Major funding for the World of Cecil is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

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♪ music ♪ >> The reason the photographic legacy is so important is the lesson of the movement.

Medgar Evers lives through his photographs.

Martin Luther King Jr lives through his photographs.

Without the photographer, it never happened.

So without Cecil, there is no legacy for the movement because the legacy resides in here.

>> There was a network of Black press, and I think in as many as 16 cities, and we knew that when a good photographer was there and took a good picture, it sent the message all over the world.

>> If Cecil had not had his camera, people would be making the case that nothing ever happened in South Carolina, and we skipped our way merrily through the civil rights movement, whistling as we went, and everybody lived happily ever after.

Cecil's photographs are testimony that it didn't happen that way.

>> Cecil, I think, is not only his role as a photographer, as a chronicler, I don't think it's just the importance to the state of South Carolina.

I honestly think it's important at the national level in terms of talking about civil rights.

>> I would characterize the achievements of C.J.

Williams, if I were to put it in a single word, it would be innovation.

>> He has been the teacher we've all needed.

>> Cecil has so many gifts, and I think that we may think of him only as a civil rights photographer, and that's erroneous.

>> He is an architect.

He's also an inventor.

>> I think of him as an unobtrusive historian.

>> He was cutting edge.

>> When he sits and think about things, he can make it happen.

It's often said, being a genius.

♪ music ♪ ♪ ♪ <narrator> Cecil Williams is a renowned civil rights photographer from Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Williams has spent over 70 years chronicling the events that he says are pivotal to the civil rights movement in this country.

Events he is determined shall at long last get their just due.

♪ Cecil J. Williams was the second son born to Cecil Leroy and Ethel Lillian Williams in the small Southern town of Orangeburg, South Carolina.

He was born November 26th, 1937, at a time when Jim Crow was the law of the land.

Cecil grew up in a happy household that also included the favorite cousin, Maudelle.

<Maudelle Bing> We grew up on 3 Quick Street.

In that house was my grandmother, my Aunt Ethel, my Uncle Cecil, their son Alfred, we called Al, and our cousin, the youngest, Cecil, we called C.J.

One of the first things I remembered about C.J.

he was I just said he was just sort of born smart.

My grandmother was a schoolteacher, so she collected spools from some tailors, and we would have a math session almost every day.

She would ask me a question.

Maudelle, what is something plus something?

What is something times two?

Before I could think it, C.J.

would say the answer, I said, is your name Maudelle?

He said, "“No, but you're taking too long to answer.

"” <narrator> Years later, his sister Brenda, joined the clan.

<Brenda Williams> My mother said she thought she had cancer when she found out she was pregnant with me.

And she was half right because I was born June 22nd, so I am a cancer.

C.J.

was 15, and he'd been the baby for - the youngest and the baby for a long time.

And so I'm told he wasn't especially all that pleased, but he got over it.

<narrator> Cecil's father was a successful tailor with a predominantly White clientele.

His mother was a dedicated educator, teaching at the elementary, high school and college levels.

<Cecil> My first camera at nine years old given to me by my brother.

It was like a magic box.

It enabled me to, you might say, draw faster because I loved to sketch as a child.

So I was really, really happy that he passed the camera on to me, a Kodak Baby Brownie $2.50 from Sears Roebuck.

<narrator> Receiving that Kodak Brownie proved to be a turning point in Cecil's life.

He found his passion.

(camera shutters) <Cecil> When I was 12 years old, a cousin of mine, Dr. Charles Thomas, asked me to photograph a wedding for a friend of his who was getting married.

I made $35, and I think the realization that I could make $35 and only have to spend maybe $5 worth of material, I think that really bit me pretty well, and I felt that this was going to be my profession.

I wanted to be a photographer.

<Maudelle Bing> His first darkroom was that bathroom.

<Cecil> It was after my brother left, the family household traveled to New York to pursue his musical career that I really was able to set up a dark room at the house.

<Maudelle Bing> He used the bathtub as his developing tank, and the rule was anytime C.J.

has his developing water in the tub, you cannot use the tub.

So we had to go back to washing up from the basin, but...we tolerated that.

<narrator> Cecil and his friends enjoyed a relatively carefree youth.

It was a fairly insulated environment.

Nevertheless, it was a world circumscribed by segregation, a fact not lost on the astute, young Mr. Williams.

At age 13, the budding photographer's awareness of social issues was awakened.

