As many as three thousand people used to attend the annual memorial for the four students who were killed and the nine who were wounded by National Guardsmen during an anti-war protest at Kent State University in 1970. There will be many fewer this year. Because classes are ending and most students will have left the Ohio campus before the candlelight vigil and the memorial commemoration, it looks as if the killings at Kent State are moving inexorably from tragedy into history.
Not quite.
Kent State is America's Tiananmen Square. The photo of a young girl kneeling over the body of a dead student is etched on our collective retinas. But all these years later, it is still hard to comprehend how National Guardsmen facing no real danger from student protestors several hundred feet distant would suddenly turn, raise their rifles, and fire, in just 13 seconds, 67 bullets into the crowd.
Inevitably, National Guard leaders insisted that the Guardsmen had not been ordered to fire; either they shot in self-defense or, at worst, acted on their own. Three hundred FBI investigators found no proof of a plan to shoot students; the Department of Justice closed the case three times in as many years. It took until 1979 for a civil suit to be resolved, with the state of Ohio issuing a mild statement of regret and paying $675,000 to the victims and their families.
And yet there is no resolution of this tragedy. Just before the May 4th demonstration began, a Kent State communications major who lived in a dorm overlooking the Commons decided to record it. Setting the microphone of his tape deck in his window, he created the only real-time account of the shooting. The original was destroyed by the Department of Justice in 1979, but a copy of the tape surfaced in a collection of evidence given to the Yale University Library. In 2010, at the request of two Ohio newspapers, forensic experts used technology not available in the 1970s to evaluate a digital CD of the tape. They heard someone shout "prepare to fire" and then give an order. Two seconds later, the gunshots begin. (Alan Canfora, who was wounded that day and is now director of the Kent May 4 Center, presented the Department of Justice with the CD and asked the government to re-open the investigation. Last week the DOJ declined, declaring the enhanced recording "inconclusive.")
In 1970, nothing was inconclusive. The reaction among the young was immediate: a nationwide strike involving 850 campuses and 4 million students, and a powerful song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young that condemned President Nixon and the National Guard. Among their elders, the reaction was largely the opposite. A Gallup Poll taken shortly after the shootings at Kent State revealed that 58% of the respondents believed the responsibility for the deaths lay with the demonstrators; only 11% blamed the National Guard. As the author of a book about the shootings would later write, "These were the most popular murders ever committed in the United States."
Tragedies like Kent State do not occur in a vacuum. Three weeks before the shootings, Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, said of student protest, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with." James Rhodes, Governor of Ohio, was facing an uphill battle in a Senatorial primary to be held on May 5; on May 3, he rushed to Kent, met with law enforcement and National Guard leaders, and, pounding the table at a press conference, said that student protestors were "worse than the brown shirts" and the best way to deal with them was not "to treat the symptoms" but "to eradicate the problem." That morning the National Guard general in charge announced, "These students are going to have to find out what law-and-order is all about." It does not seem possible that the Guardsmen were ignorant of such rhetoric.
Could there be another Kent State? On a college campus in 2012, it's not likely; the greatest agitation that today's students seem to share is the difficulty of finding a job. But there's a more significant reason a second Kent State would be unlikely -- protest has moved online.
"The whole world is watching." In 1968, that was the chant in the streets during the Democrats' convention in Chicago. Back then, the only place to watch the violence was on network television. Now technology turns every citizen into a network; protestors can create petitions that gather millions of signatures on Change.org or, on their smartphones, record videos and immediately post them on YouTube.
The video of University of California Davis Police Lt. John Pike dousing seated, unresisting protestors with pepper spray has been viewed 2,500,000 times on YouTube; no one who watched it needed to wait four months for the official report to know that police and university officials were at fault. So smart senior police officers around the country should be routinely reminding their rank and file that they lose credibility and expose their city to lawsuits if they wade into a crowd of video-enabled demonstrators, batons swinging and gas at the ready.
Thanks to technology, we no longer need to wait 40 years to find out how confrontations with the forces of law and order start. When demonstrators turn violent, we'll know it right away. And it's almost possible to hope that "self-defense" -- the default explanation for official misconduct -- may become as extinct as bell bottoms.
VIDEO
Neil Young wrote 'Ohio' and sang it with Crosby, Stills and Nash, but this little-seen solo performance is, for me, stronger than the original. He bobs and weaves around the stage, almost unaware of the audience; this is like an incantation, a summoning by a shaman.
BOOK
There are several books on the killings. I was particularly impressed by Four Dead in Ohio.
As many as three thousand people used to attend the annual memorial for the four students who were killed and the nine who were wounded by National Guardsmen during an anti-war protest at Kent State U...
As many as three thousand people used to attend the annual memorial for the four students who were killed and the nine who were wounded by National Guardsmen during an anti-war protest at Kent State U...
So many things are from that time. The fight for contraception and the right to use it was from "That Hippie Free Love" time. The right of Women to be hired like men... Women were an abused Minority, just like Blacks. There were Quotas of Women to be hired. I walked away from being the only woman Security Manager for Sears Southern Territory, in 1975. Drugs and the War Against Drugs was because of Hippies, originally. (remember when "Drugs" meant Pot, Heroin and LSD, with some speed thrown in for Final's week??).
