You've heard of the Kent State Massacre and maybe the Jackson State massacre. But have you heard of the Orangeburg massacre?
An act of racism in a small Southern town led to a peaceful protest by frustrated black college students who were denied use of the community’s only bowling alley.
A conservative Southern governor, wanting to appear tough to his white constituents, overreacted to the civil rights protest ordering a massive show of armed force. As emotions frayed and the situation veered out of control, nine white highway patrolmen opened gunfire onto a college campus—killing three black students and wounding 27 others.
All the students were unarmed and in retreat from the highway patrolmen at the time of the shooting. Yet, without warning, they were shot in their backs with deadly buckshot.
The killings occurred on February 8, 1968—47 years ago—on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Until the shooting, South Carolina was a southern state that had proudly celebrated a record of nonviolence during the turbulent civil rights years.
Nonviolence was equated with racial harmony in a white community with a paternalistic attitude toward its poorer black citizens. Equal rights were another thing.
To help protect its “progressive” self-image on racial issues, a web of official deceptions was created by South Carolina’s young governor—Robert McNair—and his administration to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg.
The state claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen at the college. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense in order to protect themselves from a attacking mob of students.
To bolster that claim and deflect responsibility from its own actions, the state hastily devised a media campaign to blame the riot on Cleveland Sellers, a young black activist working to organize area college students.
Time would prove none of it was true.
At first, the state’s cover-up worked. Later, upon scrutiny, it began to unravel. Then, with his legacy threatened, McNair broke nearly forty years of silence in 2006 in an attempt to put the pieces back together.
Ignoring facts proven over the years in court cases and through the first person accounts of eyewitnesses, McNair used local media and friendly historians as a tool to help members of his community lie to themselves about their own history. For the last year of his life, he deliberately fogged and distorted the story of the Orangeburg Massacre.
One man who knows the truth minced no words about what happened in 1968.
“They committed murder. Murder…that’s a harsh thing to say, but they did it,” said Ramsey Clark, U.S. Attorney General in 1968. “The police lost their self control. They just started shooting. It was a slaughter. Double ought buckshot is what you use for deer. It’s meant to kill. One guy emptied his service revolver. That takes a lot of shooting. The (students) are running away. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow! My God, there’s a murderous intent there. We are lucky more weren’t killed.”
Clark said the student deaths were caused by police criminal acts. “The provocation for the incident was an absurd, provocative display of force,” he said.
Gov. McNair responded to Orangeburg with excessive police power because that was the politically expedient thing to do in 1968, the former attorney general said.
“Fear, anger, a sense of self-righteousness to justify hating began to be seen as successful politics.” When the tactic backfired, Clark added, state officials fabricated stories that many South Carolinians believe to this day.
After 46 years, the story of the Orangeburg Massacre still simmers, unresolved. It is the chilling saga of the horrors of law enforcement motivated by racism and hatred—and the inability of a Southern state to admit the truth.
The central theme is “mendacity,” the web of lies a community spins in a desperate attempt to maintain it’s self-image and dignity when confronted by its own prejudice. It’s a culture where words are constantly being redefined in order that a people can more comfortably deceive themselves.
“The Orangeburg Massacre has become the litmus test for race relations in South Carolina,” said State Rep. Bakari Sellers, son of South Carolina’s scapegoat during the shooting. “We celebrate it every year and no one seems to care or no one seems to want to understand what really happened. It’s a veil of secrecy that the state has placed over that and kept it that way for as long as possible.”
That secrecy, Bakari said, must end.
The Legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre is a new multimedia eBook that is the most comprehensive examination to date of the killing of three black students in 1968 by white Highway Patrolmen in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Coming nearly 50 years after the shooting, the multimedia production contains interviews with key figures who explain exactly what happened in the worst civil rights disaster in South Carolina’s modern history.
The e-Book contains interviews with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former Gov. Robert McNair, Cleveland Sellers, Jordan Simmons, Gladys Simmons-Suddeth, Nat Abraham, Rhett Jackson, Former Gov. John West, George Dean, the first black S.C. National Guardsman, Fred Mott, Rep. Bakari Sellers and survivors of the Orangeburg shooting.