♪ His photos found their way onto the pages of Jet magazine, The Pittsburgh Courier, the Baltimore Afro-American and other Black publications, and by age 14, he was regularly sending pictures to many national news outlets.

At age 14, he also acquired a measure of independence.

Cecil got his driver's license.

In spite of his burgeoning photo business, Cecil found time to pursue other things.

He was keenly interested in comic books.

He enjoyed creating models and designing cars.

His other love was playing tennis.

Cecil made constant use of the courts at nearby South Carolina State College.

In 1950, he served as a ball boy for Althea Gibson, when the American Tennis Association held its national tournament in Orangeburg.

Developing into quite the tennis player, Cecil entered tournaments in other states and actually had the opportunity to play against Arthur Ashe.

Robert Howard, the principal of Wilkinson High School, was himself a photography buff.

He encouraged Cecil's interests, allowing the young man to use the school's photography equipment.

Howard also introduced Cecil to his good friend E.C.

Jones, a Sumter photographer who contracted with the local colleges to do their yearbooks and cover special events.

Through Jones, Cecil would soon be enmeshed in the world of civil rights.

Williams and his camera documented other aspects of Black life, from the mundane to the magnificent.

>> I have always remembered Cecil being in Orangeburg and being in my life, but I can't think of one moment.

We lived close to each other.

He lived on Quick Street.

I lived on Wilkinson Avenue and he often talks about his best friend was Bunt Sulton who lived diagonally across the street from me and their backyards connected.

And Cecil was just a presence in Orangeburg, and I just always knew he was there because of so many activities he was involved in, and particularly his photography business >> In the early 50s, when Thurgood Marshall comes to South Carolina, there are no known images of Thurgood Marshall until this moment in Charleston, where a young student named Cecil Williams captures a shot that becomes iconic.

(camera shutters) <narrator> Soon afterwards, Cecil found himself photographing the people of Clarendon County as they prepared to mount a legal challenge.

<Dr.

Donaldson> There's an image of Thurgood Marshall in front of a train in Charleston.

Here is this one image that captures a national figure that connects to this larger theme of the critical role of South Carolina in the national movement.

<Luther> Cecil became that person who came along at just the right time.

He had a chance to go to Clarendon County and work with the great photographer from Sumter, E.C.

Jones and helped chronicle the Clarendon County experience.

<Cecil> My mother was a close associate of Reverend J.A.

DeLaine because she taught under him.

<Luther> Cecil says that the civil rights movement started in Clarendon County.

He's very, very adamant about that.

<Cecil> In Clarendon County, South Carolina, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a case arose over there where parents being tired of sending their children to dilapidated schools decided to start a petition.

Turned out that the Briggs versus Elliott petition became the first case in history to attack segregation in public education.

<Dr.

Donaldson> You cannot understand the power and the significance of Brown v Board without knowing about Briggs versus Elliott.

In the mid 1940s in Clarendon County you had a burgeoning NAACP chapter led by a man named Reverend Joseph DeLaine, who was an A.M.E. minister and educator.

Reverend DeLaine attended a program at Allen University one summer and heard a charge by a man named Reverend James Hinton.

Reverend Hinton said that we need religious leaders to stand up and to support us in the fight against injustice in South Carolina.

Who among you would do that?

<Joseph DeLaine Jr.> My father was a Reverend J.A.

DeLaine He was the individual that brought the community together in Clarendon County to the point that they could effectively file a suit which was originating there and carried through to the end at the Supreme Court, and I think the basis of this came because of his influence and his involvement with the confidence of the people in that area.

<Dr.

Donaldson> And there were individuals in Clarendon County who joined Reverend DeLaine, including members of the Levi Pearson family.

And so Levi Pearson worked with Reverend DeLaine and a Columbia attorney named Harold Boulware, and they worked in direct collaboration with Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter of the National NAACP, and they filed a lawsuit that challenges inequities in education in Clarendon County.

As the case goes to the courts, there is a federal court judge named Judge Waties Waring who sees the significance of the case, and he pushes, according to the historical documents and others, he pushes Thurgood Marshall that it is in the interest of the larger struggle that you take this case from being one for equal resources and equal access, to being one to call for the dismantling of segregation all together.

<Joseph DeLaine Jr.> So the few people that were in that area and had the ability and contact to help had to think about the economic difficulties that, that few would have if they ventured to go out and try to help other people.

<Dr.

