what was the kent state protest about

We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers. However, most people remain skeptical: covering the story, the New York Times couldn't discern these words. Encyclopedia.com. That day, hundreds of students gathered on the Commons, a park-like space at the center of campus that had been . OHara suggests that prominent politicians set the stage for the killings. A freshman at Kent State University in Ohio, Lewis had. Americas youth is warring with a law and order president and demanding revolution. The revolutionary spirit of each successive generation informs the world and everyone in it. And partly it was because the victims were white, which made the press and public take more notice. The Kent State protest occurred between 1st and 4th May, 1970. Paris Blast destroys int'l arts and design school, injures 37 people JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR. Kent State students protested President Richard M. Nixon's 30 April announcement that troops would invade Cambodia to strike against suspected guerrillas. The invasion of Cambodia (which Nixon described as an "incursion") inflamed already strong anti-war sentiment, especially on college campuses. About 1 p.m., protesters stood, turned their backs to the Senate chamber and lowered their pants to reveal letters that spelled out STOP PASSING GAS! In 1970, tensions came to a fever pitch when tragedy struck on one college campus. The next weekend, 100,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the troops being sent into Cambodia. The names of the victims include the following: A photograph of a young girl crying over Miller's body taken by a Kent State photography student won a Pulitzer Prize and is one of the most enduring images of the Kent State shooting. 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. This is the messed up history of the Kent State massacre, including the build-up, the event itself, and its legacy today. They arrive that night after the ROTC building on campus is set on fire. With the National Guard arriving on campus, the students' ire moved away from the Vietnam War and onto the presence of the National Guard on campus. "Kent State Protest There had been some clashes between authorities and protesters in the days leading up to the shooting. Activating the National Guard to keep peace is supposed to be a rare event. Four students were killed. Beyond that, the shootings were another event that symbolized the end of '60s optimism and the start of '70s disillusionment and rage. Some colleges were firebombed, but fortunately, no one was hurt or killed. Others were more than one hundred yards away. 'Incursion' for the President was interpreted as 'invasion' by many of the nation's college-aged youth. "The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy." When did the Kent State University protest shootings happen? Oxford University Press, 2006. Some historians who've investigated the shootings have accused the guardsmen of conspiring to shoot into the crowd before they retreated back up Blanket Hill. Would you please listen to me? A growing anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, and a series of assassinations of major political and social leaders had exposed deep division and polarization. The events at Kent State 50 years ago crystallized a generations fight for social change. The event occurred during a tense period in U.S. history. The Kent State shootings were the first time in U.S. history that a student was killed during an anti-war protest. On Saturday, Satrom officially declared a state of civil emergency and requested the National Guard from Governor Jim Rhodes. As he raised his camera, 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio ran over and knelt beside Miller. Today, despite similar histories of protest, millennials and baby boomers are at war over societal ideals. The Kent State shootings galvanized student protesters who had already mobilized in huge numbers over the invasion of Cambodia. The Fourth of May: Killings and Coverups at Kent State. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. That evening, after tear gas was used to disperse another gathering, the National Guard insisted that there would be no more demonstrations. In an act of foreshadowing, one of the Guardsman fired a pistol in the air in the hopes of stopping the crowd's unruliness. The protest at Kent State University was about the "war on communism" in Vietnam and President Richard Nixon's crackdown on domestic dissent and civil rights. Events such as the Kent State protest against the war were common. At Kent State, these protests actually began on May 1, the day after the invasion. Although we know these facts about what happened, we don't know why it happened. The Kent State shootings occurred on May 4, 1970. Four students were killed by gunfire: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder. Deimos: A Chip Off the Old Martian Block? Many white middle class baby boomers, particularly in the industrial North and the progressive West, attended integrated public schools with upwardly mobile Black people. Kent State Protest Flashcards | Quizlet Most of these were related to the racist backlash against the civil rights movement. JSTOR, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. . The United States had gradually increased its support for South Vietnam in order to prevent Communism from spreading in Asia. The town's mayor, Leroy Satram, appealed to Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes for assistance and that the National Guard be deployed to Kent State to establish order. Heineman, Kenneth J. Kent State University Press, 1988. The shootings happened at Kent State University in the. "Kent State Protest All rights reserved. The Kent State shooting, occurred on May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The impact of that fight is proof that in rising up and taking a stand, we all can make the world better for everyone. Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of Miami runaway Mary Ann Vecchio, 14, kneeling at the dead body of college student Jeffrey Miller, 20, at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, Monday, May 4, 1970. Kent State University Protests - GCSE History by Clever Lili In November 1969, 500,000 demonstrators marched on Washington to demand peace, backed up by other protests around the world. The 58,000 killed in the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1975 far exceeds the hundreds of millennial and Generation Z youth and teachers killed at school massacres that have occurred since 1999: Columbine High in Colorado in 1999 (13 dead), Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in 2012 (26 dead), and Stoneman Douglas High in 2018 (17 dead). Reporter Diane Smith can be reached at dsmith@recordub.com, This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: 'Die-in' set to protest COVID-19 policy at Kent State University, 'Die-in' set to protest COVID-19 policy at Kent State University, US Supreme Court backs man who sent female musician flood of unwanted messages, Suspect arrested after couple celebrating 50th wedding anniversary are found dead in Massachusetts home. It's an episode now burned into history as the Kent State Massacre. May 1 Protests begin at Kent State and other campuses around the country. During the protest, which will take place on the K at Risman Plaza, students will simulate being dead in protest of the policy. Authorities never found out who was responsible for the fire, and protesters cut fire hoses to prevent the fire department from putting out the blaze [source: Heineman]. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1990. National Guardsmen fired between 61 to 67 shots in a 13 second period. The annual commemorations, according to OHara, including artwork commissioned to memorialize the event, have turned from somber to a surprisingly buoyant fete of postwar unity and historical reconciliation.. Kent State and Its Legacy of National Student Protest, The Historic New Law Protecting Fairness for Pregnant Workers. Kent State massacre: The shootings on a college campus 50 years ago In just 13 seconds, four students . In a mere thirteen seconds four students were killed, and nine others wounded. "It just seemed to last forever. Before noon on May 4, a growing crowd of students collected at the Commons. The previous year, in March 1969, Nixon had secretly orderedbombings in Cambodia, something Congress and the public didn't learn about until the New York Times published the news that May. April 26, 2004. With that, the forces of order in the United States had launched a shooting war against their own children. Canfora claims that in this version, you can hear someone say, "Right here! Neil Young - Ohio Lyrics | Genius Lyrics Then she made the fateful decision to run to England. Angrier than ever, some threatened to fight the National Guard, who apparently made no move to help the victims. The country was fighting an unpopular war in Vietnam that was instigating a wave of protests. Haldeman would later say Kent State marked the beginning of the end not only of the Vietnam War, but of the Nixon presidency. 6 min read Joe Lewis was just 18 when he was shot twice by the Ohio National Guard on his college campus. Finally, the police dispersed the crowd using tear gas and encouraged students to return to campus. One anonymous member of the Guard who was also a Kent State student told IdeaStream that he didn't hear an order to shoot, "but knowing that there was firing going on, I would have more than likely emptied my weapon." Point! Kent State - Bill of Rights Institute The report explicitly blamed police racism for the shootings, but according to a 2020 New York Timesarticle, when victims and families sued the city and state, they lost the civil case. As protests became more heated, the Ohio National Guard was summoned to Kent. It wasn't until March 1974 that eight of the National Guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury for violating the civil rights of the killed and injured students. Windows were broken in some businesses. The National Guard is a volunteer militia that serves both its individual state, district, or territory and the federal government. Despite the presence of armed soldiers, Kent State students continued to hold rallies. Ohio National Guardsmen were called out to police the protests, in part because earlier protests had turned violent; just the day before, the campus ROTC had been burned down. According to the New York Times, the student protests led Nixon to call off the invasion of Cambodia on June 30, 1970. The largest student strike in American history followed, with more than 500 colleges and universities suspending classes, shutting down. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); A bullet from the protests left a hole in a sculpture on the Kent State campus. Kent mayor LeRoy Satrom called on Jim Rhodes, the governor of Ohio at the time, who then called out the Ohio National Guard. The anti-Vietnam War protest movement was largely led by college students. When it was over, he called out to Scheuer, but she didn't reply. The issue is the same that existed not only between the boomers and their parents -- the Silent Generation -- but between all generations: Change, and resistance, acceptance, and adaptation to it. The situation spiraled out of control when a fire burned down the university Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) building. President Nixon's response to the shootings was simply, "When dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy," which struck many as cold [source: Lytle]. The reasons for the shooting remain unclear. An order to disperse was read that morning