So. Carolina Postpones Riot Trial Of a Black Student at Ed School

The riot trial of a black student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who was arrested in the 1968 disorders in Orangeburg. S.C., has been postponed indefinitely while Federal courts decide an appeal by the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy in a similar case.

Cleveland L. Sellers, a first-year Ed School student, faces two charges-rioting and inciting to riot-each carrying a ten-year maximum sentence. Abernathy faces identical charges, stemming from a strike of hospital workers in Charleston, S.C.

Sellers' case was postponed Monday, pending Abernathy's hearing in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. If the Federal court finds the South Carolina riot laws unconstitutional in Abernathy's case, the state authorities will drop the prosecution of Sellers.

The South Carolina judge who postponed Sellers' case said that hearing it before the federal court's decision on Abernathy might end up wasting the taxpayers' money. Abernathy's case will probably not be decided until at least May.

The Disorders

The riot charges resulted from student disorders at South Carolina State College and the so-called "Orangeburg Massacre" on Feb. 8, 1968. during which highway patrolmen killed three people and wounded more than 35 others.

South Carolina Attorney General Daniel R. McLeod said yesterday that "Sellers was in the middle of the whole thing with a megaphone." Sellers denied the allegation.

The Orangeburg disorders began Feb. 6. when black students tried unsuccessfully to integrate a bowling alley on themain street of the town. which has a population of 13,000. They pushed against the building's doors and windows, breaking the glass.

Federal courts ordered the bowling alley integrated the next month.

In the following days several buildings were fire-bombed. and students sponsored a nonattendance strike at S.C. State College and at adjacent Claflin College both completely black-and marched through business and residential sections of the town.

On February 8, civil authorities ordered the campus sealed off and sent more than 100 riot-trained police to enforce their mandate.

Some of the police panicked. A volley of shots, fired within seconds, killed three blacks and injured between 36 and 53 others.

Sellers Shot

Sellers was shot in the leg. Sellers, who was involved in political organizing. was the only person arrested that night.

There was no inquest or grant jury investigation into the three gunshot deaths. Sellers said two of those killed were shot in the back.

Nine highway patrolmen were later charged with violation of the victims' civil rights, a Federal misdemeanor. The U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted, but the nine were acquitted after a week long trial. The jury included two blacks.

From February to June, 1969, Sellers taught a course on black ideology at Cornell University. He graduated from Howard University in 1964 and managed Julian Bond's 1965 campaign for the Georgia House of Representatives.