Donaldson> Then, Thurgood Marshall, Harold Boulware are looking for others who will be willing to move forward on a legal challenge to inequities in the schools.

A group of parents lend their names to this case that later becomes Briggs versus Elliott.

<Rev.

Nelson Rivers III> Mr. Briggs lived in walking distance from the Black school.

Many people in Clarendon County had to walk 15 miles, 10 miles, White school busses, busses with White children passing them by, but he didn't have to.

He worked at the Sinclair Gas Station, but he wanted everybody, every child...to have an educational opportunity.

So he signed that petition.

His son's name was on the petition, Harry Jr and his wife, Eliza, there on the petition.

<Cecil> The people of Clarendon County, most of who were all forced to leave after they... signed the Briggs petition, they weren't able to tell their story.

<Rev.

Nelson Rivers III> They became refugees.

They would run out of South Carolina for 20 plus years.

<Cecil> As an 11 and 12 and 13 years old, I knew the story of what those people in Clarendon County were doing, but the rest of the country didn't, and our historians didn't record it in the history books.

<Rev.

Nelson Rivers III> Cecil Williams insisted, and I appreciate this about him so much, that South Carolina's role in being transformative in the civil rights movement is understated and not told.

And one of the major reasons he took his photographs and spread them was to show how essential South Carolina was to the movement.

<narrator> Those who signed the petition were immediately subjected to various forms of violence and retaliation, Modjeska Simkins, then secretary of the state NAACP, led the relief efforts, distributing food and clothing, lending money through the Black owned Victory Savings Bank.

<Dr.

Donaldson> Briggs v. Elliot, is part of a national campaign to dismantle segregation in schools across the country.

So how ironic it is, that here you have this iconic figure's image being chronicled and preserved by young Cecil Williams.

♪ music ♪ ♪ <Dr.

Hine> In Orangeburg in the summer of 1955, a collection of people in the city under the auspices of the local branch of the NAACP formulated a petition asking that the schools be desegregated in keeping with the Brown versus Board of Education decision that had been issued in 1954, and there was immediate retaliation from the White community against the petitioners demanding that they remove their names.

If they did not remove their names, they would be fired.

They would have loans called in.

They would suffer different kinds of retaliation, and many people did under those circumstances, remove their names, but not everybody because there were Black business owners, Funeral directors, service station operators, local ministers like Reverend McCollom, who kept their names on there, and in reaction to the White pressure on the Black community, the Black community formulated a selective buying campaign, a boycott of sorts, but they didn't boycott all White businesses, just select businesses, which threw the White community into turmoil because Black people continued to patronize Pepsi-Cola, but not Coca-Cola.

They continued to patronize some White owned stores, but not others.

You had this economic tug of war occurring.

Thurgood Marshall comes to Claflin and spoke.

Cecil's there.

<Dr.

Donaldson> There's a picture of Thurgood Marshall standing at a podium at the auditorium at Claflin University, but when you study the entire image.

Like, wait a minute, that's Reverend James Hinton.

That's, that's I.S.

Leevy.

And so, again, because he's so focused on these various angles, we were able to tell different parts of the history in ways that we cannot do otherwise.

<Dr.

Hine> The boycott did precede the Montgomery bus boycott.

Actually, a couple of people went to Montgomery from Orangeburg, Jim Sulton, the Esso station owner was invited over there and they talked a little bit about how they operated the selective buying campaign in Orangeburg.

<Dr.

Sulton> The civil rights movement and the thrust of nonviolent specific resistance that Dr. King had generated throughout the South caught traction in many places.

Orangeburg was definitely such a place of the students to participate in marches, in demonstrations, in picketing, and the economic boycott of the stores could not be matched.

<Dr.

Hine> Then they went to the colleges and asked the students to join in the selective buying campaign, and asked the colleges also to join in that, in that they would not buy Coburg milk, for example, or Paradise ice cream, and the students under the SGA president, Student Government Association President, Fred Moore agreed to do that and the college under President Turner said, "We have contracts with these vendors.

"We're not going to violate them.

"We're going to continue to buy Coburg milk.

", and the students walked out of the dining hall.

Cecil was there with his camera, of course, taking pictures of them leaving the dining hall in March of 1956, joining in with the community.

And in response to that, then the board of trustees, which was all White and had been since the school was founded in 1896 in cooperation with the president, President Turner expelled Fred Moore.

No hearing, no due process.

Fred was told to get off the campus and get off the campus immediately.

