Kent State shootings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old runaway and Vietnam War protester, screaming with anguish and kneeling over the dead body of Jeffrey Miller, shot through the mouth by an unknown Ohio National Guardsman. The Vecchio portion of the photograph appeared on the May 18, 1970 cover of Newsweek magazine with the banner "Nixon's Home Front."[1]

The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent State massacre, occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. Four students were killed and nine others wounded.

The students were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia which President Richard Nixon launched on April 25, and announced in a television address five days later.

There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, high schools, and even elementary schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of eight million students, and the event further divided the country along political lines.

[edit] Historical background

Richard Nixon had been elected President in 1968, promising to end the Vietnam War. In November 1969 the My Lai Massacre was exposed, prompting widespread outrage around the world and leading to increased public opposition to the war. In addition, the following month saw the first draft lottery instituted since World War II. The war had appeared to be winding down throughout 1969 so a new invasion of Cambodia angered those who felt it only exacerbated the conflict.

Many young people, including college students and teachers, were concerned about being drafted to fight in a war that they strongly opposed. The expansion of that war into another country appeared to them to have increased that risk. Across the country, campuses erupted in protests in what Time magazine called "a nation-wide student strike", setting the stage for the events of early May 1970.

[edit] Timeline

[edit] Friday, May 1

At Kent State, a massive demonstration was held on May 1 on the Commons (a grassy area in the center of campus traditionally used as a gathering place for rallies), and another had been planned for May 4. There was widespread anger, and many protesters issued a call to "bring the war home."

Trouble erupted at around midnight when intoxicated bikers left a bar and began throwing beer bottles at cars and breaking downtown store fronts. In the process they broke a bank window which set off an alarm. The news spread quickly and it resulted in several bars closing early to avoid trouble. Before long more people had joined the vandalism and looting, while others remained bystanders.

By the time police arrived, a crowd of about 100 had already gathered. Some people from the crowd had already lit a small bonfire in the street. The crowd appeared to be a mix of bikers, students, and out-of town youths who regularly came to Kent's bars. A few members of the crowd began to throw beer bottles at the police, and then started yelling obscenities at them. The disturbance lasted for about an hour before the police restored order. By that time most of the bars were closed and the downtown and campus were quiet.

[edit] Saturday, May 2

Kent's Mayor Leroy Satrom declared a state of emergency on May 2 and, later that afternoon, asked Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes to send the National Guard to Kent to help maintain order.

When the National Guard arrived in town that evening, a large demonstration was already underway and the campus Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) building (which had been boarded up and scheduled for demolition) was burning. The arsonists were never caught. Nobody was hurt in the fire. Over a thousand protesters surrounded the building and cheered the building's burning. While attempting to extinguish the fire, several Kent firemen and police officers were hit with rocks and other objects by those standing near the fire. More than one fire engine company had to be called in because protesters carried the fire hose into the Commons and slashed it.^[1][2][3] Again, a call for assistance went out. At 10:00 p.m., the National Guard entered the campus for the first time and set up camp directly on campus. There were many arrests made, tear gas was used, and at least one student was bayoneted.^[4]

[edit] Sunday, May 3

By Sunday, May 3, there were nearly 1,000 National Guardsmen on campus to control the students.

During a press conference, Governor Rhodes called the protesters un-American and referred to the protestors as revolutionaries set on destroying higher education in Ohio. "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the nightriders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."^[5]

He also claimed he would obtain a court order declaring a state of emergency, banning further demonstrations, and gave the impression that a situation akin to martial law had been declared. However, Rhodes did not declare the state of emergency, which would have made the May 3 and May 4 protests illegal.^[6]

During the day some students came into downtown Kent to help with cleanup efforts after the rioting, which met with mixed reactions from local businessmen. Mayor Satrom, under pressure from frightened citizens, ordered a curfew until further notice.

