Matthews: One of the perks, senator, of being president of the
Obama: Obviously, I am not.
But in fact, it was not too long ago when African-Americans were not allowed in some bowling alleys. In
It was Feb. 8, 1968, months before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. It was more than two years before the massacre of students at
“It was a cold night … this was the fourth day of activities around the effort to desegregate the bowling alley. … The students had built a bonfire to keep themselves warm and build morale. They were trying to work out some strategy. What should they do next? Should they go back to the bowling alley, where they had been arrested on Tuesday night? Should they go to the City Hall? Should they go to the state Capitol? And they thought that they were in an area that was pretty safe and secure, and they never expected the police to open fire.”
Sellers is now director of the African-American studies program at the
Survivor Robert Lee Davis recalled the event in an oral history project conducted by Jack Bass, who was a reporter at the time and now is a professor at the College of Charleston: “It was a barrage of shots … maybe six or seven seconds. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! Students was hollering, yelling and running. … I got up to run, and I took one step, and that’s all I could remember. I took that one step. I got hit in the back … this was when I got paralyzed. Students was trampling over me, because they was afraid.”
Sellers put the largely unreported and forgotten Orangeburg Massacre in context: “It’s ironic that here we are 40 years later, and the issue of poverty and the issue of war are still issues that are pertinent all around
There have been advances in the 40 years since the Orangeburg Massacre. Now, rather than protesting for access to a bowling alley, an African-American man is a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, his bowling flubs merely the object of ridicule. But the three young African-American men murdered that night in Orangeburg—Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton and Henry Smith—are not with us to share in the progress. They are hardly remembered at all.
The media this week recognize the one-year anniversary of the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech, in which a lone, disturbed gunman killed 30 students and faculty members. It is an important date on which to reflect. The Orangeburg Massacre deserves a place in our national consciousness as well. We need media that provide historical context, that offer more than a one-year perspective on our society. Instead, the mainstream media keep throwing gutter balls.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in
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