Harold C. Riley was a sophomore at South Carolina State College when he and dozens of other protesting students were shot by National Guard troops.
Riley didn’t get to campus until that evening, but he noticed something was different — the presence of National Guardsmen and vehicles amidst the protesters. Riley was on campus for only a few minutes when he heard a sound.
Riley was close with both Smith, whom he calls “Smitty,” and Hammond Jr., whom he calls “Sam.” Sam spent the last day of his life with Riley, off campus.After the massacre, Riley found Sam in the campus infirmary, covered in “red spots all over his body, head to toe.”After the shooting stopped, Riley said, it was horror.
“I said, that’s a very good idea, because if I ever need some evidence … it’s right in my right knee,” Riley said. When he got an X-ray a few years ago, he still saw “that little spot,” as long as the “end of your little finger.” Cleveland Sellers, a friend of Riley’s then and to this day, was one of the South Carolina State College students protesting segregated facilities the night of the massacre. Sellers had also been a national program director with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was convicted of rioting and jailed for seven months. Sellers was pardoned by the State of South Carolina 25 years later.“It’s right next to Martin Luther King dying," he said.
Riley became an expert interior and drywall specialist, a trade he learned from his father. He did not pursue a professional football career and feels good about the decision, noting football would not have been “a long-term position” for him, and that he stayed in the interior design industry for about 40 years.
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