COLUMBIA, S.C.
Former South Carolina Gov. Robert E. McNair has broken his silence and taken responsibility for the Orangeburg Massacre.
For decades, McNair has refused to talk about the deaths of three Black students, shot at South Carolina State University by state troopers in February 1968. McNair sent the National Guard and troopers to campus to keep the peace after two days of protests over a segregated bowling alley.
But he addresses the incident in a new biography, “South Carolina at the Brink: Robert McNair and the Politics of Civil Rights,” written by Philip G. Grose.
“The fact that I was governor at the time placed the mantle of responsibility squarely on my shoulders, and I have borne that responsibility with all the heaviness it entails for all those years,” said McNair, now 83.
The incident just covers a chapter in the biography of a man University of South Carolina history professor Walter Edgar said doesn’t get enough credit for helping South Carolina integrate peacefully.
“I think McNair’s decision to lead South Carolina down the path of law and order instead of massive resistance, like most of the lower South states went, was really a gutsy one and is often under-appreciated by South Carolinians and historians in general,” Edgar said.
