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March 9, 2003
 By JOHN MONK, Staff Writer
Gantt was mindful that four months earlier the University of Mississippi had erupted in deadly riots over the admission of a black student. And, when he went into the dining hall to eat, Gantt expected to see hundreds of whites. He wondered whether they would riot as students at Ole Miss had done to intimidate James Meredith. After all, Gantt was the first black student in the 20th century to defeat white efforts to keep blacks out of the state’s prestigious colleges.
“But when I hit the door of the dining hall, there stood all these people. My people. Black people. I’d forgotten that they served the university. They provided all the domestic services, janitorial services,” said Gantt, 60, a Charlotte architect who was then 20.  By CLAUDIA SMITH BRINSON, Staff Writer Saying they have a greater desire for truth than for reparations, participants at The Citadel Conference on Civil Rights circulated a petition Saturday requesting an “official state investigation” of the Orangeburg Massacre. Three black students were killed — Samuel Hammond, Henry Smith and Delano Middleton — and 27 wounded when S.C. highway patrolmen opened fire Feb 8, 1968, in Orangeburg.. The shootings came on the third day of S.C. State student protests against a segregated bowling alley. Those protests drew the FBI, the highway patrol, local police and local deputies.
While the U.S. Justice Department investigated the shootings, South Carolina did not. Nine highway patrolmen were acquitted of civil rights violations. |
©2003 The State-Record
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