Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968

Filmmakers Bestor Cram and Judy Richardson's remarkable documentary revisits a little-known incident in February 1968 on the campus of South Carolina State University at Orangeburg, where racial tensions exploded, culminating in the deaths of three black students and injuries to 27 others. Black college students protesting at a segregated local bowling alley clashed with police, which in turn sparked vandalism of the Orangeburg business district. More than 500 members of the National Guard and state police were dispatched to Orangeburg, with some 120 taking up positions at the historically black university, where on the night of February 8, 1968 officers opened fire on the students. A subsequent FBI report found no credibility to the claims that the students had even possessed guns, much less shot at the authorities (all of the dead and injured were shot in the back or side), but the nine officers brought to trial were rapidly acquitted by an all-white jury (and no one has ever been held accountable). Cleveland Sellers, a young black political activist, was convicted and jailed for inciting the riot at the bowling alley (he was pardoned decades later). The filmmakers interview the survivors of the attack, along with several law enforcement officers, and former Governor Robert McNair. Scarred Justice makes it clear that the violence at Orangeburg never received the level of attention accorded to other landmark events in the Civil Rights movement or campus uprisings of that era (notably the Kent State shootings), and does an admirable job of filling that historic void. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)