<narrator> One year later, Moore, with the assistance of the NAACP, would graduate from Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina.

<Dr.

Millicent> J. Arthur Brown, our father, was a native Charlestonian who began as the local president of the NAACP.

And so for a number of years, that was the role he played, but by the mid-sixties, he had gone on to become the state president of the NAACP.

<narrator> Student and youth involvement in the movement ricocheted across the state and continued to escalate.

On April 1st, 1960, students from the all Black, Burke High School in Charleston staged what would prove to be a significant sit in at the SNH Kress five and dime.

After 5 hours of peaceful protest, just sitting in, the young people were arrested on trespassing charges.

J. Arthur Brown posted bail for the students who included his daughter, Minerva.

>> The thing that I see is calmness on the faces of all the people.

There were 24 of us.

Calmness, no fear, just total calmness and a resolute attitude that we were we knew what we were doing.

We were doing it the right way and we were going to keep on doing it, but it's that sort of thing that comes back to me when I see those photographs.

<narrator> Minerva Brown, the original plaintiff in a school desegregation suit, was replaced by her younger sister when she reached her senior year.

Millicent Brown became chief plaintiff in Millicent F. Brown et al.

versus Charleston County School District number 20.

The success of this 1963 ruling led to a statewide public school desegregation the following year.

<Dr.

Millicent> Cecil was always there, and even though he was young, he seemed to have some kind of way of getting the attention of all the NAACP leaders, the church leaders, the ministers, everybody that was involved in the movement, and I just remembered, there was Cecil with that camera.

♪ <Minerva> The photographs also remind me of the fact that there were so many young people who were involved either officially or unofficially in the movement and their enthusiasm and their bravery.

It reminds me of what young people are capable of doing.

<Dr.

Sulton Jr.> As the youth would say, "Now, it got old after a time" and what got old was it got expensive because the students were getting locked up every time.

Any time you go down there and you carry that picket sign, you're subject to go to jail, and at that time, my father was the treasurer for the Orangeburg NAACP, which meant that he was assigned the responsibility of bailing students out.

There were so many marches.

There were so many demonstrations that the chapter was going broke and there were always patches and ways to keep it going.

Daddy would raise money seemingly out of a rock to get these kids out of jail.

It got to a point where you started looking at the students with your tongue tied, because on the one hand, you wanted to give them an atta boy, for being so active and at the same time you want to say, now, please don't go to jail any more because I can't afford to get your butt out of jail, and of course, they wouldn't listen.

Get them cut loose, they'd going right back down there, going to jail again.

So the spirit was low, even though the determination was still there.

The light was not shining at the end of the tunnel.

We didn't know where the movement was going.

The leadership didn't know what it was going to take to get there and couldn't spell where there was.

Dr. King came through.

We sat here for a minute.

He went in the back and slept for a little while and he went down to Trinity Church and gave a speech.

<Cecil> This was the starting point.

This was the place where in the basement there were countless meetings.

When dignitaries, such as Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King and others came to Orangeburg, this was the place where they met.

<Dr.

Sulton Jr.> Nobody can really capture his eloquence, and he spoke, and then he left town, and when he left town, the juice was turned back on.

Everybody was rejuvenated.

Everybody was re-energized.

Everybody was ready to go, and the movement had been resuscitated.

C.J.

was a part of that.

(music fades) <Claudia Brinson> When John Fitzgerald Kennedy was announcing that he was going to be president, he was, of course, doing multiple press conferences.

Cecil saw in the paper that there was one nearby.

He went to the hotel, a very fancy hotel called the Roosevelt Hotel.

<Cecil> He had come there to make an announcement.

Much speculation of whether or not he would actually become a candidate running for the United States presidency.

It was of particular importance to me that I remember that moment, because, again, I was about to be thrown out of a press conference.

<Claudia Brinson> As John F Kennedy and his wife, Jackie Kennedy came in.

Senator Kennedy stopped the guards that were escorting Cecil out and asked what was going on.

Cecil identified himself as a photographer for Jet which was a popular Black magazine of the time, and Kennedy said, "Of course, he could come in "to this press conference."

<Cecil> He reached into his wallet, pulled out a business card, that had his personal address and telephone number and contact at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and over about a three month period, I photographed him campaigning and even had the opportunity to ride in his 10 seater airplane, which was called the Caroline.

We went from Columbia to Atlanta and Atlanta, back to Columbia.