Around 8:00 p.m., another rally was held on the campus Commons. By 8:45 p.m. the Guard used tear gas to disperse the crowd, and the students reassembled at the intersection of Lincoln and Main Streets, holding a sit-in in the hopes of gaining a meeting with Mayor Satrom and President White. At 11:00 p.m., the Guard announced that a curfew had gone into effect and began forcing the students back to their dorms. Ten Guardsmen were injured^[7] and at least one student was bayoneted by a Guardsman.^[8]

[edit] Monday, May 4

On Monday, May 4, a protest was scheduled to be held at noon, as had been planned three days earlier. University officials attempted to ban the gathering, handing out 12,000 leaflets stating that the event was cancelled. Despite this, an estimated 2,000 people gathered on the university's Commons, near Taylor Hall. The protest began with the ringing of the campus's iron victory bell (which had historically been used to signal victories in football games) to signal the beginning of the rally, and the first protester began to speak.

Fearing that the situation might escalate into another violent protest, Companies A and C, 1/145th Infantry and Troop G of the 2/107th Armored Cavalry, Ohio ANG, the units on the campus grounds, attempted to disperse the students. The legality of the dispersal was later debated at a subsequent wrongful death and injury trial. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that authorities did indeed have the right to disperse the crowd.

The dispersal process began late in the morning with a police official, riding in a Guard Jeep, approaching the students to read them an order to disperse or face arrest. The protesters pelted the Jeep with rocks, forcing it to retreat. One Guardsman was injured in the attack.

Just before noon, the Guard returned and again ordered the crowd to disperse. When they refused, the Guard used tear gas. Because of wind, the tear gas had little effect in dispersing the crowd, and some began a second rock attack with chants of "Pigs off campus!" The students also utilized the tear gas canisters and threw them back at the National Guardsmen. The only protection the soldiers had were their steel helmets. They had no body armor or face shields, although they had put on gas masks upon first using tear gas.

When it was obvious the crowd was not going to disperse, a group of 77 National Guard troops from A Company and Troop G began to advance on the hundreds of protesters with bayonets fixed on their weapons. The guardsmen had had little training in riot control. As the guardsmen advanced, the protestors retreated up and over a hill (Blanket Hill) heading out of The Commons area. Once over the hill, the students, in a loose group, moved northeast along the front of a building (Taylor Hall), with some continuing toward a parking lot in front of another building (Prentice Hall, slightly northeast of and perpendicular to Taylor Hall). The guardsmen pursued the protestors over the hill, but rather than veering left as the protestors had, they continued straight, heading down toward an athletic practice field enclosed by a chain link fence. Here they remained for about ten minutes, unsure of how to get out of the area short of retracing their entrance path (a move some guardsmen considered could be viewed as a retreat). During this time, the bulk of the students were off to the left and front of the Guardsmen, approximately 50 to 75 meters away, on the veranda of Taylor Hall. Others were scattered between Taylor Hall and the Prentice Hall parking lot, while still others, perhaps 35 or 40, were standing in the parking lot, or dispersing through the lot as had been previously ordered.

While on the practice field, the guardsmen generally faced the parking lot which was about 100 meters away. At one point some of the guardsmen kneeled and aimed their weapons toward the parking lot, then stood up again. For a few moments several guardsmen formed a loose huddle and appeared to be talking to one another. The guardsmen appeared to be unclear as to what to do next. They had cleared the protestors from The Commons area, and many students had left, but many stayed and were still angrily confronting the soldiers, some throwing rocks and tear gas canisters. At the end of about ten minutes the Guardsmen began to retrace their steps back up the hill toward The Commons area. Some of the students on the Taylor Hall veranda began to move slowly toward the soldiers as the latter passed over the top of the hill and headed back down into The Commons.

At this point, a number of guardsmen at the top of the hill abruptly turned and fired into the students. The guardsmen directed their fire not at the closest students, who were on the Taylor Hall veranda, but at those on the grass area and concrete walkway below the veranda, at those on the service road between the veranda and the parking lot, and at those in the parking lot. Bullets were not sprayed in all directions, but instead were confined to a fairly limited line of fire leading from the top of the hill to the parking lot. Not all the soldiers who fired their weapons directed their fire into the students. Some soldiers fired into the ground while a few fired into the air. In all, 29 of the 77 guardsmen claimed to have fired their weapons. A total of 67 bullets were fired. The shooting was determined to have lasted only 13 seconds, although a New York Times reporter stated that "it appeared to go on, as a solid volley, for perhaps a full minute or a little longer." The question of why the shots were fired is widely debated. The Adjutant General of the Ohio National Guard told reporters that a sniper had fired on the guardsmen, which itself remains a debated allegation. Many guardsmen later testified that they were in fear for their lives, which was questioned partly because of the distance of the wounded students. Time magazine later concluded that "triggers were not pulled accidentally at Kent State". The President's Commission on Campus Unrest avoided the question of why the shootings happened, but harshly criticized both the protesters and the Guardsmen, concluding that "the indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable."

