Adam Parker: The Orangeburg Massacre and the Need for Truth and Reconciliation

Adam Parker, arts and culture reporter at The Post and Courier is the author of a biography of Cleveland Sellers Jr., the SNCC activist caught up in the Orangeburg Massacre and the only one jailed in connection with the shooting. The February 8, 1968 Orangeburg Massacre was the first politically tinged campus shooting of students in American history. The event was the culmination of three days of unrest at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg. It produced a scapegoat, but resulted in no convictions of the shooters and never was properly investigated. Though little known, it is a seminal tragedy in the state’s history and the wounds it caused remain largely unhealed. MORE INFO