why did the kent state massacre happen

Time has been on our side, but the movement for truth and justice has been powerful and protracted. Then we heard the shots and at first everybody kind of shrugged their shoulders and thought more tear gas, he said. On May 14, at Jackson State College (now University) in Mississippi, National Guard troops and local law enforcement fired more than 150 shots into a dormitoryresponding, they said, to sniper fire. Still, crowds began to gather at about 11:00 that morning, and an estimated 3,000 protesters and spectators were there by the scheduled start time. The site of the shootings at Kent State are a National Historic Landmark. We knew the last thing you wanted was to be drafted because then youd be sent out for cannon fodder, he said. May 4 remains a lightning rod for questions about the rights of free speech vs. the forces of law-and-order. Worried about more unrest, Satrom asks the governor, James Rhodes, to mobilize the Ohio National Guard. Paterson gained national recognition when she testified before Congress and then appeared in a television debate with Nixons vice president, Spiro Agnew, who three years later was convicted of corruption and resigned. Christian Science Monitor. Indeed, the Kent State shooting remains symbolic of the division in public opinion about war in general, and the Vietnam War specifically. No one knew the national guard had real bullets. May 04, 201311:00 AM. Get HISTORYs most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week. The university initially wanted to forget what happened and just make those of us who wanted to talk about it and heal and educate others about it to go away.. Did an about-face. At one protest at the University of New Mexico, 11 people were stabbed with bayonets by the New Mexico National Guard. In order to fully understand the Kent State shootings that happened on May 4, 1970 at about 12:24 in the afternoon, it's important to understand the background that led into it. Five years oflegal struggles, including a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed them to sue the government, finally gave the victims and parents of the killed students their day in court. Kuhn said blue collar workers often shared the students opposition to the Vietnam war but had little time for young men who talked about social justice while using their privilege to avoid the draft. Fairly or not, the students were increasingly seen as allied with violence in an age of riots and revolutionary groups including The Weathermen and a faction led by Sam Melville that, between January 1969 and the Kent State massacre, committed 4,330 bombings against federal buildings and corporations in the US, killing 43 people. People continue to die because of government inaction and violence in the United States and beyond. Four unarmed students were killed and nine were wounded when the National Guard opened fire on the crowd. The story you think Kent State is not accurate, says Backderf, who was a 10-year-old growing up nearby at the time of the shootings. The Viet Cong With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his. Weve never given up, and now the university is fully embracing their educational duty.. It is my hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the determination of all the Nations campusesadministrators, faculty, and students aliketo stand firmly for the right that exists in this country to dissent and just as firmly against the resort to violence as a means of such expression. The killing of four white students 50 years ago brought the anti-Vietnam protests global attention. The Kent State Massacre serves as a stark and important reminder that those who are supposed to protect us can be the ones doing us harm. Cookie Settings, Oldest Known Neanderthal Engravings Were Sealed in a Cave for 57,000 Years, Our Human Relatives Butchered and Ate Each Other 1.45 Million Years Ago, This Ancient Maya City Was Hidden in the Jungle for More Than 1,000 Years, New Study Identifies Mysterious Boats Painted in Australian Cave, An Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Los Alamos Lab Where J. Robert Oppenheimer Created the Atomic Bomb. Later on May 1, BUS held a rally on the Commons to protest police treatment of black students at an earlier rally at Ohio State. Instead, Eberhardt spent the morning urging black students to remain in their dorms "and . Alan Canfora says just the opposite. That evening, White House Press Secretary Ron Zeigler read a statement dictated by Nixon himself: This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy. By May 3, nearly 1,200 National Guardsmenmost of whom had been redeployed from duty policing a wildcat truckers strikeoccupied the Kent State campus. Kent State wasnt the end of such killings either. The National Guard did manage to move the students off the commons and over the nearby Blanket Hill, but did not disperse them. Two years earlier, police in South Carolina opened fire on African American students at the state university in Orangeburg protesting against racial segregation in the town. But freedom of guns to shoot you down was also real., Credit Kent State University News Service / Kent State University Library, WOSU 89.7 NPR News | The incident was also regarded as a seminal moment in the founding of the band Devomany of whom were from the area; founding member Jerry Casale was in the crowd during the shootings. The perception is that there was a protest, it got out of hand and some kids got shot, and that isnotthe story," says Cleveland comic artist John Backderf, who recently published a heavily researchedgraphic novel about the shootings. A bullet shattered Kahlers lower spine, leaving him permanently paralyzed. Not long after, she debated Agnew. Protesters on campus burned the ROTC building. In a civil suit filed by the injured Kent State students and their families, a settlement was reached in 1979 in which the Ohio National Guard agreed to pay those injured in the events of May 4, 1970 a total of $675,000. North Vietnamese troops were using safe havens in Cambodia to launch attacks on the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese, and parts of the Ho Chi Minh Traila supply route used by the North Vietnamesepassed through Cambodia. Documents, once classified, become part of the public record, like a recording made by a student, which was turned over to the FBI and was found decades later at Yale University. Although