The shootings killed four students and wounded nine. Two of the four students killed, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, had participated in the protest, and the other two, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder, were walking from one class to the next. Schroeder was also a member of the campus ROTC chapter. Of those wounded, none was closer than 71 feet (22 m) to the guardsmen. Of those killed, the nearest (Miller) was 265 feet (81 m) away.

[edit] Casualties

Killed (and approximate distance from the National Guard):

• Allison Krause 343 ft (105 m); fatal left chest wound
• Jeffrey Glen Miller 265 ft (81 m); shot though the mouth - killed instantly
• Sandra Lee Scheuer 390 ft (119 m); fatal neck wound
• William Knox Schroeder 382 ft (116 m); fatal chest wound

Wounded (and approximate distance from the National Guard):

• Thomas Mark Grace 225 ft (69 m); struck in left ankle
• Joseph Lewis Jr. 71 ft (22 m); hit twice in the right abdomen and left lower leg
• John R. Cleary 110 ft (34 m); upper left chest wound
• Alan Canfora 225 ft (69 m); hit in his right wrist
• Dean Kahler 300 ft (91 m); back wound fracturing the vertebrae - permanently paralyzed
• Douglas Wrentmore 329 ft (100 m); hit in his right knee
• James Dennis Russell 375 ft (114 m); hit in his right thigh from a bullet and in the right forehead by birdshot - both wounds minor
• Robert Stamps 495 ft (151 m); hit in his right buttock
• Donald Scott MacKenzie 750 ft (229 m); neck wound

Immediately after the shootings, many angry students were ready to launch an all-out attack on the National Guard. Many faculty members, led by geology professor and faculty marshal Glenn Frank, pleaded with the students to leave the Commons and to not give in to violent escalation. After 20 minutes of speaking, the students left the Commons, as ambulance personnel tended to the wounded, and the Guard left the area.

Although initial newspaper reports had inaccurately stated that a number of National Guard members had been killed or seriously injured, only one Guardsman, Lawrence Shafer, was injured seriously enough to require medical treatment, approximately 10 to 15 minutes prior to the shootings.^[9]

[edit] Aftermath and long-term effects

Shocking photographs of the dead and wounded at Kent State that were distributed in newspapers and periodicals world-wide amplified sentiment against the United States' invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War in general. In particular, the camera of Kent State photojournalism student John Filo captured a fourteen-year old runaway, Mary Ann Vecchio, screaming over the body of the dead student, Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot in the mouth. The photograph, which won a Pulitzer Prize, became the most enduring image of the events, and one of the most enduring images of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

The shootings led to protests on college campuses throughout the United States, and a student strike - causing over 450 campuses across the country to close with both violent and non-violent demonstrations.^[10] A common sentiment was expressed by students at New York University with a banner hung out of a window which read "They Can't Kill Us All."^[11]

Just five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, D.C. against the war and the killing of student protestors. Ray Price, Nixon's Chief Speechwriter from 1969-74 recalled the Washington demonstrations saying, "The city was an armed camp. The mobs were smashing windows, slashing tires, dragging parked cars into intersections, even throwing bedsprings off overpasses into the traffic down below. This was the quote, student protest. That's not student protest, that’s civil war."^[10] Not only was Nixon taken to Camp David for two days for his own protection, but Charles Colson (Counsel to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973) stated that the military was called up to protect the administration from the angry students, he recalled that "The 82nd Airborne was in the basement of the executive office building, so I went down just to talk to some of the guys and walk among them, and they're lying on the floor leaning on their packs and their helmets and their cartridge belts and their rifles cocked and you’re thinking, 'This can't be the United States of America. This is not the greatest free democracy in the world. This is a nation at war with itself.'"^[10]

Shortly after the shootings took place, the Urban Institute conducted a national study that concluded the Kent State shooting was the single factor causing the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history—over 4 million students protested and over 900 American colleges and universities closed during the student strikes. The Kent State campus remained closed for six weeks.

