On February 8, 1968, after three nights of escalating racial tension over efforts by S.C. State College students and others to desegregate the All Star Bowling Lanes, three students died and 27 others were wounded on this campus. S.C. Highway Patrolmen fired on a crowd here, killing Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith. This tragedy was the first of its kind on any American college campus.