Most of the association, I had with John F Kennedy took place when he was still United States John Kennedy of Massachusetts, not President Kennedy, President of the United States.

>> One of my favorite photographs of that Cecil took, has only a few people in the background, and they're White.

It's a photograph of the Kress store in Orangeburg, the lunch counter with all the seats removed and just the pedestals.

The insanity of this - Jim Crow...what White people did was say, we don't want Black people at this lunch counter.

So we're going to take the seats off the stools and we're not going to be able to sit there either.

We'll deprive ourselves of a right just because we don't want to grant you a similar...right, and it is just... irrational and illogical, but there it is, and Cecil, recorded it.

♪ soft jazz music ♪ ♪ >> The students marched up in Greensboro the sit in... wasn't really a march it was just four students sitting in at the lunch counter at Woolworth's up in Greensboro, North Carolina.

February 1, now we set out to replicate that march in Orangeburg.

<Dr.

Hine> They went down to the Kress store on the square in Orangeburg and sat in at the lunch counter there and were not served.

<Rep.

James Clyburn> So when we could not sit in we went back to Claflin's campus not South Carolina State, Claflin, and we started organizing the students and we decided to have this big march.

<Dr.

Hine> And finally on the 15th of March, 1960, a thousand students, a thousand now from Claflin and S.C. State organized at Trinity Church and marched in groups of 50, 60, 70 people up to the town square there to protest.

<Loretta Hammond> We were doing a protest because of things that were happening on campus.

So students then were very active, became very active as a movement.

>> We walked from the campus, marched down Russell Street and toward downtown.

We got, didn't get all the way downtown.

Some of us may have.

I don't know what my order was in line, but some people were, got downtown.

There were a lot of us.

<Loretta Hammond> ...and it was just a peaceful protest.

Students from South Carolina State and students from Claflin marched, and we came from every direction.

Yes, it was planned.

It caused a complexity for the police department.

They couldn't understand where are all these people coming from, and they tried to control us.

So controlling was the way they used these type of weapons.

It always evokes emotions.

that I can't always control, but as we marched and were met with billy clubs and handcuffs and water hoses and fights and being spat upon, all of this and 365 plus students being arrested, They put us in what was then known as the Pink Castle.

<Cecil> We're on the site of the county jail of Orangeburg, which has been called throughout the years, the Orangeburg Pink Palace.

Pink, because again, the color, of course, now today is faded, but here is the site where after marching and demonstrating, the students, and the people of Orangeburg were jailed.

<Dr.

Tobin Sr.> There were too many of us to be housed in that facility, so we were put outside.

<Loretta Hammond>...and as we peered through those fences, somebody from the college or the community started throwing blankets over the fence.

We grabbed them and we got huddled even more together.

We were in there like sardines anyway.

They took me from the others - I'm sorry.

and they put me - Thank you.

They took me and they put me inside the jail with two other people who were there.

<Dr.

Tobin Sr.> The emotions were high... little bit of fright, I would have to say.

I didn't know what to expect, but we were we were protected by each other in a sense that you were in a group of people that you that you were had some sort of camaraderie with, and we were all had the same purpose.

So it was a little heightened emotion, but felt like, let's march on, let's move on.

This is something that...needed to be done.

<Cecil> I felt that these were great picture opportunities and I knew that I was recording history.

<Dr.

Tobin Sr.> I was drenched to my body because that little raincoat I had on did not have any effect on the water that was shot at us.

<Loretta Hammond> I cannot tell you what kind of condition that was of filth, roaches, feces, every kind of dirt and mug you could possibly imagine.

<Cecil> After the students were sprayed with water, here they were in this cold weather and again wet from being hosed down by city fire trucks while they were marching and demonstrating, and then imprisoned in this outdoor stockade.

<Loretta Hammond> I said, Lord give me strength, and it wasn't until the next day, morning somebody came and said, You can go home now.

<Dr.

Tobin Sr.> You were released based on your alphabet, on your name.

I was a T. It was dark when I got out.

<Loretta Hammond> I looked around and I started to go out because I could hear them open it and as they did, somebody said, "“Your daddy paid for you "“to get out and out for all the other students.

"” He was the one who put up our house for the bail for all of the students and my other sisters, you know, and us and that provoked me even more to be stronger in the movement if I'm going to be treated like this, if they are going to be treated like that, then somebody has to do something.

<Dr.

