Fifty years ago, I had recently dropped out of the anti-war movement, because, as a devotee of nonviolent protest and passive resistance, I could not support the direction that the weather faction had taken the movement. Nevertheless, the events of this day filled me with a sense of horror only rarely experienced.
…On May 4, 1970, another student rally was scheduled for noon at the Commons on the Kent State University campus. Before the rally began, the National Guard ordered those congregated to disperse. Since the students refused to leave, the National Guard attempted to use tear gas on the crowd.
Because of the shifting wind, the tear gas was ineffective at moving the crowd of students. The National Guard then advanced upon the crowd, with bayonets attached to their rifles. This scattered the crowd. After dispersing the crowd, the National Guardsmen stood around for about ten minutes and then turned around and began to retrace their steps.
For an unknown reason, during their retreat, nearly a dozen National Guardsmen suddenly turned around and began firing at the still scattered students. In 13 seconds, 67 bullets were fired. Some claim that there was a verbal order to fire. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded. Some of the students who were shot were not even part of the rally, but were just walking to their next class…
Inserted from <About.com>
Here is something to help remember the day.
To this day, I cannot hear this song without tearing up. Just a couple years before I saw one of Mayor Daley’s storm troopers murder a young girl, when police attacked demonstrators at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in March, 1968. She offered him a flower. He smashed her head with a his baton. I fear that we will see more heroes murdered for us.
RESIST!!
9 Responses to “Remember Kent State!”
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Such a horrible day and loss of lives.
Demonstrators (students) against the Cambodia conflict…dead and wounded all around on the campus…
it is a day of remembrance, that most of us w/never forget.
It should have ever happened.
Yes. I remember.
I probably should have put my link to John Pavlovitz here rather than in the Personl Update. Because it cannot fail to be obvious to anyone who has eyes and two brain cells to rub together how differently this protest (and other non-violent protests) were handled to how, just this last week, protests of actual armed terrorists were handled.
We may not see an actual second Civil War (for one thing, an army requires organization and discipline.) But I increasingly fear that we will see blood.
I can just about hear her screaming “What the hell have you done?” Or any of a number of other things, but she seems to be in too much shock to say much else, at that moment.
It seems like it is easy to blame Nixon, and the Rethugs, for the deadly violence, but then there is, always, Richard Daley to recall. I guess it’s bigger than the individuals who act out so horribly, rather that it is a culture clash that carries people along, as would be the case with the violence Joanne refers to.
There was police violence, though of a much more contained sort, at at least one march in NYC, wherein police used their horses to not quite crush people against buildings. One of those officers died of a heart attack, at the scene. The march on the Pentagon found the tear gas to be quite effective.
“They can’t kill us all!” Trump, and McConnell, would not mind trying.
I remember this tragic day very well.
Reckless violence by law enforcement.. Innocent lives taken. Shameful.
Sad to think that what you stated in your comment, TC is the fact that we haven’t seen the end of innocent heroes being murdered.
Our world has changed in so many ways. Ways that I’m certainly not proud of.
We must continue to stand up and fight for our rights.
What was going through the minds of those guardsmen who fired on defenseless students? I for one can see no rhyme or reason for such violence. Did they think a student provoked them, or were they just paranoid – or just showing who was boss?
While not as memorable as JFK assassination, or Nixon resigns, or man on the moon, or WTCs fall …
It was certainly a day seared in my mind.
The gun-toting fascist protestors from Michigan to Massachusetts have me worried that it won’t be the last time.
Remember, 50 years ago you were there during the worst times, TomCat. You were there when it mattered, a part of the protest, and you were there when things did get better for a while. Sadly, you were there when things got worse again, culminating in four years of Trump and his sycophants. Now you are here when it matters, again a part of the protest. I hope with all my heart that you will be there when things get better again. Because they must, because they will.
Read that the song Ohio healed what was looking like the band breaking up at the time–think it was a Rolling Stone article.
I still find it horrific that one’s own government would do such to its own unarmed people…and we have so many more examples in the years since when it is to persons of color and nonviolent protests on their issues…while white men armed with military grade weapons enter a state capitol building to protests and directly threaten government leaders get called “good men” and are allowed to endanger the law enforcement (akin to spitting being an assault in the age of AIDS) without apparent consequences.
Thanks and Hugs to all.