“The Orangeburg Massacre is a complex Southern epic that contains the essential elements of the best of Shakespeare’s plays,” Beacham noted. “The continuing silence in the aftermath of the killing is perhaps one of the most revealing and important historical stories of modern South Carolina and very deep dive into the basics of Southern culture.
“For years I have been collecting video, audio and photographs relating to these stories,” Beacham continued. “Now, for the first time, the technology exists to put all these elements together in a compelling way to tell their stories in a fuller way.”
The Legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre ($9.99) (ISBN-9781629218762) is available at Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Kindle book store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store. It can also be bought directly from the store at Vook at http://store.vook.com/ and read online there on Macintosh and PC platforms.
An act of racism in a small college town leads to peaceful protest by frustrated black students. The governor, elected on a platform of racial moderation, responds with a vast show of armed force. Each side misreads the other, escalating the conflict. Then, in a peak of emotional frenzy, nine white highway patrolmen open fire on the students. In less than ten seconds, the campus turns into a bloodbath.
Over four days in early February, 1968, this scenario played out in Orangeburg, South Carolina. On the final day, three black students were killed and 27 others wounded when the lawmen sprayed deadly buckshot onto the campus of South Carolina State College. Most of the students, in retreat at the time, were shot from the rear—some in the back, others in the soles of their feet. None carried weapons.
The killings occurred in a southern state heralded for its record of nonviolence during the civil rights era. In attempt to preserve its carefully-cultivated image of racial harmony, a web of official deceptions was created to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg.
The state's young governor, Robert E. McNair, claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense—to protect themselves from an attacking mob of students.
At first, the state's cover-up worked. Later, it unraveled. In nearly 50 years, the story of Orangeburg continues to simmer unresolved in a twilight zone of blame and denial.
This website is dedicated to the compelling story that South Carolina's power elite still tries to hide! It is the only place to get the complete truth about what happened in 1968. The Orangeburg Massacre is a Southern epic of mendacity that continues to define the modern South.
http://www.orangeburgmassacre.com/
An act of racism in a small Southern town led to a peaceful protest by frustrated black college students who were denied use of the community’s only bowling alley.
A conservative Southern governor, wanting to appear tough to his white constituents, overreacted to the civil rights protest ordering a massive show of armed force. As emotions frayed and the situation veered out of control, nine white highway patrolmen opened gunfire onto a college campus—killing three black students and wounding 27 others.
All the students were unarmed and in retreat from the highway patrolmen at the time of the shooting. Yet, without warning, they were shot in their backs with deadly buckshot.
The killings occurred on February 8, 1968—47 years ago—on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Until the shooting, South Carolina was a southern state that had proudly celebrated a record of nonviolence during the turbulent civil rights years.
Nonviolence was equated with racial harmony in a white community with a paternalistic attitude toward its poorer black citizens. Equal rights were another thing.
To help protect its “progressive” self-image on racial issues, a web of official deceptions was created by South Carolina’s young governor—Robert McNair—and his administration to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg.
The state claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen at the college. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense in order to protect themselves from a attacking mob of students.
To bolster that claim and deflect responsibility from its own actions, the state hastily devised a media campaign to blame the riot on Cleveland Sellers, a young black activist working to organize area college students.
Time would prove none of it was true.
At first, the state’s cover-up worked. Later, upon scrutiny, it began to unravel. Then, with his legacy threatened, McNair broke nearly forty years of silence in 2006 in an attempt to put the pieces back together.
Ignoring facts proven over the years in court cases and through the first person accounts of eyewitnesses, McNair used local media and friendly historians as a tool to help members of his community lie to themselves about their own history. For the last year of his life, he deliberately fogged and distorted the story of the Orangeburg Massacre.
One man who knows the truth minced no words about what happened in 1968.
“They committed murder. Murder…that’s a harsh thing to say, but they did it,” said Ramsey Clark, U.S. Attorney General in 1968. “The police lost their self control. They just started shooting. It was a slaughter. Double ought buckshot is what you use for deer. It’s meant to kill. One guy emptied his service revolver. That takes a lot of shooting. The (students) are running away. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow! My God, there’s a murderous intent there. We are lucky more weren’t killed.”
