Years before a bloody night in 1968 etched its place in civil rights lore as the site where three black college students were shot to death and another 27 wounded by South Carolina Highway Patrolmen, the city of Orangeburg, home to two historically black colleges, was a hotbed of protest activity. That became evident today as the stage in the basement of historic Trinity United Methodist Church became a public interview arena to acquire the reflections of long-time activists like Jim Sulton, 81. With amazing recall and a charming wit, Mr. Sulton spoke of the period right after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools. At that time, white school officials and business leaders in Orangeburg launched an all-out financial attack on blacks who dared to sign petitions calling for complying with the new law of the land.
One of the signers, "Tank" Lewis, 87, a brick mason with 11 employees, suddenly found it impossible to find a job for his crew. A white leader promised to find him all the work there was--as soon as he removed his name from the petition. Lewis said no. He was forced to change his name and scratch for work in neighboring counties, hiring himself and his crew out to an ostensibly white-owned company. He chuckled as he recalled this occasion: After he and his crew finished a brick-laying job, the pleased white customer asked him to tell "Mr. Lewis" what a fine job his workmen had done--not realizing that he was talking to Lewis himself.
The events leading up to the incident that became known as "the Orangeburg Massacre" began on a winter night four years after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. By then, most public places in the city had dropped their segregationist policy, but not All-Star Bowling Alley, the only bowling place in town. Students from South Carolina State College and Clafin College had begun their protests on February 6, 1968, by gathering in front of the bowling alley. When they returned the next evening, fifteen students were arrested. Tension mounted and law enforcement watched as the students gathered on the campus of South Carolina State the next evening, February 8. A bonfire was started and police attempted to put it out. When an officer was hit by a piece of debris, a highway patrolman fired his gun into the air, and then other patrolmen began firing into the crowd.
Rev. E. T. Jones, Jr. recalled the FBI visiting his father, the undertaker who had removed all three of the dead students' bodies. "They discovered all three were shot in the back or the side," he says. "They were in a retreat mode, not an attack mode."
