 |
This article is adapted from a presentation by South Carolina State University history professor Dr. William Hine at The Citadel Conference on Civil Rights in 2003. The entire article will appear in an anthology of essays on civil rights in South Carolina to be published later this year by the University of South Carolina Press. The 1999 appeal, "Orangeburg, Let Us Heal Ourselves," will appear in that book. Except for three years in graduate school, Hine has taught history at South Carolina State University since 1967. He is currently working on a history of South Carolina State.
Forty-five years ago on January 23, 1963, Harvey Gantt enrolled as the first black student at Clemson College, an episode characterized by The Saturday Evening Post as "integration with dignity." Forty years ago on Feb. 8, 1968, three students were killed and 28 young men were injured in the Orangeburg Massacre, an event no one associated with dignity -- not to mention non-violence or peaceful change.
Though -- and unlike Kent State -- the Orangeburg Massacre has been all but ignored by American historians, it has endured in South Carolina's past as one of the genuine tragedies of the 20th century. For four decades, the Massacre has been an open and festering wound that has deeply divided the black and white communities in Orangeburg. There have been two primary reasons why this racial animosity has persisted for so long.
First, South Carolina State University has held a memorial service every Feb. 8 since 1969. That ceremony has usually attracted newspaper and television coverage, which has laid bare diametrically opposed views of what happened in 1968. Most people in the black community regarded it as fitting and proper that there be an annual tribute to those whose lives were sacrificed in a fusillade of gunfire from untrained and racist highway patrolmen. To the contrary, more than a few people in the white community considered the young men not martyrs but angry and dangerous black militants, incited by outside agitators, who were bent on mayhem and violence. Only the heroic efforts of the highway patrolmen saved Orangeburg from destruction and devastation.
Second, many white people in Orangeburg regarded the book written by Jack Bass and Jack Nelson and published in 1970 as no more than a series of misrepresentations and inaccuracies that utterly failed to explain what really happened in Orangeburg. The book has remained in print and thus has continued to be a disagreeable reminder of a past that many do not believe happened.
On the 30th anniversary of the Massacre in 1998, an especially unpleasant series of exchanges were published in The Times and Democrat that finally prompted many black and white people to join together in 1999 to begin the slow process of reconciliation.
"History cannot be rewritten," they declared, "but it can and should be used to move forward and rebuild racial relations." They acknowledged the importance of the yearly commemoration of the tragedy. "The annual memorial service must continue to be the foundation for better relations among the races, not the root of increased tension in the Orangeburg community." More than 250 people signed the statement, published on a full page of The Times and Democrat on Sunday, Feb. 8, 1999. It was a singular achievement for a city not renowned for its racial harmony.
The process of reconciliation took another step forward in 2001. With funding provided in part by the South Carolina Humanities Council, South Carolina State University collaborated with the University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston to conduct an oral history of some of the survivors and people directly involved in the Massacre. There were, however, unintended consequences of what simply began as an effort to enlarge the historical record of what had happened in 1968.
The participants in the oral history project were also invited to take part in a public program on the 33rd anniversary of the event, and it became a profoundly moving moment of remembrance and reconciliation as hundreds of people assembled on the campus of South Carolina State. The committee responsible for initiating the oral history asked then-South Carolina State University President Leroy Davis (who was a student at the time of the Massacre) to invite Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges. Davis did and Hodges accepted.
Hodges proceeded to apologize: "We deeply regret what happened on the night of Feb. 8, 1968. The Orangeburg Massacre was a great tragedy to our state. Even today, the state of South Carolina bows its head, bends its knee and begins the search for reconciliation." Perhaps the most astonishing development occurred days earlier when Capt. David Deering, commander of District 7 of the South Carolina Highway Patrol, asked President Davis if a delegation of highway patrolmen could attend the ceremony. Six patrolmen -- three white men and three black men -- did attend and were recognized during the program. As much as anything else, the voluntary participation of a younger generation of highway patrolmen eliminated the ugly and mean-spirited rhetoric that erupted around previous observances.
In 2003 Republican Gov. Mark Sanford also issued an apology on behalf of the state on the anniversary of the Massacre. This served as another step toward healing.
Now on the eve of the 40th anniversary, there is a further effort to promote "truth and reconciliation" among people in Orangeburg and South Carolina. This year's observance will be broadcast statewide on South Carolina ETV.
No one who lives in Orangeburg in 2008 would contend that the community has freed itself of racial rancor and division. It has not. But neither is it the same community that it was in 1968 or even in 1998. With the willingness and commitment of local citizens to take a public stand for racial healing in 1999, with the governor's apology in 2001, with the presence of the six highway patrolmen at the same ceremony and with 40 years having passed since the Massacre, Orangeburg has exorcized some of its racial demons. But the process is far from finished. Will that dedication to strengthening bonds and ties among all of the community's residents continue or will it falter?