On this night in 1968, in Orangeburg, South Carolina, along the Edisto River that had long been the home of indigenous Algonquian-speaking people, SC State College students light a bonfire in a stand-off with police and National Guard troops who had been called in days earlier when students began protesting the prohibition of Black people at a local bowling alley.

Tensions are high and both sides aggressively taunt each other. A fire truck arrives to put out the fire and law enforcement begins shooting into the fleeing crowd, killing three and injuring 28, mostly from behind. Police are heard celebrating the attack while victims are taken to a segregated hospital.

The bowling alley, hospital and other local businesses desegregate in the weeks that follow. All officers are acquitted.