President Nixon and his administration's public reaction to the shootings was perceived by many in the anti-war movement as callous. Then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger said the president was "pretending indifference." Stanley Karnow noted in his Vietnam: A History that "The [Nixon] administration initially reacted to this event with wanton insensitivity. Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, whose statements were carefully programmed, referred to the deaths as a reminder that 'when dissent turns to violence, it invited tragedy.'" Karnow further documented that on May 9, 1970 at 4:15 a.m., the president met about 30 student dissidents conducting a vigil at the Lincoln Memorial where upon Nixon "treated them to a clumsy and condescending monologue, which he made public in an awkward attempt to display his benevolence." Nixon had been trailed by White House Deputy for Domestic Affairs Egil Krogh, who saw it differently then Karnow, saying, "I thought it was a very significant and major effort to reach out."^[10] In any regard, neither side could convince the other and after meeting with the students Nixon became convinced that those in the anti-war movement were the pawns of foreign communists.^[10] After the student protests, Nixon asked H. R. Haldeman to consider the Huston Plan, which would have used illegal procedures to gather information on the leaders of the anti-war movement. Only the resistance of J. Edgar Hoover stopped the plan.^[10]

On May 14 of the same year, two students at the historically black Jackson State University were shot to death and several others wounded, under more questionable circumstances, and without arousing as much nationwide attention as the Kent State shootings had. (For more on this incident, see Jackson State killings or the information at the African American Registry.^[12])

There was wide discussion as to whether or not these were legally justified shootings of American citizens, and whether or not the protests or the decisions to ban them were constitutional. These debates served to further galvanize uncommitted opinion by the terms of the discourse. The term "massacre" was applied to the shootings by some individuals and media sources, as it had been used for the Boston Massacre of 1770, in which five were killed and several more wounded.

On June 13, 1970, President Nixon established the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, known as the Scranton Commission, which he charged to study the dissent, disorder, and violence breaking out on college and university campuses across the nation.^[13] The Commission's establishment was a consequence of the killings of protesting students at Kent State and Jackson State. The Commission issued its findings in a September 1970 report that concluded that the Ohio National Guard shootings on May 4, 1970 were unjustified. The report said:

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.

In September 1970, twenty-four students and one faculty member were indicted on charges connected with the May 4 demonstration or the ROTC building fire three days before. The individuals, who had been identified from photographs, became known as the "Kent 25." Five cases, all related to the burning of the ROTC building, went to trial; one non-student defendant was convicted on one charge and two other non-students pleaded guilty. One other defendant was acquitted, and charges were dismissed against the last. In December 1971, all charges against the remaining twenty were dismissed for lack of evidence.^[14][15]

[edit] Legal action against the guardsmen

Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense, which was generally accepted by the criminal justice system. In 1974 District Judge Frank Battisti dismissed charges against all eight on the basis that the prosecution's case was too weak to warrant a trial.^[16]

[edit] Long-term effects

The years following the shootings (1970 to 1979) were filled with lawsuits filed by families of the victims against the State of Ohio, in hopes of placing blame on Governor Rhodes and the Ohio National Guard. Trials were held on both the federal and state level but all ended in acquittals or were dismissed. There was one civil trial for wrongful death and injury brought by the victims and their families against Governor Rhodes and the National Guardsmen that was originally dismissed but eventually the dismissal was overturned due to the judge excluding evidence. The students' families were awarded approximately $63,000 per victim and the defendants agreed to state for the record that they regretted their actions.^[17]

In the proceeding years, many in the anti-war movement have referred to the shootings as "murders", although no criminal convictions were obtained against any National Guardsman. Journalist I.F. Stone wrote

