{"id":7519,"date":"2023-02-16T19:02:35","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T19:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=7519"},"modified":"2023-02-16T19:02:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T19:02:35","slug":"cecil-williams-documented-the-events-that-culminated-in-three-young-mens-deaths-on-the-sc-state-campus-in-1968","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/16\/cecil-williams-documented-the-events-that-culminated-in-three-young-mens-deaths-on-the-sc-state-campus-in-1968\/","title":{"rendered":"Cecil Williams Documented the Events that Culminated in Three Young Men\u2019s Deaths on the SC State Campus in 1968"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
South Carolina State University President Alexander Conyers and Civil Rights Era photographer Cecil Williams at the campus monument dedicated to the three men killed in the Orangeburg Massacre.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Special to The Truth<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The tragic events of February 1968 in Orangeburg are clear in the mind of renowned Civil Rights Era photographer Cecil Williams 55 years after the fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember every minute, every moment, every day and every face that I came upon,\u201d Williams said Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, at South Carolina State University\u2019s commemoration of the Orangeburg Massacre\u2019s 55th anniversary. \u201cWe photographers have a natural ability to remember events and people and circumstances just a little bit better than most people
\nbecause we take pictures all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith our cameras, we photographers freeze moments in time. Every time we take a picture we capture a slice of life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Civil Rights Era photographer Cecil Williams speaks Wednesday at the commemoration of the Orangeburg Massacre\u2019s 55th anniversary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Williams was the keynote speaker for Wednesday\u2019s event in SC State\u2019s Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium. He documented the series of events that culminated in the police shooting deaths of three young men on the SC State campus on Feb. 8, 1968 \u2013 known today as the Orangeburg Massacre.<\/p>\n

Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton were killed when police opened fire on some 200 unarmed Black students who were demonstrating in the name of integrating a local bowling alley. Another 28 protestors were wounded. Smith and Hammond were both enrolled at SC State, and Middleton was a 17-year-old student at Wilkinson High School in Orangeburg.<\/p>\n

Each year on Feb. 8, the university honors Smith, Hammond and Middleton, their families and Orangeburg Massacre survivors. Representatives of the Smith, Hammond and Middleton families were present at Wednesday\u2019s commemoration and took part in a flame lighting ceremony at the campus monument enshrined with bronze likenesses of the three men.<\/p>\n

Also attending the commemoration were several survivors of the shootings. Williams recognized them as \u201cgenuine American heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou stand on their shoulders,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe owe them a great debt. We owe them respect. We hold them to the highest honor.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Bronze busts of Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton at the Orangeburg Massacre Memorial at South Carolina State University. The three Black men were slain by state police who opened fire on an unarmed group of students during a civil rights demonstration on the SC State campus in 1968.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe owe them no less than to be recognized perpetually as heroes who hold to this country\u2019s Constitution so that all people, regardless of their race or color, will be recognized as 100% citizens of this great democracy we call America,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

The theme for Wednesday\u2019s commemoration was \u201cBlack Resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Black resistance and Black persistence that was needed to bring down the walls of segregation in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and throughout the state and throughout the nation,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Williams later spoke of the sacrifices made in that resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must never forget that some paid with their blood and loss of life,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is indelibly stamped on all of us who were there that this was Black resistance \u2013 just like our theme today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been fighting for a long time \u2013 for 400 years \u2013 in this country for freedom, justice and equality. By now, it should be something that\u2019s understood, but we still have a ways to go before we live in a colorblind society,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Williams, whose work is collected in the Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil Rights Museum in Orangeburg, concluded his remarks with a slideshow presentation of photographs he took in 1968 along with those of other photographers who documented the massacre itself. One slide questioned how far the nation has come from the events of 1968 in light of the recent deaths of George Floyd, Tyre Nichols and others at the hands of law enforcement.<\/p>\n

SC State President Alexander Conyers thanked Williams for sharing his perspective and for \u201cbringing us up to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause 55 years later, we are still dealing with similar situations,\u201d Conyers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special to The Truth The tragic events of February 1968 in Orangeburg are clear in the mind of renowned Civil Rights Era photographer Cecil Williams 55 years after the fact. \u201cI remember every minute, every moment, every day and every face that I came upon,\u201d Williams said Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, at South Carolina State […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[162],"class_list":["post-7519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7523,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions\/7523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=7519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}