The arrest last month of Edgar Ray Killen,
now 79, for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of three voter
registration volunteers in Mississippi indicates the lengths to which
some are willing to go to right wrongs, even if they occurred more than
40 years ago.
We wonder why the same desire for justice has not resulted in a
full-scale investigation of what has become known as the Orangeburg
Massacre of 1968. South Carolina lawmakers once again have a chance to
approve such an inquiry, and we hope this is the year they do so.
Most Americans familiar with the civil rights movement of the '60s
also are familiar with the murder of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman
and James Chaney in 1964. But not many are as familiar with a civil
rights demonstration on Feb. 8, 1968, in which two South Carolina State
students, Henry Smith, 19, and Samuel Hammond Jr., 18, and a 17-year-old
high school student, DeLano Middleton, were cut down by state troopers.
Twenty-seven others were wounded on a night that culminated
three-days of demonstrations over the refusal of a local bowling alley
to admit blacks. No formal state investigation was conducted then or
since, and the only person sent to prison in the incident was Cleveland
Sellers, a demonstrator, who was pardoned 25 years after being convicted
of inciting a riot and spending seven months behind bars.
A book, "The Orangeburg Massacre," which is considered the most
exhaustive history of the event, said evidence shows no bullets were
fired by demonstrators and no rocks were thrown by the crowd, as claimed
at the time. Those wounded appeared to have been shot from behind as
they tried to run away.
Many repeatedly have called for an official inquiry, to no avail.
Last week, state Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, introduced a bill that
would create a three-member panel to review the Orangeburg Massacre and
explore the idea of compensation for the victims. A similar bill died
quietly a year ago, and this bill may suffer the same fate.
But at some time -- and the sooner the better, while participants and
witnesses are still alive -- the state needs to face this dark moment
from its past. An official investigation would help exorcise a blight on
what otherwise was a record of mostly peaceful desegregation in the
state.
Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, who is not optimistic that
Ford's bill will pass, points to the antiwar demonstration at Kent State
University in 1970 where four white students were killed by National
Guardsmen. Both state and federal investigations were conducted soon
afterwards. If those killed in the Orangeburg Massacre had been white,
she said, "everyone would have heard about it."
But it is not too late to acknowledge history and make amends. Former
Gov. Jim Hodges began that process four years ago by becoming the first
governor to attend the annual ceremony commemorating the deaths on Feb.
8. And on the 35-year anniversary two years ago, Gov. Mark Sanford
issued a statement saying the state apologized for the deaths.
That process should continue with an official inquiry to set the
record straight. We hope lawmakers don't turn their backs to this effort
again this year.
