During the height of the Civil Rights Movement , many students participated in marches and rallies aimed at ending segregation . The struggle came to a climax on the night on February 8 , 1968 , when three students were killed and 27 others were wounded by state policemen at the height of a protest that opposed the segregation of a nearby bowling alley . The tragedy , known as the Orangeburg massacre , is commemorated by a memorial plaza near the front of the campus . From the late-1960s to the mid-1980s , under the leadership of M. Maceo Nance , the campus experienced unprecedented growth in the form of new academic buildings , such as Nance Hall ( 1974 ) and Belcher Hall ( 1986 ) , new residence halls , such as Sojourner Truth Hall ( 1972 ) , which , at 14 stories , is the tallest building in Orangeburg County , and a new library building ( 1968 ) , not to mention enlargements and renovations of existing facilities . The school also opened the I.P. Stanback Museum & Planetarium , which is the only facility of its kind on a historically black university campus in the United States . After Nance 's retirement in 1986 , Albert Smith assumed the office of the school 's president and , among other achievements , created an honors college in 1988
Orangeburg massacre
Orangeburg massacre
South Carolina State University