sympathies varied, the public reaction to the Kent State Massacre was immediate and immense. After the demonstrators refuse to disperse, some 100 of the National Guardsmen begin to march across the Commons. Republican Richard Nixon won election as president of the United States in 1968 partly as a result of his pledge to end the Vietnam War. But 2,000 protestors still showed up and were met with National Guard troops who ordered them to disperse. That fall they unveiled the Southern strategy. View photos from the Kent State massacre. Meanwhile, governments the world over are being scrutinised for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic which is claiming thousands more lives every day. Many people question whether the crowd posed that serious a threat, but criminal and civil trial verdicts accept the Guards position. From left to right: William Schroeder, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, and Sandra Scheur, the four Kent State University students killed on campus when students battled with Ohio National Guard troopers. Again, the police claimed to have come under fire but federal investigators found no evidence of it. People may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Examine how demonstrations against the Vietnam War led President Lyndon Johnson to not seek reelection. That night, in downtown Kent, there were reports of violent clashes between students and local police. The deadly outburst marked the culmination of several days of confrontations between law enforcement and protesters, which had begun after President Richard M. Nixon announced in a TV broadcast that he had authorized U.S. troops to invade Cambodia. It was something that tore this country apart, the war in Vietnam, and the government exploited that, Kahler said. All Rights Reserved. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. At Kent State, these protests actually began on May 1, the day after the invasion. and more. ET Fifty years ago, on May 4, 1970, four students were killed and another nine wounded at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard. In 1968 the Black United Students (BUS) organization joined the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) chapter in staging a five-hour sit-in protest of the recruiting visit to campus by the Oakland, California, police department. The families appealed, and nearly nine years after the shootings, the state settled. But in addition to changing perceptions, the passage of time has also brought with it new information. The anti-student sentiments of the time made it difficult for the victims to hold anyone accountable for the tragedy. Frightened authoritiescalled in the National Guard. Nevertheless, in the early morning hours of that next day, Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom, having heard rumours of plotting by radicals, declared a civil emergency and requested assistance from Ohios staunch conservative governor, James A. Rhodes, who dispatched the Ohio National Guard. And that they won't necessarily face repercussions for it. "Freedom of speech, fine freedom of assembly, fine. Please select which sections you would like to print: Jeff Wallenfeldt, manager of Geography and History, has worked as an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica since 1992. In 1970 it had some 20,000 students, many of whom were commuters and about half of whom were first-generation college students from working-class families of industry-dominated northeastern Ohio cities, such as Akron, Canton, Cleveland, and Youngstown. Photography has shaped the American memory of the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings. Early in her presidency, she issued an internal questionnaire about the universitys mission, organizational development and organizational culture. I know people who are now distinguished law professors who burned down a building at Northwestern. A museum on campus offers classroom space and displays artifacts related to the event, and incoming freshmen are required to read two books about the shootings: This We Know: A Chronology of the Shootings at Kent State by university professors Carol Barbato, Laura Davis and Mark Seeman; and Thirteen Seconds: Confrontation at Kent State, by two reporters who covered the shootings for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mike Roberts and Joe Eszterhas (yes, THAT Joe Eszterhas). When a government, or its police or military, can kill its own citizens and walk away without repercussion, we must acknowledge this for what it is: a grave injustice. And illustrator Derf Backderf, whose graphic novel about the shootings is due out this fall, believes even more was covered up. Communication Studies Chair Greg Payne teaches the seminar class The Killings at Kent State and Jackson State 1970: Lessons. A further nine people were hit by bullets including Dean R Kahler who was shot in the back, leaving him paralysed from the chest down. A signed statement by the Guard, drafted as part of the settlement, read, in part: In retrospect, the tragedy should not have occurred. In 13 seconds of shooting, they fire between 61 and 67 shots. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. Were at an interesting place, Flauhaus says. The former head of the Ohio National Guard, 26 former guardsman, and Ohio Gov. I think that debate was supposed to be kind of a kick-off to that to show here are these crazy people and this ones black. This incident shocked the nation, and the protests after the incident contributed a lot . They should have fired sooner and longer. Why would the university want to venerate the victims? It was all the more surprising, then, when Nixon returned to television 10 days later, on the night of April 30, to announce that U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were mounting a major invasion of Cambodia, which had provided a haven for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops. The school even tried to rebrand itself as Kent because the next word in many peoples minds after Kent State was shootings., It was very contentious for a couple decades, says Chic Canfora, a student activist on campus at the time of the shootings, who still lives in Northeast Ohio and has advocated for remembrance. Part of the shock. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The. Decades later, though, the massacre is seen as an unfortunate example of excessive force as well as the beginning of a mainstream disapproval of continued U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia. The National Guard made only one mistake, one said. Around 2,000 students gathered on the university commons at noon to continue protesting the US's bombing of the neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War. HISTORY History of Now How 13 Seconds Changed Kent State University Forever The institution took decades to come to grips with the trauma of the killing of four students 50 years ago Vince. May 4, 1970 file photo, Ohio National Guard soldiers move in on war protesters at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, on 4 May 1970. It also captures the scene at a university in Kent, Ohio, on May . Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. Nearly 900 campuses nationwide participated. But remembering the massacre is more important than ever. In January 1979, a civil settlement is reached by which the Ohio National Guard pays those injured in the shootings a total of $675,000. "Its really only because you had some people who just refused to let that be the end of it.". It is likely many of the students were also protesting the US's involvement in the Vietnam War itself, especially as the government had begun drafting young men into the army through a lottery system. The massacre was not the first mass shooting on campus by men in uniform. The massacre sparked widespread national protests and a student strike of 4 million people in Kent, Ohio. They bury a copy of the Constitution to symbolize Nixons murder of constitutional principles by invading Cambodia without a declaration of war or consultation with Congress. (No evidence of sniper fire was ever found.) For the first 50 years, so many people lived through this. The charges against the"Kent 25"were eventually thrown out, as werecriminal chargesagainst eight guardsmen. Carol Cartwright was announced as Kent State president in 1990, the first woman to serve as president of any of Ohios state universities. Questions about the shootings, or Kent States role in remembering the incident, hadnt come up at all during her recruitment and interview process, even though the university had just marked the 20th anniversary. Once you have done something like that, you are changed forever and you feel like you can take on state power and protest against the government. The institution took decades to come to grips with the trauma of the killing of four students 50 years ago. A freshman at Kent State University in Ohio, Lewis had. One tore through Lewiss groin, another through his leg. Your Privacy Rights That resonates tremendously with sentiment at the dawn of Donald Trump and that will be with us after him.. A large group of construction workers taunted them as anti-American and then attacked with crowbars in what became known as The Hardhat Riot. Updated: May 4, 2023 | Original: September 8, 2017. At least 29 of the 77 guardsman fired into the crowd. The administration immediately shuts down the campus, and it remains closed for the rest of the spring semester. Capecci was one of those students who dodged the draft along with Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Dick Cheney and others in a future generation of political leaders on the left and right by joining a part-time reserve army unit even though he was sympathetic to the anti-war effort. A crowd of some 1,000 people surround the building, many of them cheering and confronting firefighters to prevent them from extinguishing the blaze. That Friday night, protestors broke windows and threw bottles at police cars. The target of their protests shifts from Nixon, Cambodia and the Vietnam War, to the National Guard and its occupation of Kent State. There was a lot of violence. . But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Several speakers spoke out against the war in general, and President Nixon specifically. In 1969, among other demands, the SDS called for the removal of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) from campus. Copyright 2023 Distractify. The Orangeburg massacre was a true tragedy, he said. It was 50 years ago today that Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on protesting students at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine. Kent State is a story that people know, people can learn from, whereas Orangeburg and Jackson, because they happened on black college campuses, are stories that go untold, he said. James Rhodes also signed a what was called a statement of regret. The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre [3] [4] [5]) resulted in the killing of four and wounding of nine unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard, on the Kent State University campus. On April 30, 1970, President Nixon seemed to be betraying such promises about reducing U.S. involvement in the war when he announced that he sent troops into Cambodia, where the Viet Cong had its headquarters. But widening anti-war protests, including in the small town of Kent, Ohio, revealed a deep rift in the country. This's a part of history which I never learnt from schools. . After the Kent State Massacre, 450 university campuses in the US closed and 4 million students went on strike. Hindsight suggests that another method would have resolved the confrontation. See the Vietnam War unfold through the gripping firsthand accounts of 13 brave men and women forever changed by their experiences. It revealed deep divisions in America between vocal protestors and "the . Get the latest History stories in your inbox? Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), invading Cambodia without a declaration of war, the worst type of people that we harbor in America, https://www.history.com/news/kent-state-shootings-timeline, Kent State Shootings: A Timeline of the Tragedy. The commencement at Kent State University is likewise moving online, which normally wouldnt be all that extraordinary. When they reached the top of the hill, witnesses say 28 of them suddenly turned and fired their M-1 rifles, some into the air, some directly into the crowd of protesters. It may sound naive but we talked about that for years afterwards, he said. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the peoplewomen, children and old menin the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. Thomas Grace was a student at Kent State and friends with Alan Canfora. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! The Commons formed a kind of natural amphitheatre that was bordered on the north and south by walkways; on the northwest by the student union, a heating plant, and the ROTC building; on the east by Blanket Hill, a partially wooded slope that climbed to Taylor Hall; and on the southwest by dormitories. David Paul Kuhn, author of The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution, said America is still living with the divisions laid bare in that first week of May 1970. The university commissioned a sculpture by pop artist George Segal, then refused to display his creation, Abraham and Isaac. (Its now at Princeton University.) Satroms decision to close the bars actually angered the protesters more, and increased the size of the crowds on the streets of town. The crowd cheers their retreat and continues throwing things at them. In its immediate aftermath, a student-led strike forced the temporary closure of colleges and universities across the country. A look back to the day 50 years ago that took the lives of 10 students during an initially peaceful protest. Fifty years ago today, Monday, May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War on the campus of Kent State University. Members of Congress accused the president of illegally widening the scope of U.S. involvement in the war by not receiving their consent through a vote. To large parts of the country, the Kent State massacre was a shocking and seminal event - American soldiers gunning down white students was unthinkable until it happened. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata. It just never occurred to anyone that they would actually have bullets to shoot people. But they were also deeply and irrevocably political. The parents of the four dead students received $15,000 each. Now, hes the project manager for the 50th anniversary commemoration, which had been planned for the past two years. A lot of Americans didnt feel like there was an honesty about that fact.. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine That night, one of the first warm evenings of the spring, students and others gathered at the downtown bars. Corrections? The. Now is an important time for us to hold our governments to account, and to distinguish between deaths that are accidental and deaths that are avoidable. By Amber Garrett May 4 2020, Updated 1:35 p.m. A forensic analysis of the audio commissioned by the Cleveland Plain Dealer revealed an apparent order to fire, refuting the long-held idea that a guardsman shot out of panic, leading other troops to also fire. Last year, 1,004 people in the US were fatally shot by police. The confrontation was frequently cast as a generational divide at the time. American involvement in the civil war in Vietnamwhich pitted the communists of the northern part of the country against the more democratic southhad been controversial from its beginnings, and a significant segment of the general public in the United States was against the presence of U.S. armed forces in the region. When the demonstrators grew hostile, the Riot Act was read and the Guard forcibly dispersed the crowd (bayonets were used along with tear gas this time), resulting in injuries on both sides. Nixon's decision, which expanded the Vietnam War at a time when the United States had been in the process of withdrawing its troops, immediately sparked anti-war protests at colleges across the. But on May 4, it wasnt the war that drew 18-year-old Joseph Lewis Jr. out of his dorm room. After about 10 minutes of this, the Guardsmen begin to move back up Blanket Hill. Updates? Most Relevant is selected, so some comments may have been filtered out. It was a time for us to be militant and we were militant. Civil and criminal cases resulting from the shootings wound their way through the courts in the 70s, and the university sponsored commemorations for the first five years after the shootings but stoppedand then built a gym on part of the parking lot where students were wounded and killed. At the time, members of the National Guard were already on duty in the region, and thus were mobilized fairly quickly. For the past half-century, Kent State has been trying to live down those 13 seconds of bloodshed on Monday, May 4, 1970. This educational teaching plan was developed during Kent State University's Summer 2021 workshop titled Making Meaning of May 4: The 1970 Kent State Shootings in US History. Jane Fonda was supposed to speak as well. The threats reportedly were primarily made against businesses in the town and certain buildings on campus. Cookie Policy They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Wischmann said, as a young activist, the lessons of May 4 were clear. Kahler said that wildly exaggerated threats drove the violent response to the Kent State demonstrations by local authorities. President Richard Nixon during a television address regarding military actions in Cambodia, 1970. Local officials asked that the university close down, but Ohio Governor James Rhodeswho himself was running in a contested Republican primary for U.S. Senatecalled in the National Guard. A group of more than 70 Guardsmen moved toward the crowd with bayonetted rifles, forcing them to retreat down a hill and toward a parking lot. Guardsmen fired 67 rounds, leaving four students dead and nine wounded, including freshman Dean Kahler. The sense back then was not only of condescension toward middle Americans themselves but also their values. All rights reserved. May 3, 2020, 8:51 AM UTC By Ben Kesslen Joe Lewis was just 18 when he was shot twice by the Ohio National Guard on his college campus. The protesters reacted by throwing rocks at the Jeep and lobbing the tear gas cannisters back these had had little effect because of a strong wind blowing away from them. He said another source of lasting pain was thescorn and hatredheaped on the victims. One tore through Lewis's groin, another through his leg. That Friday night, a crowd of drunken protestors form in downtown Kent and begin taunting local police and breaking some store windows. That whole experience led me to understand people can change deeply held views with enough information., Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. To mark the massacre's 50th anniversary, Kent State are holding a video event, whilst the Kent State Truth Tribunal has published a series of video lectures you can watch.
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