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ORANGEBURG A Town, A Team, An American Tragedy

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Fifty years ago, on the evening of February 6, 1968, a group of students including several football players from the South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina walked down the street to the All-Star Bowling Alley, just off the traditionally black college’s campus. Theirs was not an act of recreation but of political protest. As expected, the bowling alley’s owner turned them away because only whites were admitted. Then the local police arrived to arrest the players for disturbing the peace. When other students nearby began to object, the officers drew their nightsticks and the beatings began. Two nights later on February 8, a larger group of football players joined their fellow students in building a bonfire near the campus entrance in a demonstration against the police assault. This time, an all-white force of state troopers responded. By the time the lawmen were done firing double-ought buckshot into the crowd for eight straight seconds, three students lay dead and more than 30 had been wounded. One football player, Samuel Hammond, died in the hail of fire from the state troopers. Several other students were injured. Black colleges on the whole were deeply involved in the civil rights movement, and though some athletes took up the cause, they tended to be the exception rather than the rule. The movement at South Carolina State remains notable for the depth of commitment by athletes and for the bloody price the players paid. The “Orangeburg Massacre,” as the event came to be called, has grown over time into a landmark event in civil rights history. More specifically, it stands as a tragically valiant episode in the history of political activism by black athletes, specifically the football players of South Carolina State.

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