page_title: Orangeburg massacre
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Orangeburg massacre / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Orangeburg County jail at southeast corner of St. John and Meeting Streets in Orangeburg, South Carolina; seen from the southwest, from Meeting.
context_page_description: 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. The approximately 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.
  The event pre-dated the 1970 Kent State shootings and Jackson State killings, in which the National Guard at Kent State, and police and state highway patrol at Jackson State, killed student protesters demonstrating against the Cambodian campaign during the Vietnam War.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: Old Orangeburg County jail at southeast corner of St. John and Meeting Streets in Orangeburg, South Carolina; seen from the southwest
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