The Black Student Movement became increasingly more radical as the '60s progressed. This move was evident in actions like the 1966 Meredith March Against Fear when Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) made remarks about “Black Power” after being arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi.

With Stokely that evening was Cleveland Sellers, program director for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). After many years of work with SNCC, Sellers returned to his native South Carolina. He went to Orangeburg to help organize students in the Black Awareness Coordinating Committee (BACC), a group dedicated to promoting and teaching Black history. 

On February 5, 1968 students protested the segregated All Star Bowling Lane around the block from campus. Protests grew in the days following the original action, with students arrested the following night and the National Guard being called into Orangeburg.

By February 8, 200 students had gathered at the front of South Carolina State College campus and started a bonfire. Firefighters and South Carolina State Highway Patrol officers arrived on the scene. At around 10:30 pm, State Highway Patrol officers opened fire for approximately 10-15 seconds.

At least 29 students were injured (most shot in the back as they ran); three students, Samuel Hammond, Jr. and Henry Smith (both SCSC students) and Delano Middleton (a student at local Wilkinson High School) were killed.