what happened at kent state that was so shocking?divinity 2 respec talents

The most insane suggestion I have heard about here in recent days was to the effect that we should somehow go prosecute the hardhats to win favor with the kiddies. He advised the opposite tack: abandon the kiddies, and court the hardhats. But that afternoon, all anyone who was there knew was that something unthinkable and tragic had happened. On Friday, May 1st, students at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, expressed their displeasure at the Presidents announcement. Some were simply curious, or had free time. The Guardsmen were equipped with tear-gas launchers, gas masks, and M-1 Garrand rifles, which were loaded with live ammunition according to Guard policy. Mr. Michener and his team seem to have tracked down every possible lead, talked to every con ceivable informant. The day before, a hundred and fifty thousand New York construction workers, teamsters, and longshoremen marched through the streets of the city. A 21-year-old journalism student then, Filo snapped the iconic photograph of a slain youth at Kent State and won a Pulitzer Prize. She was 14 and a runaway at the time of the killings. . Then I got shot. But thousands were merely observing. My fellow Americans, we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home, he said. Some hurled rocks at the National Guardsmen and chased them away. If it takes a bloodbath, he said, lets get it over with.. The troops starting lining up. (No evidence has ever corroborated these claims.) Stone understood: The surprise is not that there is still apathy and indifference. The day after the massacre, students come out in droves to protest at the Capitol. To the student demonstrators, taunting the Guardsmen was a more serious game of catch. It prompted changes in state law regarding campus protests . I was unable to see the other company moving up the hill. The ONG units arrived in Kent late Saturday night as fire gutted the campus ROTC building. An irate student stomps on the bloodstain left by one of his friends, mere moments after the massacre ended. "Flowers and Bullets. Poem written in 1970 by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and initially published by the Soviet Union's state newspaper, Pravda. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Sandra Scheuer, a 20-year-old honors student, was crossing the green to her next class. Students on college campuses had been protesting the war since 1965, beginning with teach-ins at the University of Michigan. February 27, 2014 38 mins On May 4, 1970, four days of anti-war protests at Kent State University in Ohio culminated in the unthinkable when Ohio guardsmen opened fire on protesters, killing four students. Havin nigger trouble on Lynch Street? one squad car asked over the police radio. William K. Schroeder, 19, had been a spectator. I felt that had the National Guard held its ground, the protest would have run its course. In part because of this contradictory situation, what happened on May 4 was a comedy of errors that ended in tragedy. I backed up. From the highway, it looked as if someone firebombed the city of Kent. I competed in tennis, basketball, track and field and ran' marathons. That night, however, students spilling out of the bars in town erupted into a melee that escalated from antiwar chants to dozens of smashed store windows; someone liberated a fertilizer spreader and threw it through the bank window. He already had directed several thousand Guardsmen to police a Teamsters strike in the region; they could spare a thousand for Kent. Demonstrations took place in four out of every five colleges and universities. The Scranton Commission concluded that the shootings at both Kent State and Jackson State had been unjustified. The rightwing backlash following Kent State was shocking: . In the days between the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State, police in Augusta, Georgia, killed six unarmed black men, shot in the back, during riots triggered by the death of a. No one has been punished, and no one is going to be. Nixons Cambodia speech led to antiwar protests at hundreds of colleges across the country. Joe Kelly, six feet four and from Staten Island, was working on building the elevators at the World Trade Center. Some students laughed. The protesters continued on for the next few days, with the crowd growing larger. It happened 51 years ago, at Ohio's Kent State University on May 4th, 1970. We were told some had machine guns. We are currently contacting students and faculty there for an update. "Eve of Destruction": the historical moment During a two-week period in May 1970, 30 ROTC buildings were burned across the U.S. You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. It never dawned on me that they would shoot unarmed students. Philip Caputo, a twenty-eight-year-old Chicago Tribune reporter who later won a Pulitzer Prize and wrote a best-selling memoir about his service in Vietnam, was driving to Kent State, from the Cleveland airport, when the news about the shots came over the radio. It only seemed to rile up students more. I have spoken to some of the injured. Today he lives in Buffalo, New York. That is where I got the nickname Capain Gas. Everybody says May 4 is so complicated. Magazines, a consumer psychology expert told Money this morning, Kent State: Martyrdom that Shook the Country, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Why That Urban Outfitters Kent State Sweatshirt Caused an Uproar. It's bird shot,' he yelled. And they marched on Washington. With