South Carolina State University

Overview

South Carolina State University is a public historically Black land-grant research university in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the state’s only public HBCU land-grant institution, beginning in 1872 as the South Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical Institute operating within Claflin College (now Claflin University) under the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act. In 1896 the South Carolina General Assembly passed an act separating it into its own institution, the Colored Normal Industrial Agricultural and Mechanical College of South Carolina — its official name until 1954. During the Great Depression the school’s high school program was forced to close even as its college enrollment grew, and New Deal programs helped fund construction of Wilkinson Hall, its first separate library building. After World War II, enrollment surged, creating a classroom shortage, and in 1947 the U.S. Army established an ROTC detachment on campus.

The Orangeburg Massacre

During the Civil Rights Movement, many South Carolina State students marched and rallied against segregation. On the night of February 8, 1968, state police fired on students protesting the segregation of a nearby bowling alley, killing three and wounding 27 others — an event known as the Orangeburg massacre, now commemorated by a memorial plaza near the front of campus.