To those who think murder is too strong a word, one may recall that even Agnew three days after the Kent State shootings used the word in an interview on the David Frost show in Los Angeles. Agnew admitted in response to a question that what happened at Kent State was murder, 'but not first degree' since there was — as Agnew explained from his own training as a lawyer — "no premeditation but simply an over-response in the heat of anger that results in a killing; it's a murder. It's not premeditated and it certainly can't be condoned.^[18]

The Kent State incident forced the National Guard to re-examine its methods of crowd control. The only instruments the Guardsmen had that day to dispel demonstrators were bayonets, CS gas grenades, and .30-06 ball ammunition. In the years that followed, the U.S. Army began developing less lethal means of dispersing demonstrators (such as rubber bullets) and changed its crowd control and riot tactics to attempt to not cause casualties amongst the demonstrators. Many of the crowd control changes brought on by the Kent State events are used today by police and military forces in the United States when facing similar situations, such as the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and civil disorder during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

One outgrowth of the events was the Center for Peaceful Change, which was established at Kent State University in 1971 "as a living memorial to the events of May 4, 1970."^[19] Now known as The Center for Applied Conflict Management (CACM), it developed one of the earliest conflict resolution undergraduate degree programs in the United States.

According to recently released FBI reports,^{[citation needed]} one part-time student, Terry Norman, was already noted by student protestors as an informant for both campus police and the Akron FBI branch. Norman was present during the May 4 protests, taking photographs to identify student leaders,^[20] while carrying a sidearm and wearing a gas mask.

In 1970, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover responded to questions from Congressman John Ashbrook by denying that Norman had ever worked for the FBI, a statement Norman himself disputed.^[21] On 13 August 1973, Indiana Senator Birch Bayh sent a memo to then-governor of Ohio, John J. Gilligan, suggesting that Norman may have fired the first shot, based on testimony he received from Guardsmen who claimed that a gunshot fired from the vicinity of the protestors instigated the Guard to open fire on the students.^[22]

[edit] Memorials at Kent State

Each May 4 from 1971 to 1975 the Kent State University administration sponsored an official commemoration of the events. Upon the university's announcement in 1976 that it would no longer sponsor such commemorations, the May 4 Task Force, a group made up of students and community members, was formed for this purpose. The group has organized a commemoration on the university's campus each year since 1976; events generally include a silent march around the campus, a candlelight vigil, a ringing of the victory bell in memory of those killed and injured, speakers (always including eyewitnesses and family members), and music.

In 1990, twenty years after the shootings, a memorial^[23] commemorating the events of May 4 was dedicated on the campus on a 2.5 acre (10,000 m²) site overlooking the University's Commons where the student protest took place. Even the construction of the monument became controversial and in the end, only 7% of the design was constructed. The memorial does not contain the names of those killed or wounded in the shooting.^[24]

In 1999, at the urging of relatives of the four students killed in 1970, the university constructed memorials for each of the students in the parking lot between Taylor and Prentice halls. Each of the four memorials is located on the exact spot where the student died. They are surrounded by a raised rectangle of concrete featuring four lightposts approximately four feet high, with the student's name engraved on a triangular marble plaque in one corner.^[25]

George Segal's 1978 cast-from-life bronze sculpture , In Memory of May 4, 1970, Kent State: Abraham and Isaac^[26] was commissioned for the Kent State campus by a private fund for public art, but was refused by the university administration who deemed its subject matter (the biblical Abraham poised to sacrifice his son Isaac) too controversial. The sculpture was accepted in 1979 by Princeton University, and currently resides there between the university chapel and library.^[27]

An earlier work of land art, Partially Buried Woodshed,^[28] was produced on the Kent State campus by Robert Smithson in January 1970.^[29] Shortly after the events, an inscription was added that recontextualized the work in such a way that it came to be associated by some with the event.

In 2004, a simple stone memorial was erected at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School^[30] in Plainview, New York, which Jeffrey Miller had attended.

[edit] Artistic tributes

[edit] Music

Nash, Stills, Tom Grace and Crosby on the Kent State University campus in 1997

The best known response to the Kent State University events was the protest song "Ohio", written by Neil Young within weeks of the incident for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Crosby, Stills, and Nash visited the Kent State campus for the first time on May 4, 1997, where they performed the song for the May 4 Task Force's 27th annual commemoration.