Del Corso and other officials in attendance, he delivered an inflammatory speech denouncing those mysterious outside agitators who were going from one campus to the other causing destruction. The trip had been planned to commemorate May 4, 1970, when . The students were nasty and threatening. The troops walked by me to the practice football field. There were National Guardsmen that day that were horrified. It hit a metal sculpture, knocking off rust, then hit a tree, with a chunk of bark coming off. I woke up Friday. She realized that I had to do what I had to do as a photojournalist. Alan Canfora, among the regular activists on campus, waved a black flag at them. Then the firing started. There was a lot of commotion, for lack of a better word. You can't throw a stone from 90 yards. For more information about the shootings at Kent State, see these sources: Just How Tough Was World War II Rationing? Javascript must be enabled to use this site. 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers people to choose how they live as they age. Some of the policemen dragged hippies out of the fight by their hair. The bullets were still hitting the ground near me. Clearly, none presented a threat to the State of Ohio. I shot my picture. I saw a body on the asphalt. The Readers Digest had hired him to write Kent State: What Happened and Why, providing him with reams of research from on-the-spot reporters. Governor Rhodes flies to Kent that morning, and holds a press conference calling the demonstrators " the worst type of. Through the grapevine, I knew there was a rally and that the National Guard was there. I was about 100 feet away from the guard. Students rushed everywhere. Borrowing from the Black Power movement, they used a black fist as its symbol. A look back on sacrifices Americans made in support of a common effort, An Earth Day remembrance of the green movement's major milestones, Science and medicine have come a long way since the 1918 outbreak. More than 1,000 National Guardsmen were on campus and in town. Students make a circle around Joseph Lewis Jr., a wounded student who had taken a bullet from the National Guard. We would have moved on, probably to our next class. While the Guard, gasmasks on and loaded rifles ready, marched into the field, students with their notebooks wandered past peers who were hurling tear-gas canisters back at the Guard. The massacre sparked widespread national protests and a student strike of 4 million people in Kent, Ohio. After Nixon awoke from a nap on May 4, 1970, Chief of Staff H.R. The mayor, John Lindsay, had declared May 8th a day of reflection, and closed the citys publicschools. When students started setting fires, the governor called in the Mississippi National Guard, but, before they could arrive, the all-white Mississippi Highway Patrol turned up. I chose to go to the Commons for the protest. On May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students. Rhodes had deployed the Guard more times than any governor in the states history and obliged without hesitation. It was the most afraid I've ever been. After holding public hearings in Kent and Jackson, the Scranton Commission concluded that most campus unrest had been peaceful, that it was a response to racial inequality and the war in Vietnam, that it wasnt mayhem, and, also, that it wasnt unusual. Though classes started as usual on Monday, the protest ban still rankled students. Mary Ann knelt next to a body. All of those students are safe and will return to the United States a few . The Kent State killings, by contrast, were shocking because they happened in the very heart of middle America. They said that if the students didn't disband, they were going to shoot again. Ad Choices. John Filo's iconic photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller moments after he was shot by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Students gather around a victim that has been shot, trying to get them to safety before the National Guard returns. Nine others were wounded. 2023 Cond Nast. ' He threw me over his body and carried me across the parking lot. I went outside with my camera and six rolls of film. In the morning, the college president closed the campus and sent the students home. I didn't know they had loaded weapons. That left university officials between unofficial martial law and a campus supposedly going about its normal affairs. Ohio National Guardsmen aim their weapons at protestors on the Kent State University campus. Then, when some demonstrators wouldn't leave and tried to hurl the tear gas back at them, they pulled out their rifles and opened fire. John Filo hugs Mary Ann Vecchio, the young woman featured in his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. Shot in the neck, she bled to death. I went for cover. I walked down the sidewalk and, all of a sudden, the guard reappeared. The. Too many soldiers had died the protesters thought many of them students whose names had come up in the draft lottery. When were the shootings at Kent State? If you dont disperse right now, theyre going to movein, and it can only be a slaughter. View, from behind, of Ohio National Guardsmen in gas masks and with rifles as they advance up Blanket Hill toward Kent State University students. I walked to the dead person. While the short-term effects of May 4 were clear, there were long-term effects for Ohio universities and for the students who populated them. The May 4 incident at Kent State University was one of those rare events that seem to crystallize an entire period in snapshot brevity. All charges were eventually dropped. . They fired at people down the hill and into the parking lot. ), 2019 Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective The only thing left was charcoal. Thirteen seconds and sixty-seven rounds later, one student was dead, three others lay dying. How do you know that? Roberts asked. These were not demonstrators these were rioters. By May 4, the day of the Kent State Massacre, there were 2,000 people on the campus handing out leaflets, making speeches, and standing up to demand peace. Tear gas was used first. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription toAARP the Magazine. In 2012, Kent State had what was a Halley's Comet season. That night, there was violence in the streets of Kent. This summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio. If you have a disability and experience difficulty accessing this site, please contact us for assistance I was kind of oblivious to all of the anti-war protests. Today marks 50 years since the Kent State Massacre, a pivotal moment in United States history when four unarmed student protesters were killed by the National Guard. Tension built. Two weeks later, at the White House, Nixon received a memo from his aide Patrick Buchanan. My thought was, Who is shooting and where is it coming from? A bullet struck a building to my left and concrete flew off. Jim, dont you believe in American justice? Eszterhas asked, after Michener continued to insist that a federal grand-jury investigation would be a waste of time, because no jury would convict the Guardsmen. A 33-year-old officer in the National Guard then, Snyder was captain of his unit, but it was not involved in the shootings. Some threw stones and rocks. After Dale got pregnant, they were married, at his sisters house. Grace was a 20-year-old student on the day of the shootings. A small crowd showed up. The States legal dissembling lasted through a manipulated county grand jury, the 1973 federal indictments of eight Guardsmen charged with violating the civil rights of those they shotall were acquittedand its grudging 1979 agreement to pay $675,000 in civil damages to the victims families. I went to where the guardsmen were. Twenty-five years later, I finally met Mary Ann. They named the baby Phillip, Jr.; Gibbs called him his little man. In 1967, after King first spoke out against the war in Vietnam, people asked him why, saying, Peace and civil rights dont mix. Their response saddened him, he said, because it suggested that they do not know the world in which they live.. Anti-Vietnam campaigns became bigger than ever and the way the United States responded to protests changed forever. Did you hear about the new NAACP doll? a columnist for the Jackson Daily News had asked. She wanted to save this person. Del Corso stoked rumors that the Guard had responded to sniper fire. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try There was no stronger evidence that America was exploding at its core. One applied a tourniquet to my leg. I still have metal fragments in my body. It is not so much the unrest of the past half-dozen years that is exceptional as it is the quiet of the 20 years which preceded them, the report asserted, noting that Americans who attended college from the nineteen-forties to the early nineteen-sixties had formed a silent generation. As far as the commission was concerned, the modern era of campus unrest began on February 1, 1960, when four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College sat down at a Whites Only lunch counter in Greensboro. A wounded girl already was in the ambulance Sandy [Scheuer, who died en route to the hospital]. Just before noon, things started turning worse. The resemblance was mere coincidence, the company later said, in an apology: There is no blood on this shirt nor has this item been altered in any way. It was on Lynch Street, just after midnight, on May 15, 1970, that policemen in riot gear shot and killed Phillip Gibbs. Governor Rhodes, who had been in Cleveland, stopped at Kent on his return to the state capital, Columbus. linkedin, Kent State Kent Campus - At each step along the way, young people aggressively testing boundaries, challenging restrictions, and engaging in political protest ran into ham-handed authorities who overreacted in an effort to impose rules for their own sake. He was killed before he could take his seat, but that seat would have been two hundred miles away in the state capitol, in Jackson, a city named for Andrew Jackson, who ran a slave plantation, fought in the War of 1812, was famous for killing Indians, shot a man to death and got away with it, and was elected President of the United States. Buddy, we're gonna get you out of here. His crime? 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. Did we ever leave it? Initial radio reports said two guardsmen and two students were killed. Nixon invited the marchs leaders to the White House, where they gave hard hats as a gift. On May 4, 1970, at Ohio's Kent State University, four American citizens were murdered by their own government. The First Time Women Marched on Washington, Dirty Water: Federal Deregulation and the Re-Polluting of America, On Teaching Feminism: A Speech by Robin Morgan, What They Left Behind: The Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The National Guard read us the riot act. I was in charge of 60 to 80 troops. I remember jumping on the ground and praying that I wouldn't get shot. We had armored vehicles and a helicopter the idea was a show of force. I had no fear anything would happen. The National Guard moves