Remember the Lottery?? Don't you wonder just Why Bush didn't use the Lottery and instead decided to create a private Military?? If a Lottery had been used then we would not have more than 2 wars going on for years.
pooka47401: So many things are from that time. The fight for
When I was serving in the army we NEVER had live ammunition except for one situation. I served one weekend as guard of the base payroll which then was paid in cash. Of course we did not chamber a round in the rifles. Our clips were in pouches on our belts. The only other times we had live rounds were when we were firing on the ranges.
Why would a commander order his troops to arm their weapons without a threat???
WHY WON'T THEY INVESTIGATE???
wlkcrk: When I was serving in the army we NEVER had
Jesse what a great article.I think a similiar incident could easily happen again today.History will teach us nothing.Fear and consumption is the motto of todays GOP.
Roger_Holland: Jesse what a great article.I think a similiar incident could
I was active duty Marine Corps in the 70's, not National Guard. If I had been on the scene, with an M-1 Garand in my hands, and people waving enemy flags were advancing on me and my buddies, there would have been eight more good Communists.
LouGots: I was active duty Marine Corps in the 70's, not
Using bullets against an unarmed crowd? How very brave, how very patriotic, how very American. This called for restraint, not blood. The National Guard galvanized a movement against the war and created a distrust that abides, even today. You served your country well, I believe. Can you not understand that you were fighting for the people who protested, every bit as much as you fought for those who disagreed with them?
GreshamGuy: Using bullets against an unarmed crowd? How very brave, how
At the time, the National Guard members comprised mostly of sons of prominent businessmen, politicians, and other wealthy, well-connected people. This was how they could do their military service and not be put into a combat situation. There were long waiting lists to get into National Guard units but it was almost impossible to get in unless those young men had family connections.
leskataus: At the time, the National Guard members comprised mostly of
A similar, near tragedy was related to me years ago. A mentor of mine, in humor, referred to himself as a "draft evader," since he successfully enlisted in the Illinois National Guard during the Vietnam War. He had previously received deferments from the draft, as he was attending law school. Those ended when he graduated and became licensed to practice law. Since he was a professional, upon his entry into the Guard, he was assigned to the First Company of the Illinois National Guard which, at least back in the late 1960's, was a placement for the honor of being a professional and his company mates were all either lawyers, doctors or accountants. At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, in Chicago, the Illinois National Guard was deployed to quell the anti-war protests and police riots. As was custom, the First Company was lead the way, as the Guard marched with their loaded rifles down Michigan Avenue, toward Grant Park, the hotspot of the protests and riots. According to my mentor, had not he and other First Company guardsmen, who were emotionally allied with the protesters, not been in the front row when confronting the protesters, the yahoo, farm boys behind them would have opened fire. Had that occurred, Kent State would have been an obscure footnote.
BocaSlim: A similar, near tragedy was related to me years ago.
I was at the Convention the first two nights is a 15-year-old staff member for McGovern. We had to take buses that passed through the Grant Park crowd without slamming her hands on the side chanting.
Frankly none of us were afraid.
The police riot on that last night was something to remember. I was at home at my parents house but had a woman I worked with beaten almost silly.
How did that ever happened in America?
In 1968 I was 15 years old just staring to become politically aware.
First Martin in April, and Bobby in June and then Chicago in August.
What a year to grow up in. That idealism did not last long...
JNail: I was at the Convention the first two nights is
Rolling Stone did a pretty good article on it at the time, and in those pre-pre-pre-internet days, the letters about that issue weren't printed until a month or so later.
There was one from a lady and her husband who said that their son was actually the 5th fatality, but was overlooked because he didn't succumb to his injuries that same day as did the 4.
But I've never again been able to find any mention of a 5th fatality.
unitron: Rolling Stone did a pretty good article on it at
The thing that impressed me at the time--30, working in a campus bookstore--wasn't so much the underlying approval of the older generation, but the fact that at least one of the dead, probably two, weren't protesting anything. They were on their way to their classes. It was the first time I (and a lot of others) realized that being young and on campus was as bad in the minds of our elders as being against the war.
flanardiente: The thing that impressed me at the time--30, working in
Remember the Lottery?? Don't you wonder just Why Bush didn't use the Lottery and instead decided to create a private Military?? If a Lottery had been used then we would not have more than 2 wars going on for years.
Why would a commander order his troops to arm their weapons without a threat???
WHY WON'T THEY INVESTIGATE???
That line has always haunted me. I was 17 when it happened. I saw CSNY perform that live in Chicago that summer.
That song is still one I think of any time what I want to protest something.
"almost cut my hair…" that is still my rebellious anthem at 59.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp6-wG5LLqE
that is when I decided to drop out as much as possible - at 14 - and NEVER NEVER NEVER trust my government again
Frankly none of us were afraid.
The police riot on that last night was something to remember. I was at home at my parents house but had a woman I worked with beaten almost silly.
How did that ever happened in America?
In 1968 I was 15 years old just staring to become politically aware.
First Martin in April, and Bobby in June and then Chicago in August.
What a year to grow up in. That idealism did not last long...
There was one from a lady and her husband who said that their son was actually the 5th fatality, but was overlooked because he didn't succumb to his injuries that same day as did the 4.
But I've never again been able to find any mention of a 5th fatality.
The definitive account.
Does he mention a 5th fatality?
I fear it's more likely to be prescient.