Much less well known was Harvey Andrews'^[31] "Hey Sandy", addressed to Sandra Scheuer. Other comparatively little known musical tributes include Steve Miller's "Jackson-Kent Blues,"^lyrics from the album Number 5 (released in November 1970), and the Beach Boys' 1971 "Student Demonstration Time", ^lyrics which appeared on their Surf's Up LP. The latter song shares the tune of Leiber & Stoller's "Riot in Cell Block Number Nine."

Jon Anderson has said that the lyrics of "Long Distance Runaround" (on the album Fragile by Yes, also released in 1971) are also in part about the shootings, particularly the line "hot colour melting the anger to stone."[2]

There is also speculation that the second verse in John Denver's "Stonehaven Sunset" refers to Kent State. The lyrics include:

"They are shooting at random, though they aim at us all. It's the children who'll rise up and the children who'll fall. All the angels are weeping the sweetest of tears fall like rivers of mercy to wash all our fears. Sing a song for old glory and a feature that dies, sing of Stonehaven desert home, Stonehaven sunrise."

^{[citation needed]}

In 1970-71 Halim El-Dabh, a Kent State University music professor who was on campus when the shootings occurred, composed Opera Flies, a full length opera, in response to his experience. The work was first performed on the Kent State campus on May 8, 1971 and was revived for the 25th commemoration of the events in 1995.

In 1971, the composer and pianist Bill Dobbins (who was a Kent State University graduate student at the time of the shootings), composed The Balcony, an avant-garde work for jazz band inspired by the same event. First performed in May 1971 for the university's first commemoration, it was released on LP in 1973 and was performed again by the Kent State University Jazz Ensemble in 2000 for the 30th commemoration.

Dave Brubeck's 1971 oratorio Truth Is Fallen also has the Kent State events as its subject; the work was premiered in Midland, Michigan on May 1, 1971 and released on LP in 1972.^[32]

The All Saved Freak Band dedicated their 1973 album My Poor Generation to "Tom Miller of the Kent State 25." Tom Miller was a band member who had been featured in Life magazine as part of the Kent State protests and lost his life the next year in an automobile accident.^[33]

Holly Near's "It Could Have Been Me", her personal response to the shootings, was released on her 1974 A Live Album.

The industrial band Skinny Puppy's 1989 song "Tin Omen", which appears on the albums Rabies and the Live album, also refers to the event.

Lamb of God's 2000 song "O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E." references Kent State, together with the Auschwitz concentration camp, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the Waco siege.

A commemorative 2-CD compilation featuring music and interviews was released by the May 4 Task Force in May 2005, in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the shootings.

Joe Walsh, who briefly attended Kent State, has said that he wrote "Turn to Stone" in response to the shootings.^{[citation needed]}

One of the students who participated in the protest was Chrissie Hynde, future leader of The Pretenders, who was a sophomore at the time.[3]

Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale, founding members of Devo, also attended Kent State at the time of the shootings. Casale was reportedly "standing about 15 feet away" from Allison Krause when she was shot, and was friends with her and another one of the students who was killed. The shootings were the transformative moment for the band, which became less of a pure joke and more a vehicle for social critique (albeit with a blackly humorous bent).^[34]

Ryan Harvey wrote the song "13 seconds in May" about the Kent State Massacre.

[edit] Poetry

The incident is mentioned in Allen Ginsberg's 1975 poem Hadda be Playin' on a Jukebox

Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem^[35] "Bullets and Flowers" is addressed to Allison Krause. Reportedly Krause had participated in the previous days' protest during which she put flowers in the barrels of National Guard rifles, as had been done at a war protest at the Pentagon in October 1967.

[edit] Plays

• 1995 - Nightwalking. Voices From Kent State by Sandra Perlman, Kent, Franklin Mills Press, first presented in Chicago April 20, 1995 (Director: Jenifer (Gwenne) Weber)

[edit] Multimedia

In her 1996 multimedia work Partially Buried, visual artist Renée Green explores the history of the shootings within a wider historical and cultural context.

