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Relative of Orangeburg Massacre victim calls for change

The Orangeburg Massacre victims were remembered Feb. 8 during the annual memorial service. (Panther photo by Evan Jenkins)

A relative of Delano Middleton, one of the three students killed during the Orangeburg Massacre, urged the audience at the Feb. 8 memorial service to continue fighting for change.

Middleton, Henry Smith, and Samuel Hammond were killed after nine highway patrolmen fired into a student protest on Soth Carolina State University’s campus Feb 8, 1968. The date is deeply important for Adriane Scott, niece of Middleton and an SC State alumna.

“As a proud alumna of South Carolina State University, this institution holds deep significance for me,” Scott said, “It's not just a campus, it's not just a place of higher education, it's the place where my family members blood spilled.”

Fifty-seven years after her uncle’s death, Scott said that it is important to remember the fight and that the fight is ongoing. She said more action is needed to honor those who were lost.

“Rhetoric alone will not heal our communities, Speeches alone will not get the job done,” Scott said, “We need action -- real, tangible, change.”

Scott called for the attendees to raise their voices and warned them not to let themselves “get too comfortable.” She ended her tribute by singing Sam Cook’s “A change is gonna come,” which was once an anthem for the civil rights movement.

“It is in the policies that we push for, the accountability that we have to demand, and the courage to show up,” Scott said, “We've got to do more than hope in times like these, we have to lift our voices, we have to be unified.”

The guest speaker for the 57^th anniversary ceremony was South Carolia State alumnus Willis Ham. He shared his experiences from that night in 1968.

Ham had been away from the campus for the day and overhead news about the bonfire made by protesting students when he returned to his dorm. He did not attend but was alerted to what happened when his cousin came to his room.

“The sweater and his hands were soaked,” Ham said. “He was in a state of shock. He came in and he said, ‘One of my buddies, there were four of us, died.’”

Presently, Ham travels and tells the story of Smith, Hammond and Middleton at universities and conferences.

“I gave each of them a persona that I worked with, that I wanted to share with people, so that they would have something, a face, to go along with the name,” Ham said, “I carried Smith, Hammond and Middleton with those personas with me for an awfully long time to be able to say I was their friend  and also to say that they were mine.”