This translation is not completely accurate as it was
automatically generated by a computer.
Powered by
A UMNS Report
By Ciona D. Rouse*
2:20 P.M. EST Feb. 9, 2010
Samuel Hammond (left), Delano Middleton (center) and Henry Smith were
teenage students when they were shot and killed on Feb. 8, 1968, on the
campus of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C. UMNS
photos courtesy of Images of Cecil Williams.
Bishop Marcus Matthews survived one of the first fatal shootings on a
college campus in American history.
Each Feb. 8, Matthews, episcopal leader of the New York West Area,
pauses to remember that night in 1968 on the front lawn of the
historically black South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.
He remembers a brief moment of silence before “what sounded like
hail or a rainstorm” in the air around him.
The sound was gunshots from South Carolina state troopers firing
into a crowd of more than 100 students from the university and
neighboring United Methodist-related Claflin College who gathered to
protest racial discrimination in the community.
“Many of us began to crawl back on the campus. You had to crawl or
you’d get shot,” Matthews said.
Twenty-eight students were shot in their backs, sides and even their
feet as they attempted to flee what is often referred to as the
Orangeburg Massacre.
Two university students, Samuel Hammond Jr., 18, and Henry Smith,
19, were killed. Delano Middleton, a 17-year-old high school student,
who was visiting the campus to walk his mother home from her job at the
campus infirmary, also was slain in the shooting.
James Salley, associate vice-chancellor for institutional
advancement for United Methodist-related Africa University, was
Middleton’s classmate at Wilkinson High School.
“It was horrible,” Salley said. “You have to imagine there was a
young man in class with me since first grade until his death.”
Students had attempted to integrate a whites-only bowling alley.
Salley says that his friend “Bump,” a nickname for Middleton, was an
“all-star athlete, good student and solid citizen.” All the students
were devastated when they went to school on the following day and heard
the news.
“People were angry, confused. And it made no sense to us that three
people would be killed,” Salley said.
Scars still present
The Feb. 8 event followed many acts of nonviolence and civil
disobedience by students in Orangeburg. For days, Matthews and other
students at South Carolina State and Claflin had attempted to integrate
a local whites-only bowling alley to no avail.
“The bowling alley just was a symbol of the segregation and the
racism that was evident in the Orangeburg community at that time,”
Matthews said. “It just happened to be close to the school; it could
have easily been a restaurant or some other white-only facility.”
Matthews did not see any students carrying arms during their
gathering on the lawn on Feb. 8. The students were outdoors to rally and
sing freedom songs, hoping maybe they could leave campus and go to the
bowling alley once again, he said.
But the night ended tragically and ignited fear and anger in the
hearts of many who experienced it.
“When we returned to the campus, there was never any professional
counseling or ways to help us through this,” Matthews said.
Demonstrators protest the shootings.
Matthews is thankful he
received support from his pastor and church family at Cumberland United
Methodist in Florence, S.C., but considers it a tragedy that the
community did not have intentional methods for healing.
“I dare say some of those scars and wounds have not been healed
because it’s an event that has not really been talked about,” said
Salley.
While the school shooting at Kent State University in 1970 received
droves of national attention, few news entities even discussed the
tragedy at South Carolina State two years earlier. The massacre is
seldom recognized.
Justice for all
Prior to speaking at a Feb. 8 commemoration service, Salley said he
wanted current students to remember the massacre that occurred 42 years
ago. “Students have always taken a stand, and they should continue to
take a stand,” he said.
Matthews says that turbulent time in history shaped him forever. He
remembers that The United Methodist Church was the only religious group
in the state that took a stand against racism.
“That made me feel good to be a United Methodist because that
reinforced for me that we were a church that spoke out for justice for
all. And I was aware that our church was predominantly white, but we
still spoke out,” Matthews said.
A new documentary, “Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg
Massacre 1968,” is playing on PBS stations this month.
*Rouse is a freelance writer based in Nashville.
News media contact: David Briggs, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.
About UMC.org
RSS Feed
Press Center
Contact Us