Kent State University Shootings May 4 Memorial

The Detroit Free Press front page headline on the morning of Thursday, April 30, 1970 read "GIs In Combat In Cambodia."

President Nixon, elected two years earlier on a promise to wind down the Vietnam war, appeared to be escalating it. He had ordered American forces to attack concentrations of North Vietnamese forces based in Cambodia. Many observers saw this as an invasion of a neutral country. Protests, some violent, broke out on American college campuses.

Kent, Ohio -- home of Kent State University -- was one of the affected towns. A Friday night spontaneous downtown gathering became an anti-war rally. It got out of hand. Bonfires were lit, and shop windows were smashed. On Saturday, Kent's mayor called on the Ohio National Guard. Soldiers soon occupied the center of town and the campus, with the intention to break up any assembly.

On Monday, May 4, a couple hundred students met on the university commons to protest not only the war, but the Guard's occupation of their campus. Their numbers soon increased to over a thousand. The Guard lobbed tear gas, and the students began to disperse. Some continued to taunt the soldiers from the parking lot between Prentice and Taylor Halls. After appearing to retreat, the soldiers turned. Some pointed their weapons through a gap between the buildings. Students left over from the protest milled about. Others headed to class. Shots rang out. Thirteen students were wounded. Four -- Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder -- died.

The May 6 Free Press front page, yellowed and creased, bears the headline "Campus Protests Spread In Wake Of Ohio Shootings."

Most demonstrations were peaceful. In Buffalo, New York, and at University of Wisconsin, however, students fought police. University of Texas students picked up tear gas canisters and threw them back, shouting "Remember Kent State."

At my high school, student protests were limited to outrage over the cancellation of popular after-school activities. As May began, the Class of 1970 was more concerned with graduation (finally!) than anything. After the shootings, more than a handful of my classmates wore black arm bands. At a school where hair grown past the collar, or dresses worn above the knee, constituted punishable rebellion, no one said a word to them.

To people who came of age at the time, the four students' names are still as familiar as the lineups of their favorite rock bands and sports teams. For them, the picture of the young woman later identified as Mary Vecchio, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller, arms outstretched, pleading for help, needs no caption.

Crosby Stills Nash and Young, whose album "Déjà Vu" had just been released, quickly recorded a song in reaction to the tragedy. Issued as a single, "Ohio" became a staple of underground FM radio in the summer of 1970. Neil Young's lyrics summed up the smoldering anger that hung in the air: "Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming, we're finally on our own . . . this summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Oh-hi-oh . . . "

Thirty seven years after those newspapers were printed, I visited the May 4 Memorial on the Kent State campus. (In one of the more eerily compelling examples of life imitating art via the car radio from any road trip, I heard "Ohio" twice that day; once on the way, and about an hour after I had left.)

The campus is east of downtown Kent, on Main Street (Ohio Route 59). Watch for the blue direction sign that reads "May 4 Memorial" at Midway Drive. Ironically, visible from Main Street is a college building with the letters ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) prominently displayed. Military presence on college campuses sparked many anti-Vietnam war protests, and Kent State's ROTC headquarters was vandalized on the night of May 2.

Follow Midway to another direction sign at the Prentice Hall parking lot. (Just before this sign are several 30 minute metered spaces for visitors.) Up the hill to the right is a State of Ohio Historic Site marker. Past it is a tree-shaded space dedicated in 1990 as a memorial garden. Funds ran out, and it remains unfinished. There are four large blocks of dark gray granite, but the students are not named. It still serves as a quiet place where the visitor can reflect on the events of May 4, 1970, and the consequences of America's involvement in Vietnam.

Granite cornerstones marking the spots where each student fell have been placed on the parking lot surface. At the north end of the lot is a small red granite memorial set in a bed of flowers.

Now, SUVs fill spaces where VW Beetles once stood, and the music heard through rolled-down windows is Justin Timberlake and not CSNY. Despite the popular culture gap, students continue to visit the site. They have also no doubt become used to the graying old-timers who appear from across generations; who stop at the unfinished memorial garden, wander about, and then stand in silence before what would otherwise be an ordinary parking lot.

The President's Commission on Campus Unrest, created in response to the Kent State shootings and those at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi on May 14, declared in September 1970 the Ohio National Guard's actions unjustified. Its report stated:

Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.

An Ohio grand jury indicted eight Guardsmen. Criminal charges filed against them were dismissed for lack of evidence. In a civil suit settled in 1975, the Guard expressed regret for the four students' deaths, and their parents divided a cash settlement. No one has ever admitted firing any shots or issuing an order to fire.

In March 2007 Alan Canfora, one of the nine wounded students, discovered in Yale University's archives a reel of tape recorded by a student who lived in Prentice Hall. Terry Strubbe had opened his window and pointed a microphone towards the demonstration. He later gave a copy of the tape to the FBI. Some who've heard the audio believe the command to fire, issued from several hundred yards away, can be detected through the noise and chaos of that afternoon.

Each May 4, a memorial ceremony on the Kent State campus honors the students who died there and at Jackson State in 1970, and a candlelight vigil is held at the Prentice Hall parking lot. In 2007, the thirty two Virginia Tech students who died weeks earlier were also remembered.

For further reading:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9946806

National Public Radio story with audio of the 2007 tape

www.alancanfora.com

Alan Canfora's web site

www.may4.org

Kent State May 4, 1970

www.may41970.com

Mike and Kendra Pacifico's Kent State site

http://dept.kent.edu/May4

Kent State University's May 4 site

http://www.ohiochannel.org/your_state/remarkable_ohio/marker_details.cfm?marker_id=8383