Future SC tourist attraction connected to bloody massacre will preserve history
An old Midlands bowling alley, connected to a 1968 South Carolina college campus massacre, is being brought back to life and expected to usher in new jobs and tourists.
Under the direction of Ellen Zisholtz, Orangeburg’s All Star Bowling Lane is currently undergoing a preservation and expansion project that will feature 16 bowling lanes, a 1960’s-style lunch counter and a community room to host social justice films, book signings and other community activities.
Another brand-new building, that’ll be attached to the bowling alley via a glass deck, will create affordable housing for artists along with a visual arts studio, a rehearsal space for performing artists and a small place for performances open to the public — in effect creating an “artist village,” Zisholtz told The State.
To top it off, the new attraction will feature a commemorative park with green space and benches going from Russell Street to the bowling lanes, according to Zisholtz.
“We’re going to have visual artists, musicians, playwrights and actors living in Orangeburg” Zisholtz said, who’s also a visual artist who led the I.P. Stanback Museum & Planetarium at S.C. State University for a decade. “What we’re doing is going to be economically important to Orangeburg and the state, as we’ll create jobs and escalate tourism, which will spur other development.”
In all, the multi-million dollar project, which is expected to open sometime next year, aims to revitalize Orangeburg, foster community engagement and preserve history, according to Zisholtz — founder, president and CEO of the Center for Creative Partnerships, which acquired All Star and the adjacent lot in 2021.
Last year, during the fourth (of six) phase of the project, U.S. Congressman Jim Clyburn and Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler appeared at the bowling alley in celebration of a new marquee lighting newly affixed to the building.
Zisholtz said the project wouldn’t be possible without the support of the National Park Service, which, so far, has given more than $2.7 million toward her vision. All Star is listed under the National Register of Historic Places.
While the reimagining of All Star appears bright and alluring, the bowling alley itself stems from a dark and bloody past, which Zisholtz, Butler and Cecil Williams — founder of the S.C. Civil Rights Museum, the state’s first and only — discussed nationally during a segment on CBS Mornings Thursday.
The Orangeburg Massacre of 1968
On Feb. 8, 1968, three Black students were gunned down and killed by police on S.C. State’s campus during a protest against All Star. More than 30 others were injured after police and national guardsmen fired into a crowd that had been restricted from leaving campus following an event at the bowling alley two days prior.
On Feb. 6, 1968, more than 100 students sought entrance to All Star, which remained the only segregated establishment in much of South Carolina and Orangeburg following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed segregation, according to Williams who’d arrived at the demonstration as the official yearbook photographer for S.C. State and Claflin University
The facility’s owner at the time, Harry Floyd, defied the law, arguing that bowling lanes did not fall under the Act’s jurisdiction, according to The National Park Service. Local Black people in the community, however, argued because All Star had a snack bar, it did in fact qualify for desegregation. Their claims were supported under the interstate commerce provision in the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act, according to the National Park Service.
“I have my own customers that support me 52 weeks a year,” Floyd said in an aired interview by CBS at the University of South Carolina in 1968. “They support me year in and year out. I need no other business.”
Still, attempts by students from S.C. State and Claflin to enter the establishment on Feb. 6, 1968, were met by force, where a woman who fell on a sidewalk near the bowling alley was pummeled by two police officers using billy clubs, Williams said.
“When students saw that violence precipitated by law enforcement, they started picking up rocks and throwing at cars and businesses along Russell Street,” Williams told The State. “So, that’s why (the students) were being contained on campus (on Feb. 8, 1968).”
Two years prior to the Kent State Massacre — where national guardsmen from Ohio fired into a crowd, killing four students and wounding nine others — the Orangeburg Massacre at S.C. State marked the first time in history students were killed by police on a college campus during a protest, according to Williams, who was at the scene the night of the shooting and the following morning.
Just before sunrise, amid frigid temperatures, on the morning of Feb. 8, 1968, Williams arrived on the campus of S.C. State to photograph students’ continued protest against All Star.
He would remain in place until 9 p.m. that evening, where he said he got hungry and left.
By that time, students had created a large bonfire in efforts to stay warm on the cold February evening.
Around an hour later, shots rang out from shotguns wielded by S.C. Highway Patrolmen toward a crowd of students. Three students, including Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond of S.C. State and Delano Middleton of Wilkinson High School were killed.
David Bledsoe, a reporter with The State in 1968 captured the scene with vivid detail.
“The night exploded with sudden booms and muzzle flashes of rapidly fired shotguns,” Bledsoe wrote. “I heard no command to open fire and Highway Patrolman later said none was given.”
During the incident, one patrolman was injured from a piece of wood that flew from the crowd. Nine other patrolmen were indicted for illegally firing but were later acquitted, according to a report from CBS news.
Williams said he returned to the scene of the shooting the following morning and collected a dozen shotgun shells that were scattered about. The FBI later took five of those shells away.
“It was amazing that it was a crime scene, and law enforcement did not care enough about this to even put a crime scene tape around the area,” Williams said.
While Williams had only photographed Middleton for the school’s yearbook, he knew Hammond and Smith personally.
“They were great students and friendly faces in the crowd,” Williams said. “You would see them in the student center shooting pool and eating a big stack of pancakes. It was quite unfortunate to realize that they had been lost to that tragedy.”
Butler, Orangeburg’s first Black mayor, said Zisholtz’s preservation and expansion of All Star will help to heal a community that’s been historically fraught with racial tensions.
“This will help the city to heal, and it will also help with the racial divide that has been hovering over this city for a long time,” Butler told The State. “I’m a firm believer that you cannot move to the future until you to heal from the past.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2026 at 5:30 AM.