[edit] Films

[edit] Documentary

• 1970 - Confrontation at Kent State (director Richard Myers) - documentary filmed in Kent, Ohio directly following the shootings by a Kent State University filmmaker.
• 1971 - Allison (director Richard Myers) - a tribute to Allison Krause
• 1979 - George Segal (director Michael Blackwood) - documentary about American sculptor George Segal; Segal discusses and is shown creating his bronze sculpture Abraham and Isaac, which was originally intended as a memorial for the Kent State University campus.
• 2000 - Kent State: The Day the War Came Home (director Chris Triffo) - documentary featuring interviews with injured students, eyewitnesses, guardsmen, and relatives of students killed at Kent State.

[edit] Drama

• 1981 - Kent State (director James Goldstone) - television docudrama
• 2002 - The Year That Trembled (director Jay Craven)

[edit] Literature

• Harlan Ellison's 1971 story collection Alone Against Tomorrow is dedicated to the four students who were killed.

[edit] See also

• Orangeburg massacre
• Jackson State killings
• List of riots

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Bills, Scott. (1988). Kent State/May 4: Echoes Through a Decade. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-278-1.
• Caputo, Philip. (2005). 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings. New York: Chamberlain Bros. ISBN 1-59609-080-4.
• Davies, Peter and the Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church. (1973). The Truth About Kent State: A Challenge to the American Conscience. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0374279381
• Eszterhas, Joe, and Michael D. Roberts (1970). Thirteen Seconds: Confrontation at Kent State. New York: Dodd, Mead. ISBN 0-396-06272-5.
• Gordon, William A. (1990). The Fourth of May: Killings and Coverups at Kent State. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-582-2. Updated and reprinted in 1995 as Four Dead in Ohio: Was There a Conspiracy at Kent State? Laguna Hills, CA: North Ridge Books. ISBN 0-937813-05-2.
• Langguth, A. J. (Jack). (1997). Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0743212312
• Michener, James. (1971). Kent State: What Happened and Why. New York: Random House and Reader's Digest Books. ISBN 0-394-47199-7.
• Payne, J. Gregory (1981). Mayday: Kent State. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8403-2393-X.
• Stone, I. F. (1970). The Killings at Kent State; How Murder Went Unpunished. New York: Vintage Books.
• Stone, I. F. "Fabricated Evidence in the Kent State Killings", The New York Review of Books, Volume 15, Number 10, 3 December 1970.
• Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. (1970) Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-405-01712-X.

[edit] External links

• Kent State University, Department of Special Collections & Archives: May 4 Collection
• Kent State University, May 4 Task Force home page
• May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy
• May4Archive.org (maintained by Kent State historian Dr. J. Gregory Payne)
• Eyewitness: Howard Ruffner
• Repository of Oral Histories of the Kent State Shootings
• Kent State shooting scrapbook
• Links, photos, comic strips, music and eyewitness reports about the shootings at Kent State.
• AlanCanfora.com - personal website of one of the survivors; historical information, photographs, & commentary.
• "Ohio" song - Lyrics analysis of Neil Young's song "Ohio".
• Kent State Remembered - A collection of articles regarding the Kent State Protest.
• Jackson State University killings from the African American registry archives
• Annotated bibliography focusing on the legal aftermath
• Mike and Kendra's Kent State, May 4 1970 web site - Detailing the commemoration process and related controversies and providing sources for research.
• "Ohio" Lyrics about the Kent State shooting
• The National Guard: Kent's Other Casulties.
• Tom Grace eyewitness account
• Free Times - In-depth article covering the unanswered questions that still surround the shootings and the possible involvement of Terry Norman.
• Proof to Save the Guardsmen - A 1974 opinion piece from American Opinion magazine that conjects the National Guard was provoked. American Opinion magazine was published by the John Birch Society.
• Why Kent State is Important Today- Boston Globe Op-ed May, 4 2006

[edit] Audio

• "Remembering Kent State, 1970" (audio documentary)

[edit] Video

• Dean Kahler, recorded in 2000 by WAOH