Donaldson> Now we're able to tell this story because we have images that amplify exactly what happened.

So on March 15th of 1960, the largest led student demonstration in history occurs in Orangeburg.

We know this because we have images, but also on March 16, 1960, the headline story in The New York Times is a story talking about these young men and women who are arrested and attacked by police, and below the headline is a photograph taken of these young men and women at what is called the Pink Palace.

That image is taken by Cecil Williams.

♪ music ♪ ♪ <Gov.

Fritz Hollings> It has come to my attention that there is a desire of certain student groups at Benedict and Allen colleges to make a pilgrimage to the state Capitol building here in Columbia Saturday morning, I've had the chief of my law enforcement division inform the presidents of both colleges that we will not tolerate any such pilgrimage, assemblage or demonstration at the State Capitol building or anywhere else in South Carolina.

<Dr.

Donaldson> One of the most important moments of the civil rights movement in South Carolina took place on March 2nd of 1961.

It was a planned demonstration at the Statehouse on the corner of Main and Gervais streets in Columbia.

<Gov.

Fritz Hollings> Law enforcement officers have the duty and authority to control the nature and size of these demonstrations so that violence will not erupt.

I emphasize this legal authority.

Demonstrator groups should not be misled by some technical opinion of trespass statutes, parade ordinances or the like.

The general law of maintaining the peace applies to all cities and sections of our state, and it will be enforced.

<Rep.

James Clyburn> The Edwards vs. South Carolina march is a very interesting march.

The state had just passed a new law that they called breach of peace.

They had been arresting us under so-called trespassing statutes.

So they changed the law and said what we were doing.

We may not have been trespassing, but we were breaching the peace.

<Dr.

Donaldson> So over 200 students were marching in downtown Columbia on March 2nd, 1961.

These are students from across the state, high school and college students, and they wanted to publicly demonstrate against the state leaders for the continued enforcement of segregation everywhere.

<Gov.

Fritz Hollings> Disorder and violence will not erupt in South Carolina, and these hotheaded student leaders and confused lawyers should realize that the authority and responsibility for maintaining the public peace is absolute.

<Rep.

James Clyburn> So the decision was made by the NAACP that we should challenge that law.

Well, to challenge that law, somebody had to go to jail.

I decided, my roommate and I Clarence Missouri, decided that we were going to come help them get organized, but we were not going to go to jail.

So I put on this olive green three piece suit, a gold shirt, I'll never forget it, and paisley tie, and I walk into Zion Church, and Isaiah DeQuincey Newman was there with the other leadership of the NAACP He at that time, was the field secretary for the NAACP, and he saw me coming in and he knew that's not the way that we dressed when we were getting ready to go to jail... in jazzy cloths.

So he came up to me and inquired about my intentions, and I told him that I intended to help them get organized for the march, but I had some homework to do.

So I was going back to Orangeburg, Well, he knew that wasn't true.

Me doing homework?

So he says, "Well, there's some students "on the other side of the church from Mather Academy."

They had come over to march.

He said to me, "They want you "to lead their group on this march."

<Dr.

Donaldson>...and so they were told they can go to the Statehouse.

They are told they can march in silence for 15 minutes and the police said, "Then you Negroes go back to your church."

<Rep.

James Clyburn> And so I said, "“Well, look, "“I got to go back to school.

"“I can't afford to go to jail today, that y'all need to go back to class, too.

"” And so..

I'll lead this march.

but when we get down to the Statehouse and are told to turn around, we're going to turn around, is that the deal?

They made the deal.

We start marching.

<Dr.

Donaldson> Well, after 15 minutes, one of the organizers named, the Reverend David Carter, decides to give a small sermon.

<Rep.

James Clyburn> He came over, started preaching, and revved up that crowd and finally said, "“Oh, no, we ain't going back.

"” <Dr.

Donaldson> And you can see from the moving footage, these young men and women singing and dancing, and when you look at Cecil Williams' photographs, you can see the same thing.

One scene they're marching quietly.

The next scene, they're rocking in a dance, and right behind them are police.

<Rep.

James Clyburn> Well, needless to say, the next thing I knew, we were be marched off to jail.

<Dr.

Donaldson> Police who are arresting those young men and women for what they called a breach of peace.

That arrest leads to charges, convictions which are then appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

<Rep.

James Clyburn> The Edwards decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1963, but the arrests that led to that decision took place in March of 1961.

<Dr.

