Co-Author of the Orangeburg Massacre dies at 80
Special to The Collegian from Dr. William Hine
Issue date: 10/26/09 Section: News
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Mr. Nelson had a profound impact on this campus and this community. At the time of the Massacre, Mr. Nelson was with the Atlanta Bureau of the Los Angeles Times, and he came to Orangeburg in 1968.
Following the Massacre, he went to the segregated hospital on Carolina Avenue and told members of the staff that he was from the Bureau and that he wanted to see the records of the students who had been shot on Feb 8. The hospital staff thought he meant he was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he did not tell them otherwise. They let him review the medical records. Those records revealed that virtually all of the students had been shot in the back, buttocks, and even soles of their feet.
Nelson reported the results of his investigation in the Times. He and co-author Jack Bass subsequently demonstrated that the students had not possessed firearms that night-as the first media reports from Associated Press indicated.
With Bass, Nelson wrote the definitive account of the Massacre. Nelson was invited to return to this campus earlier this year to take part in the premier of "Scarred Justice," the documentary on the Massacre. He appears in that documentary. He sent his regrets. His declining health made the trip impossible.
A native of Talledega, Alabama, Mr. Nelson reported on virtually every major development in civil rights in the South in the 1960s including Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama. He earned the enmity of such people as Gov. George Wallace.
He went on to serve as the Washington Bureau Chief of the LA Times and helped contribute significantly to the story that came to be known as Watergate.
Mr. Nelson is no longer with us, but his legacy lives on.
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