and 193 people were arrested by unarmed Kent State police officers. On May 4, 1970, at Ohio's Kent State University, four American citizens were murdered by their own government. Those sympathetic to the protesters saw the event as more than simply a terrible misunderstanding at an obscure state-run university in northeast Ohio. Amongst the hundreds of minorities within the Subcontinent, Black Indians of African origin stand out. The Truth about Kent State: A Challenge to the American Conscience. The diversity in the student protest movement allowed for more open dialogue on conspicuous consumption and America's military-industrial complex, ideas that were previously considered taboo and too subversive for conversation in conservative Eisenhower America. The university was shut down for six weeks following the shooting. Tear gas was used to offset the crowd's gathering strength. The incident became a benchmark in American history that brought young people . Remaining students threw rocks and tear gas canisters at the guardsmen, whose orders to the rioters to disperse were refused. No one was ever charged. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). And then he realized she'd been shot in the carotid artery: "there was a lot of blood.". By Cydney Adams. By this point, peaceful demonstrations had been banned by the mayor, but there was a rally planned for noon on Blanket Hill, a grassy knoll at the center of the campus. He noted that May 4th, 1970, marked a time when American society was more divided than ever. What had begun as a small campus demonstration turned Kent State into a symbol of the Vietnam era worldwide. 225-243. On May 4, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire during an antiwar protest on the Kent State University campus. Students fighting injustice faced a fate of being murdered by American soldiers and law enforcement officers on American college campuses. After ten minutes the troops moved back up the hill. The campus was a relatively unlikely setting for the dramatic events that unfolded over the span of four days leading up to the tragedy. The spirit of the youth protest that peaked during Kent State and Watergate, and was marked by the Vietnam War and the resignation of Nixon, is as alive and evident as ever today. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. Various states called on the National Guard: for example, in New Haven, the New York Times reported that 3,000 National Guardsmen were brought in over the weekend of May 1 to monitor the 15,000 Yale students and other demonstrators. Many have pointed to the Kent State massacre as a pivotal moment in US history. May 2 The mayor asks the National Guard to deploy to Kent. Denver Pride filled with positivity, protests and a proposal during In 1970, the Vietnam War was extremely unpopular among the Baby Boomer generation. What really happened at Kent State? | HowStuffWorks The civil trial was appealed several times before it was settled out of court in 1979. And in November that year, the New York Times reported that Federal District Court Judge Frank J. Battisti had acquitted them all, claiming that the government had failed to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the Guard had planned to undermine the students' civil rights. Kent State protests navigation search The Kent State protests of May 1970 took place on the campus of Kent State University, in Kent, Ohio. The National Guard began to advance on the crowd. Scoot: The real story - Kent State Massacre and Music - Audacy View history Tools 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. Kent State is a state-supported school that had around 20,000 students in 1970. In the late nineteenth century, forensic investigators began using new technologies to study minute detailssuch as the arrangement and makeup of dust. There had been other protests on the campus. The protest will take place at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the day students are to return to class. However, student photographers made sure that this time it was thoroughly documented. 'Die-in' set to protest COVID-19 policy at Kent State University By November 1967, 15,058 American soldiers had been killed and 109,527 wounded. Rhodes arrived in Kent and held a press conference during which he called violent protesters "the worst type of people that we harbor in America" [source: Chermak]. Encyclopedia.com. The Kent State shootings weren't the first time a student protest had been violently quashed. Finding themselves cornered in the field by a fence, guardsmen retreated back up the hill. The report into campus unrest stated that after a couple of people threw bottles, the highway patrolmen and several police officers suddenly started firing rifles, carbines, and submachine guns into the crowd and the building. He thought he'd missed the bulk of the action, as he'd been away at the weekend, but left his photography lab around noon to see what was happening. Police and state patrolmen fired into a dormitory at the all-black school, killing two students and wounding nine others. The events of the first evening of protests raised tensions and set the stage for the Kent State shootings a few days later. In response, hostile students shot pellet guns at the anti-war students and assaulted them. In the span of 13 seconds, guardsmen fired between 61 and 67 shots [source: Lewis]. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. Jail officials let Jeffrey Epstein make an unmonitored call on the night he died by suicide. Having effectively forced the crowd to retreat away from the Commons, the order was issued for the National Guard to move back to their original position. May 1st-May 4th, 1970 Public higher education in New York State has an ironic history. That night, 1,000 people (mainly students) marched around campus to the ROTC building, which was set on fire. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. Jesus Christ, I don't want to be a part of this' Reacting to the words of their teachers, the students dispersed in different directions and further bloodshed was avoided. We both hit the ground. Youth protest is the most fertile ground for cultivating America's ethos. It was anunseasonably warm day when students gathered to protest the recently-announced invasion by U.S. troops of Cambodia, part of the Vietnam War. Through a bullhorn, Professor Glenn Frank begged the students to sit down so the Guard wouldn't fire again, and then to disperse. "Camus Wars: the Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era." The wave of anti-war fervor that spread across the US in May 1970 didn't happen overnight. It Took Me 12 Years to Get Out of My Conservatorship. A number of protesters were arrested by the National Guard, mainly for curfew violations. (May 1, 2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=KUAvmWBFWBIC, Polner, Murray. In photos: The Kent State massacre | CNN According to the New York Times, the increased demand for manpower saw draft calls for Selective Service triple that year. Kent students gathered on the campus commons at noon and buried the U.S. Constitution. Michener, James A. Kent State: What Happened and Why. While protestors outnumbered the guardsmen and some threw rocks and bottles, guardsmen were armed with M1 military rifles, bayonets, and tear gas. Protesters gathered on the Kent State commons during the day on May 1. Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news. In October 1970, 24 students and one faculty member were indicted by a grand jury on various charges, most related to the burning of the ROTC building the night before the shootings. He'd heard threats and rumors circulating and feared more riots like the night before [source: Lewis]. Cleary survived: NBC News later reunited the photographer and his subject. What prompted some of the guardsmen to fire into the crowd? This was partly because lawmakers felt that people who were old enough to be drafted should be old enough to vote, but also because they felt that young people had demonstrated political awareness. How the Kent State protests escalated from rowdy but mainly peaceful demonstration to a massacre is still a mystery. Protests included the Stop the Draft Week of 1967, the year that Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the Armed Forces. On May 1, 1970, students at Kent State held an antiwar protest, just as many other students at schools around the country did. Public opinion turned against the invasion of Cambodia. Perceiving a victory, the crowd intensified its 'menacing and vicious' behavior. A line of 29 men of the Ohio National Guard marched up before a group of unarmed protesters and opened fire, killing four and wounding nine others. And the president's speechwriter, Ray Price, expressed sympathy for the guardsmen, calling them "a bunch of scared kids with guns" [source: Wells]. David Paul Kuhn, author It was naive. Nixon had not only sidestepped Congress, Politico reported that he hadn't even told his Secretary of State and Defense Secretary. In 2007, Kent State survivor Alan Canfora, who was shot in the wrist, released an "enhanced" version of an audio recording of the shootings, made by student Terry Strubbe. The shooting highlighted the division in the country-at-large over the Vietnam War and the social movements and changes of the 1960s. How Nixon's Presidency Became Increasingly Erratic After Kent State There are conflicting reports about whether guardsmen were fired upon (see opening fire or returning fire). AP Photo /Julian C. Wilson. Updated 11:44 AM EDT, Tue May 4, 2021 Four students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when the Ohio National Guard fired on Kent State University students during a protest. Gordon, William A. Some went under the radar: In 1968, highway patrolmen shot 31 South Carolina State students protesting segregation, killing three, in what became known as the Orangeburg massacre. Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election based partly on his promise of Vietnamization -- transferring combat duties from U.S. soldiers to the South Vietnamese. On May 4,1970, four students were killed and nine more were injured at Kent State University when National Guardsmen opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War. It's time for a new tally. Nixon's administration painted the young protesters as lazy hippies. But that night, a rowdy crowd of 500 gathered in a downtown area popular with students. The school was closed for the rest of the semester, as were hundreds of other colleges across the country. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Conflicts in the youth movement of the early 1970s brought to the forefront of public consciousness the class schism between working class baby boomers who were drafted to fight in Vietnam, and privileged ones who could afford to avoid it by going to college. Partly, that was because the Kent State massacre as it became known as was documented in footage that spread around the world: one photo won a Pulitzer Prize. (May 1, 2009) http://hnn.us/articles/4525.html, Wells, Tom, Todd Gitlin. Of the thirteen people killed or injured, only two were actively participating in the confrontation. May 3 The day is mostly calm; however, in the evening there are clashes between the National Guard and protestors. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. As the war escalated and increasing numbers of Americans were wounded and killed in combat, the opposition grew. In addition to criticizing Nixon, protesters called for their colleges to openly oppose the war and to end connections to the Defense Department and Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs, which serve as a track into the military.
Va Proposed Changes 2023, Articles W