Clark said the student deaths were caused by police criminal acts. “The provocation for the incident was an absurd, provocative display of force,” he said.
Gov. McNair responded to Orangeburg with excessive police power because that was the politically expedient thing to do in 1968, the former attorney general said.
“Fear, anger, a sense of self-righteousness to justify hating began to be seen as successful politics.” When the tactic backfired, Clark added, state officials fabricated stories that many South Carolinians believe to this day.
After 46 years, the story of the Orangeburg Massacre still simmers, unresolved. It is the chilling saga of the horrors of law enforcement motivated by racism and hatred—and the inability of a Southern state to admit the truth.
The central theme is “mendacity,” the web of lies a community spins in a desperate attempt to maintain it’s self-image and dignity when confronted by its own prejudice. It’s a culture where words are constantly being redefined in order that a people can more comfortably deceive themselves.
“The Orangeburg Massacre has become the litmus test for race relations in South Carolina,” said State Rep. Bakari Sellers, son of South Carolina’s scapegoat during the shooting. “We celebrate it every year and no one seems to care or no one seems to want to understand what really happened. It’s a veil of secrecy that the state has placed over that and kept it that way for as long as possible.”
That secrecy, Bakari said, must end.
The Legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre is a new multimedia eBook that is the most comprehensive examination to date of the killing of three black students in 1968 by white Highway Patrolmen in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Coming nearly 50 years after the shooting, the multimedia production contains interviews with key figures who explain exactly what happened in the worst civil rights disaster in South Carolina’s modern history.
The e-Book contains interviews with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former Gov. Robert McNair, Cleveland Sellers, Jordan Simmons, Gladys Simmons-Suddeth, Nat Abraham, Rhett Jackson, Former Gov. John West, George Dean, the first black S.C. National Guardsman, Fred Mott, Rep. Bakari Sellers and survivors of the Orangeburg shooting.
“The Orangeburg Massacre is a complex Southern epic that contains the essential elements of the best of Shakespeare’s plays,” Beacham noted. “The continuing silence in the aftermath of the killing is perhaps one of the most revealing and important historical stories of modern South Carolina and very deep dive into the basics of Southern culture.
“For years I have been collecting video, audio and photographs relating to these stories,” Beacham continued. “Now, for the first time, the technology exists to put all these elements together in a compelling way to tell their stories in a fuller way.”
The Legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre ($9.99) (ISBN-9781629218762) is available at Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Kindle book store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store. It can also be bought directly from the store at Vook at http://store.vook.com/ and read online there on Macintosh and PC platforms.
An act of racism in a small college town leads to peaceful protest by frustrated black students. The governor, elected on a platform of racial moderation, responds with a vast show of armed force. Each side misreads the other, escalating the conflict. Then, in a peak of emotional frenzy, nine white highway patrolmen open fire on the students. In less than ten seconds, the campus turns into a bloodbath.
Over four days in early February, 1968, this scenario played out in Orangeburg, South Carolina. On the final day, three black students were killed and 27 others wounded when the lawmen sprayed deadly buckshot onto the campus of South Carolina State College. Most of the students, in retreat at the time, were shot from the rear—some in the back, others in the soles of their feet. None carried weapons.
The killings occurred in a southern state heralded for its record of nonviolence during the civil rights era. In attempt to preserve its carefully-cultivated image of racial harmony, a web of official deceptions was created to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg.
The state's young governor, Robert E. McNair, claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense—to protect themselves from an attacking mob of students.
At first, the state's cover-up worked. Later, it unraveled. In nearly 50 years, the story of Orangeburg continues to simmer unresolved in a twilight zone of blame and denial.
This website is dedicated to the compelling story that South Carolina's power elite still tries to hide! It is the only place to get the complete truth about what happened in 1968. The Orangeburg Massacre is a Southern epic of mendacity that continues to define the modern South.
http://www.orangeburgmassacre.com/