in and orders the protesters to disperse. Two, plus four, plus six, plus more. On Monday, May 4th, the confrontations continued. A photo by student journalist John Filo, of a young woman kneeling over the body of a student, became an indelible image of the era. What Really Happened at Kent State. I ran and hid behind a pile of gravel. National Guard personnel holding rifles on May 4, 1970. by James A. Michener. Two-four-six-eight. BANG! True, Kent State was not so politically or culturally inert as many observers then and since have insisted. Writer Philip Caputo returns to Kent State, 35 years . Ohio National Guardsmen surround the remains of Kent State's ROTC building on May 3, 1970. student. The guard huddled, then retraced their steps. There was tear gas, a lot of obscenities and a few rocks thrown. On a final exam, she had tried to answer the question What is the point of history? Dates and facts are not enough to show what happened in the past, she wrote. POSTED: Wednesday, June 21, 2023 01:27 PM, Updated: Wednesday, June 21, 2023 02:56 PM. It's probably better that I didn't. But the Guard pushed most of them up Blanket Hill and down the other side, which issued through a shaded hill along the backside of Taylor Hall. We took position between two buildings. Alexander Hall was still pockmarked with bullet holes. A jeep rolled in with law enforcement. However, they weren't ready to leave. AARP Membership $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal. Except everyones been punished, the whole nation has suffered, and will keep on suffering, until the shooting stops. what happened on May 4 was a comedy of errors that . via email at asc-accessibility@osu.edu. "Ohio," a protest song written by Neil Young in response to the Kent State shooting and released by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in May 1970. Four students were killed. They eye the soldiers who shot him, unsure how this will play out. Today he lives in Rootstown, Ohio. ONG leaders, the State of Ohio, and above all Del Corso and Canterbury had an acute interest in self-justification. Kent State University, in northeastern Ohio, was no exception. Four dead in Ohio? The Guard moved on campus and pushed students from the central Commons back toward the dorms. That will take a political settlement, a peace, that the nation has needed for a half century. Stay down! What we don't know and never will is why they fired. snapchat, Kent State Kent Campus - The National Guard presses forward toward the protesters. We are currently contacting students and faculty there for an update. President Richard Nixon in his April 30, 1970 television address announcing the United States invasion of Cambodia. They did not leave. I borrowed my roommate's camera. It is contained as a chapter in the authors Project Censored book published in 2013. . . If I try to tell people about the shootings at Jackson State, they dont know about it, he has said. I knew they were firing real bullets because I saw smoke. Nixon was well on his way to becoming the hero of the white working class, men and women, but especially men, who left the Democratic Party for the G.O.P. I found the shootings to be illogical. Some Guardsmen pointed their rifles menacingly. The nearest fatality, Jeffrey Miller, was unarmed and nearly 100 yards away. Back then, being a photographer was not popular. Stephen Johnson Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Kent State massacre, in which the National Guard killed four students during a protest against the Vietnam War. A crowd of 9,000 students on strike, protesting the massacre at UCLA, boo their chancellor as he comes out to plead for them to calm down. In retrospect, it was very naive. I was observing, when it was announced this was an illegal rally. 230 Annie & John Glenn Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, Visit our sister sites:A Well-Informed People. I tried to raise my head to see where I was hit. Students chanted, 1-2-3-4, we don't want your f-----g war.''. After the Tougaloo students were arrested, students at Jackson State marched down Lynch Street, toward the jail where the Tougaloo protesters were being held; they were stopped by police with tear gas, billy clubs, and attack dogs. Stay down! There were students closer to the National Guard than that. He was twenty-one. No one had been injured in the ROTC fire at Kent State. The dead were dead; the others were helped by students. Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller who had been shot during an anti-war demonstration on the university campus on May 4, 1970. Nearly all accounts of what happened at Kent State begin the way the Today show did, on April 30, 1970, when, in a televised address, Nixon announced that the United States had sent troops into Cambodia, even though, only ten days earlier, he had announced the withdrawal of a hundred and fifty thousand troops from Vietnam. Eszterhas went on to become a prominent screenwriter. They did. 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. The protest turned violent, and the local mayor requested help from the National Guard. Student protests, already widespread, swelled in number and intensity on the nation's college campuses. I heard the bullet go by my head, whizzing like a bee. He gave the Guardsmen the finger. Paramedics and students run as they push the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller (1950 - 1970) on a gurney after he'd been shot when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on antiwar .

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