Donaldson> Matthew J. Perry, legendary NAACP lawyer Lincoln Jenkins are two of the lead lawyers in the case.

They are supported by the NAACP.

United States Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional to prohibit citizens from exercising their First Amendment rights on public property.

Edwards was extremely significant, but the power of Edwards meant little to the public.

Every...lawyer knew of the significance of Edwards versus South Carolina.

It is taught in every law school, but what is the significance of Edwards in South Carolina?

The moment we had photographs, it opened up a whole different perspective.

♪ <Rep.

James Clyburn> I get to law school, and there's this case sitting in the law book called Edwards against South Carolina.

I said, "“Wait a minute!

"“I was in this.

"”, and that's how I became aware that the Edwards case was now considered a landmark case by the United States Supreme Court.

<Dr.

Donaldson> And so Cecil's photographs not only document the movement.

They actually help people who were in that movement, remember what happened.

♪ <narrator> As a young man, Cecil was interested in pursuing a career in architecture, but his efforts to apply to Clemson University, the only state school which offered an architecture program, were unsuccessful.

Blacks were not allowed.

<Rev.

Geoffery L. Henderson> A Cecil Williams photograph is unique to me and to others for several reasons.

The angle that he will choose to take the photograph from as well as the lighting.

If you go back to when Clemson University was integrated, there were news media all around standing in the yard.

Cecil's idea was, if I stay down there with them, I'll get what they're getting.

So he decided to go away from them and he took a picture of all of the media surrounding the student that was going in, and it was the only shot of that of that type.

So his mind always seemed to go in a different direction than seemingly the rest of us.

<narrator> Ironically, in January 1963 and during the court fights in the months preceding when Harvey Gantt prevailed and integrated Clemson University, Cecil Williams was there.

<Harvey Gantt> There is a scene that I will never forget when I walked out after registering at Clemson on my way to the podium to speak.

I walked out to a huge crowd and the crowd was nothing but news people.

And I don't recall a lot of African-American news people, but I remember seeing him and, you know, this was nice.

<Dr.

Donaldson> So many people and particularly students, think the movement just emerges, that it just evolves on its own.

And so all of the organizing, all of the strategy that goes into the movement, that ultimately what made it successful Cecil had the foresight to capture elements of that.

<Harvey Gantt> The picture that I remember most from that period prior to going to Clemson, was a photograph taken with me laughing, and Constance Baker Motley.

This picture made it to Jet magazine and was on one of those pages that showed myself and my attorneys, and we were probably laughing about the fact that this whole thing was a kind of a charade because we knew that Brown versus Board of Education was going to be on our side.

My unusual memory about him was, he was a Black man right up at the front row recording history.

That might not mean much to people who are living in 2023, but for us, back in 1963 and 62, this was, this was special.

♪ music ♪ ♪ Well, he had a much deeper interest in this history that was being made.

Most of the national photographers that were coming to the scene, they were wanting to get some highlight that they could put on the 6:00 news.

Cecil was trying to get a deeper story.

<Cecil> I thought that I would offer a different perspective to my picture taking.

Pictures again, are very powerful.

Just a single picture can really tell, you know, a great story and much more than it would take in words to explain, but it was important that I covered the journalists.

In fact, I have one photograph that I call Harvey Gantt in the sea of reporters, because really the background is full of 150 journalists who have come to Clemson on this particular day to witness Harvey Gantt become the first person of color to go to Clemson University.

So I jumped upon the steps of Tillman Hall and photographed Harvey Gantt from the rear, getting the journalists in the background.

Looking back at that, it seems amazing that because a person of color is coming to Clemson, enrolling at Clemson, that, that many journalists would feel it's so important that a person of color integrated this university.

It seems to be more unbelievable as we move away from time.

<narrator> While many attempts had been made to desegregate the University of South Carolina, it was September 1963 when Henrie Monteith, Jim Solomon and Robert Anderson were successfully admitted.

<Dr.

Donaldson> And so there was an image of Raymond Weston and Lloyd Williams, standing on the steps of the University of South Carolina's main administration building after just being turned away for applying for admission to the University of South Carolina.

<Dr.

Henrie Monteith> I had the privilege of being admitted finally into the University of South Carolina, and while many expected it to be a tumultuous day, it was not.

<Dr.

Donaldson> So, many people know about Henrie Monteith's efforts to challenge segregation at the university, but may not know there were dozens of young men and women who attempted to gain admission to the university.

