A once segregated bowling alley was defined by exclusion. Now the community is preserving its history and reclaiming it

The path to equality for all Americans has not been without sacrifice, bloodshed and conflict.

Cecil Williams, a local historian in Orangeburg, South Carolina — a small town nestled between Columbia and Charleston — said he remembers when race determined where someone could or couldn’t go.

“Most of South Carolina, and especially most of Orangeburg, had already opened its doors to people of color. But there were some pockets of resistance,” he said.

One of those places, a local bowling alley, ended up helping shape the civil rights movement. All Star Bowling Lanes is minutes from Orangeburg’s two historically black universities: Claflin University and South Carolina State. In the 1960s, owner Harry Floyd refused to integrate.

“I have my own customers who come to me 52 weeks a year. They support me, year after year. I don’t need any other business,” Floyd told a reporter in a 1968 interview.

Orangeburg Massacre

Students from both universities staged protests against the All Star Bowling Lanes. What began as a peaceful attempt to enter the bowling alley on February 6, 1968, escalated into a confrontation between students and police.

“A glass was accidentally broken in a window where we were all standing around. Law enforcement really overreacted. Those with guns started shooting them from the right side,” Williams said.

After days of demanding access to the bowling alley, a new confrontation between students and police broke out on February 8 and took a deadly turn. This is what is known today as the “Orangeburg Massacre.”

“I think there were about 30 highway patrolmen and 200 National Guardsmen on the streets,” Williams said of that day.

He said that around 10 p.m. that evening, highway patrol officers began shooting at students, killing three – Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton – and injuring 28.

Williams remembers arriving on campus the next morning.

“I looked down and saw… shells and other objects lying on the ground. I picked up about a dozen of them.” The FBI later confiscated five, but two were lost, he recalled.

“I have five left,” Williams said.

“Actually, this event could have been worse, but it proves to me that there are more good people than bad,” Williams said. “The focus was on 30 highway patrol officers who loaded their weapons, but only nine obeyed…obeyed one of the most senior law enforcement officers to load their weapons and begin shooting at the students.”

Nine police officers were accused of excessive use of force but were later acquitted.

The only conviction was for protest organizer Cleveland Sellers, who served seven months for rioting. He was pardoned 25 years later.

All Star Bowling Lanes remained open for nearly 40 more years and was only incorporated after continued pressure from the community. It closed permanently due to financial problems in 2007.

“This story needs to be told”

Once defined by exclusion, bowling is being reclaimed and redefined.

New owner Ellen Zish Holtz is now leading efforts to restore the historic site with federal and nonprofit support.

“This is the future of this city,” she said. “It will be a place of history and memory, but it will also be a place to have great times and where the community will come together. And I believe that is the key to reconciliation.”

Williams said preserving the city’s history is crucial.

“This story needs to be told. You can’t just throw it under a rug and forget about it,” Williams said. “History is something like freedom. You have to work for it. It’s not free. Freedom isn’t free. It has to be earned. And generation after generation, sometimes we have to change it again.”