All Protests Matter
But some matter more than others.
On May 4, 1970, predominantly white colleges across America erupted after Ohio National Guardsmen killed four unarmed white students at Kent State University. Four million college students protested, and more than 100,000 outraged Americans flooded the streets of Washington, D.C., to demand accountability from the president and Ohio Gov. James Rhodes, who had dispatched troops to quash an “un-American” exercise of free speech.
For legendary civil rights organizer Cleveland Sellers and students at South Carolina State College, the historical day is known by another name.
Monday.
When the Kent State Massacre happened, the most violent, least known event of the civil rights era was two years old. Known as the Orangeburg Massacre, the state-sponsored mass shooting began when law enforcement officers and state guardsmen opened fire during a peaceful protest on the campus of South Carolina State University. The state-sanctioned firing squad killed two SCSU students and a high school senior. at the Palmetto State’s largest historically Black college. Another 28 were wounded, most of them shot in the back. The officers’ excuse?
One of the protesters had a gun.
