Qualla: Orangeburg Massacre

Orangeburg Massacre: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ammodramus, CC0. It started with a bowling alley. In February 1968, while the nation's attention was fixed on Vietnam and the presidential primaries, Black students at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg wanted to knock down pins at the All-Star Bowling Lane a few blocks from campus. The owner refused to serve them. A student named John Stroman devised a clever legal strategy: send a white student first, with no club membership, and watch him bowl without question. When Stroman and his classmates arrived moments later, the staff refused them entry and threw away anything they touched. That act of defiance over ten-pin bowling set off three days of escalating confrontation that ended with highway patrolmen firing shotguns into a crowd of fleeing students. Three young men died. Twenty-eight more were wounded. It was the first time American police shot and killed students on a university campus - two full years before Kent State made the practice infamous.

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Image: Ammodramus | CC0

Orangeburg Massacre: A City Primed to Burn

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photo scanned by South Carolina Political Collections at the University of South Carolina from the Robert McNair Papers, CC BY-SA 4.0. Orangeburg had been a flashpoint long before 1968. In 1960, a thousand students from South Carolina State and neighboring Claflin College marched downtown to protest segregation. Police and firefighters met them with fire hoses and tear gas, arrested nearly 400 students, and conf...

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Image: Photo scanned by South Carolina Political Collections at the University of South Carolina from the Robert McNair Papers | CC BY-SA 4.0

Orangeburg Massacre: Three Days in February

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dozier Mobley (1933-2009), Public domain. Stroman's planned sit-in on February 5 went exactly as designed. Fifteen students were arrested for trespassing, intending to challenge the policy in court. But the situation spiraled when a fire truck arrived at the bowling alley that night. In Orangeburg, fire hoses had been us...

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Image: Dozier Mobley (1933-2009) | Public domain

Orangeburg Massacre: Eight Seconds

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dozier Mobley (1933-2009), Public domain. On the night of February 8, about 200 students gathered around a bonfire at the front of the State College campus. More than 130 police from at least five agencies surrounded them. When officers moved in to extinguish the fire, someone threw a wooden banister post that struck pat...

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Image: Dozier Mobley (1933-2009) | Public domain

Orangeburg Massacre: The Silence That Followed

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Associated Press reported a "heavy exchange of gunfire" and never corrected the record. Newspapers ran headlines like "Three Die in Riot" and "Trio Slain after Opening Fire on Police." Governor McNair blamed "black power advocates," and his spokesman identified organizer Clev...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Orangeburg Massacre: What Remains

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MBShuler72, CC BY-SA 4.0. The bowling alley desegregated within weeks of the shooting, as did most of Orangeburg's remaining whites-only establishments. South Carolina State University - the college's current name - maintains a granite monument at the center of campus inscribed with the names of the thirt...

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Image: MBShuler72 | CC BY-SA 4.0