On February 8, 1968, around 200 protestors had gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University to protest the segregation of the town's only bowling alley. A bonfire that had been arranged by the protestors was snuffed out by the police. An altercation ensued in which several officers were struck with thrown objects. The officers responded by firing into the crowd, killing three young men, Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith, and wounding twenty-seven others.

Though this predated the Kent State massacre, and was the first incident of its kind on an American university campus, the Orangeburg massacre received relatively little media coverage. 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 war, sheds some light on the disparity in media coverage.

External links

Articles

• Brian Cabell: Remembering the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre February 8, 2001 Web posted at: 4:02 p.m. EST (2102 GMT). Accessed April 1, 2005.

• Documenting the Orangburg Massacre PDF by Jack Bass. Neiman Reports . Harvard Univerisity. Fall 2003. Accessed April 1, 2005.

• The Orangeburg Massacre on About.com. Accessed April 1, 2005.

• Orangeburg Massacre: Dealing honestly with tragedy and distortion By Cleveland L. Sellers. Orangeburg Times and Democrat . Originally Published: January 24, 1998. Accessed April 1, 2005.

• Remembering the Orangeburg Massacre by Linda Meggett Brown. Black Issues in Higher Education , March 1, 2001. Accessed April 1, 2005.

Books

• The Orangeburg Massacre by Jack Bass and Jack Nelson. 248 pages. Mercer University Press. Second Edition 2003. ISBN 0-86554-552-9.

Further reading

Watters, Pat and Weldon Rogeau. Events at Orangeburg; a report based on study and interviews in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in the aftermath of tragedy. Southern Regional Council, Atlanta. 1968.