrived and joined the growing crowd outside of the bowling alley.

Born and raised in nearby Denmark, Sellers was a SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) leader and a veteran of the civil rights struggles in Mississippi and Alabama. He was regarded by many people in Orangeburg as a dangerous black power advocate. With perhaps 300 or more students milling around the parking lot, a fire truck arrived at the request of Chief Poston. Upset students lit matches and lighters, the they shouted. Police moved forward.

There was pushing and shoving. Someone sprayed a caustic liquid into the face of Highway Patrolman John S. Timmerman, permanently damaging his eyesight. A plate-glass window shattered near the bowling alley entrance. Another student was arrested.

Law enforcement officers, many armed with heavy wooden batons, waded into the angry crowd and began to beat students including young women. Infuriated students, some of them bloody, retreated to the campuses, breaking windows of businesses along Russell Street, including Sutcliffe Furniture, Piggly Wiggly, Acacia Flower Shop and East End Motors. There was no looting, but several thousand dollars in damages occurred. Wednesday morning Mayor E.O. Pendarvis and City Administrator Robert Stevenson appeared on campus and were greeted by an angry and hostile audience at White Hall Auditorium.

The meeting was held to diffuse the growing crisis, but it only made matters worse. S.C. State interim President M. Maceo Nance Jr. cautioned the students against resorting to violence and the destruction of property, but he reminded city leaders that students, including women, had been beaten the previous night.

More Highway Patrolmen arrived in Orangeburg that Wednesday, and Gov. Robert McNair mobilized and deployed 250 troops of the 1052nd Transportation Battalion of the National Guard. Like the Highway Patrol, all of the National Guard troops except one were white men. Orangeburg took on the appearance of an occupied city. McNair was convinced that black nationalist Cleveland Sellers was stirring up the ordinarily quiescent S.C.

State and Claflin students. Many white people feared that Orangeburg would fall prey to the violence and fires that had already devastated Watts, Newark and Detroit. Communication between black and white leaders was non-existent as the crisis intensified. City officials and state leaders offered little meaningful information or leadership. Bizarre stories and rumors flourished in the absence of concrete knowledge.

Students gathered that evening on the front of the S.C. State campus and began pelting passing vehicles on Route 601 with rocks and bottles, prompting the Highway Patrol to close the thoroughfare. In the meantime, a white homeowner living near the Claflin campus fired birdshot at a group of passing students, slightly wounding them. Somehow two white men, William Carson and Carroll Carson, evaded the Highway Patrol roadblock and drove on to the S.C. State campus later that evening firing a weapon.

They were forced to make a U-turn and fled only to have their tires shot out by the campus chief of security, Brantley Evans. They were arrested. Feb. 8, 1968 Thursday, Feb. 8, was a calm day as an eerie atmosphere prevailed among S.C.

State students and faculty. President Nance repeated warnings to students to remain on the campus. (Claflin President H.V. Manning was out of town). Perhaps 100 to 200 students gathered on the front of the South Carolina State campus again that evening.

They ig Ceremony From A1 Above: a Or angeburg fireman stands ready for action as students from South Carolina State College heckle him during an attempt to integrate a bowling alley on Feb. 7, 1968. Right: South Carolina ational Guar dsmen surround a shopping center in Orangeburg on Feb. 8, 1968, after disturbances over two nights involving black students attempting to desegregate the bowling alley in the shopping center. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTOS Illustration from Cecil book Orangeburg Massacre ceremony South Carolina State niversity will commemorate the 50th anniv ersary of the Orangeburg Massacre at 11 a.m.

on Thur day, Feb. 8, in the Smith-Hammond-Middleton Memorial Center. The theme for the event is ears Later: emembering Histor Inspiring Hope and mbr acing Cleveland son, akari Seller will be the keynote speaker. a dditional activities of the Or angeburg Massacre commemoration include: Feb. 7, 3 p.m., film documentary, ed Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre, Fine a ts uildin ar bar a Vaughan ecital Hall.

Feb. 7, 4:30 p.m., Massacre: Meaning and featuring akari Seller Cleveland Sellers and Judy ichar dson. Fine a ts uildin arbar a Vaughan ecital Hall. Feb. 8, noon-3 p.m.

ree owling, K.W Green Student Center About the writer ow retired, r. William Hine taught history or many years at South Carolina State niv ersity. He is the co-author with arlene Clark Hine and Stanley Harrold of the widely adopted college history textbook, a frican a merican Odysse His history of South Carolina State niv ersity will be published later this spring by the niv ersity of South Carolina Press. ORANGEBURG MASSACRE.