All-Star Bowling Lanes rehab project in Orangeburg gets another big NPS grant (2024)

An ambitious restoration project in Orangeburg got another big financial boost thanks to a $750,000 grant from the National Park Service.

This is the third grant the Center for Creative Partnerships has received from NPS’s Historic Preservation Fund, which administers the African American Civil Rights grant program. The money will enable the nonprofit organization to complete most renovations inside the All-Star Bowling Lanes, which has sat abandoned for decades.

The bowling alley once was a popular downtown destination for White residents of Orangeburg. In 1968, students at S.C. State College and Claflin University, angered by the owner’s segregation policy, staged two protests at the site, which led to a bloody campus shooting on Feb. 8 that year, referred to as the Orangeburg Massacre.

Students on campus were unarmed and angered by their entrapment on campus. Three were killed and at least 28 wounded when state troopers fired buckshot into the crowd. The troopers were brought to trial and acquitted. The state has never conducted a formal investigation, published a detailed report or what transpired, nor did it provide the families involved with any material compensation for their losses and injuries.

The new All-Star Justice Center is meant to provide recreational activities to the community but also to be a place of racial conciliation, according to Ellen Zisholtz, director of the Center for Creative Partnerships, which is spearheading the effort.

To date, the project has received $2 million in grant funding from the National Park Service.

“They are the nicest, most helpful people I’ve ever met,” Zisholtz said. “You can talk to them. They come on a site visit and tell you how excited they are about what you’re doing.”

The latest grant was part of a $23.4 million giveaway to 39 projects in 16 states and the District of Columbia. Other South Carolina initiatives to receive funding include the Clemson University African American History Video Project ($55,625); the University of South Carolina for the preservation of the Florence C. Benson Elementary School, an equalization school during the era of segregation ($4.25 million); and the South Carolina Rural Education Grassroots Group for the stabilization and preservation of the former Edgewood School, another equalization school in the town of Ninety-Six ($750,000).

“Since 2016, the National Park Service has provided over $126 million through this program to document, preserve, and recognize the places and stories associated with the struggle for civil rights of African Americans,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said in a statement.

Zisholtz said the bowling alley project also has received $25,000 from the city of Orangeburg to help repair the building’s façade and $40,000 from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control for asbestos remediation.

The project, now in in Phase Two, has an architect (Reggie Gibson Architects), structural, electrical and mechanical engineers, and help from the Orangeburg Department of Public Utilities. Sprinklers, HVAC and electricity is getting installed or updated. Old plumbing is being removed.

The new funding will pay for much of Phase Three, Zisholtz said. That includes remaking the floors and ceiling, fixing up the lobby and kitchen, adding a new lunch counter, putting in lights and preparing the community room for small exhibitions and events.

After that, the bowling equipment goes in. The 16 lanes get cleaned up and repaired. And the big sign along Russell Street is restored.

“It will be a real community facility,” Zisholtz said. “The really great thing is that we’re taking something that has a really horrendous history and turning it into a really happy space, with entertainment and bowling and community discussions.”

Bill Hine, an academic who taught history at S.C. State University for decades and now is board chairman of the Center for Creative Partnerships, said the finished All-Star Bowling Lanes will be an important resource for the community — and not the only one in downtown Orangeburg that’s related to civil rights history.

It’s part of a larger downtown revitalization effort that ultimately could include a civil rights museum, civil rights trail and physical links between the city and the two university campuses.

All of it needs to come together if Orangeburg hopes to lure visitors and promote its history, Hine said.

The city soon will break ground on a project called “Railroad Corner,” at the intersection of Russell and Boulevard streets. It once was an actual railroad corner; soon it will be a mixed-use development that includes apartments, retail and restaurant space, as well as the Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil Rights Museum, which will move from its current location at 1865 Lake Drive.

Hine said it will require all of this for the city to reach a “tipping point.”

“These places can’t just be stand-alone,” he said.

The Center for Creative Partnerships continues to raise funds, not only for the bowling alley project, but for future endeavors, Zisholtz said.

Goals include:

• Establishing an Orangeburg Massacre interpretive trail that’s connected to a larger civil rights trail.
• Conducting an oral history project that features interviews with Civil Rights Movement veterans, Orangeburg Massacre survivors and others.
• Transforming the open lot next to All-Star Bowling Lanes into an artist village that includes affordable housing, studios, rehearsal space, a small performance venue and a gallery.