Mr. Williams' images help us correct that narrative.

<narrator>Williams photographing Henrie, off campus, just days before the actual event.

<Henrie Monteith> That was a special time for me because, still, I was 16 to 17 years old, still not old enough to grasp the significance of what was going to happen, and I did not have fear or concern.

And I think Cecil Williams coming along and taking a picture just made it seem like a natural part of life.

It was a way of putting me in the setting that I belonged in before I then moved on to the University of South Carolina.

Cecil has made sure that we can see what has been happening.

We can see who the leaders were in it.

We can understand pictorially what it is that was happening on the ground that, in fact, led to the significant policy issues.

<Harvey> He was present.

That's probably the word I want to say.

Here was a guy who was present and he recorded history.

And for that, I will ever forever be grateful.

I don't need to know him better to appreciate what he has done, not just because he recalled a big part of my history, but what he's doing for posterity, for all the children who will come along and read about.

I wonder how we got to where we got to.

Cecil was present ♪ music ♪ ♪ <Dr.

Hine> In 1967, 68, the All Star Bowling Alley was a prosperous business on Russell Street in Orangeburg, about three or four blocks from South Carolina State and Claflin and the owner, Harry Floyd, would not admit any Black people to bowl in the bowling alley.

As far as he was concerned, it was White only.

There was some question about bowling alleys and whether they were covered under the 64 Civil Rights Act.

So he decided that he was exempt.

Students from S.C. State led by John Stroman wanted to bowl.

He and a small group of students, mostly freshmen.

went to the bowling alley in late January of 1968, and they were refused admission.

They came back and were refused admission again.

Finally, it escalated into the first week of February.

<Cecil> On February the 6th, 1968, at around 730 that evening, I parked my car across the street and came into this area, and this was surrounded by highway patrolman, the city police and 200 students, or so.

<Dr.

Hine> In the meantime, the police chief called the fire department.

The fire truck arrives and they light matches.

Where's the fire?

And ridicule them, because they knew that at least many of them knew that students had been fire hosed in previous years in demonstrations, and... and that probably would have ended there.

There were several students arrested for this.

The dean of students, Oscar Butler, showed up and they worked out a little truce that the students would be released to his custody.

The whole thing seemed to kind of simmer down.

There was some pushing and shoving at the entrance of the bowling alley, which is in a corner of a strip mall there, and a window broke.

<Cecil> When that glass cracked, I saw city policemen reaching for their guns when they reached this way and their billy clubs this way.

<Dr.

Hine> And then some Orangeburg policemen waded into the crowd and began beating.

<Cecil> And immediately the entire crowd of students, including me, we started scrambling and running towards the sidewalk and Russell Street.

<Dr.

Hine> Some windows were broken and the businesses along Russell Street and back toward the campus East End motors.

There was no looting, there was no arson or anything like that, but there was definitely some damage to buildings and automobiles.

And what I think ignited the protests at that point more than any other, on February 6th were the fact the students were beaten, especially young women.

<Cecil> On February the 8th, 1968, I drove my car to the campus of South Carolina State University and joined the students in front of the campus.

<Dr.

Hine> People are arming themselves and sitting in their businesses up and down Russell Street and Amelia and down on the town square, waiting for Armageddon, waiting for this racial conflict, because they'd seen Detroit and Watts, and Newark and Cleveland go up in flames in preceding summers.

Orangeburg said, next these Black radical militants are going to destroy our town.

They're going to burn it down here.

And so there was a a crisis of significant proportions.

And frankly, there wasn't much leadership that stepped forward here, especially from the state, except to send in armed force.

<Cecil> As it turned dark, they built a bonfire about 8:30 that evening, I left the campus to go get a hamburger.

When I returned, trying to get back on the campus, the blockade had been extended to all entrances and exits, and I was unable to get back on campus.

<narrator> In an explosive turn of events, the highway patrolman opened fire on the unarmed students.

(screaming and gunfire) In the aftermath, three students lay dead.

At least 28 others were injured.

♪ somber music ♪ <Cecil> The next morning, about 7:00, I drove to the campus.

There was no one else around.

I got out of my automobile and I started looking down on the ground and I saw a lot of debris, papers, burned charcoal, pieces of wood where the bonfire had been built, and also there were cartridges, the shotgun shell cartridges that were all over the ground.

I began to pick them up and put them in my pocket.

(camera shutters) ♪ closing music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