1968 student leader remembers the Orangeburg Massacre

 The ceremony concluded with the laying wreaths. (Panther photo by Tyler Starks)

South Carolina State University on Feb. 8 held a commemoration ceremony for the 56th anniversary of the Orangeburg Massacre and the three victims who lost their lives in 1968.

On Feb. 8, 1968, SC State students Henry Smith and Samuel Hammond, and Orangeburg high school student Delano Middleton were shot and killed at the front of the SC State campus by South Carolina Highway Patrol troopers during a protest against racial segregation at a local bowling alley. The attack left 28 other students injured.

The ceremony is held annually to commemorate the three men's lives and remember the event as part of American and civil rights history. This year’s theme was “Through the Eyes of a Student Leader.”

Guest speaker, Dr. Clifford L. Stanley, a student leader at SC State in 1968-69 and retired U.S. Marine Corps general, correlated the Orangeburg Massacre with how African Americans are still fighting for equality today.

“And here we stand 56 years later, and we are still fighting. Can you believe it? They don’t even want us to vote. It’s 2022 people,” Stanley said.

He thanked heroes for fighting for civil rights and for influencing him to continue the fight they started.

Stanley said it’s important to keep the story of the Orangeburg Massacre alive. It’s been covered up for too long and no action has been taken to reconcile the issue.

“I think it’s important for us to recognize that we have a responsibility as a community to continue to tell the story of the Orangeburg Massacre. It has been covered up and it’s intentionally covered up and nobody has corrected the truth and the state of South Carolina has taken absolutely no action to try to reconcile this issue,” Stanley said.

SC State student Delano Whitfield spoke also, asking a question for the audience: “What is your life’s blueprint?”

Stanley, who serves as an adviser and assessor with the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches and as a core team member of Impact Business Coaches, a company dedicated to creating cultures where people look forward to coming to work, followed Whitfield in stating:

“You need to learn how to think, learn how to lead and learn how to live out your life’s purpose. You also need to have the mindset of what you can change and what you can’t change.”

Stanley said, “I am a nobody and you will be more important than I would ever be.”

In closing, he remembered the legacy of the three students killed on Feb. 8, 1968: “They were three brothers who were loved and wanted to be treated with dignity and with respect in the community.” Stanley said.

During the ceremony, the families of the three deceased students were recognized along with survivors of the Orangeburg Massacre, which is the name of a book about what happened in Orangeburg in 1968.

A presentation of the 2024 Smith-Hammond-Middleton Social Justice Awards honored Stanley and Minnie Haynes, a 1968 faculty member who organized the first Orangeburg Massacre commemoration.

As junior class president in 1968 and Student Government Association president in 1969, Stanley was “the glue that held our student body together” the year following the incident, SC State President Alexander Conyers said.

As the ceremony came to a close, the program was moved to the legacy memorial platform for the laying of the wreaths and lighting of the memorial flame for Smith, Hammond and Middleton. Past and present students of SC State, Orangeburg residents and the victims’ families came together to pay their respects to the three men.