School Violence

By 1970, war related protests had hit their peak across the United States. Although only a limited amount was known about the bombings of Cambodia, most people were extremely frustrated with how Nixon was handling the war across the world. On average, violence occurred in one out of every five protests in America. Many of these strikes were taking place at college campuses, including prestigious universities such as Stanford, Princeton, and the University of Kansas. It wasn’t until April 30, 1970, when things soon took a turn for the worse. The Cambodian bombings had been occurring for a year now, but President Nixon appeared on national television to discuss the new United States invasion of Cambodia:

“Tonight, American and South Vietnamese units will attack the headquarters for the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam. The key control center has been occupied by the North Vietnamese and Vietcong for five years in blatant violation of Cambodia’s neutrality… The future of 18 million people in South Vietnam and seven million people in Cambodia is involved; the possibility of winning a just peace in Vietnam and in the Pacific is at stake.” – April 30, in a nationwide television address by President Nixon

Five days later, one of the most tragic events ever occured at a college campus : The May 4 massacre at Kent State University.

Kent State University is a school in Ohio, founded in 1910. Early in its years, the college was continually in deep financial crisis, and was even on the cusp of being turned into a hospital for the mentally ill in 1933. However, the proposal was defeated, and in 1935 Kent achieved university status. By 1960, Kent State was entering its “second half-century, confident and unafraid. The years of youth were over. The years of maturity were now beginning.” – Philip Shriver, in his book, The Years of Youth

However, Kent State became known across the country as a constant site of protests and demonstrations among students. SDS, or Students for a Democratic Society, became a large organization at Kent State in the early 1960s. By the time of the Vietnam War, the group became a national organization. SDS, along with other anti-war groups, took part in endless protest on campus and across Ohio. They brought garbage cans into street to set on fire, attacked businesses in town, destroyed windows, and set the Kent State ROTC building on fire. The Kent SDS also published a major newspaper to protest the Vietnam war, called “Who rules Kent?” After a while, SDS was put down at Kent, but that did not stop students from protesting. People characterize the events that happened in the spring of 1970 as apart of a process that began for the past two years, “characterized by growing euphoria, then followed by shock, disbelief, and sometimes by disillusionment.

President Nixon’s announcement on April 30 that U.S. troops had invaded Cambodia was the main catalyst of Kent State’s tragedy. For the next few days, demonstrations on campus were as active as ever. On the Day before the massacre, May 3, James Rhodes, the Republican governor and candidate for the U.S. Senate came to Kent to speak. In addition to his arrival, he brought with him the National Guard in order to settle down all the riots. Rhodes said that protesters were “the worst type of people we harbor in America, worse than the brown shirts and the communist element… we will use whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent!” Rhodes said that the National Guard was present in order to “eradicate the communist element,” and even compared student demonstrators at Kent to Hitler youth.

National Guard at Kent State University⁹

The following day, May 4, two hundred students were present on central campus by 11 AM, and 1,500 by noon. They were fighting against both the invasion of Cambodia and the presence of the National Guard. The guards, some of which were the same age as the Kent college students, were taking orders from their general, Robert Canterbury, Each and every guard was carrying M-1 riffles, and each was trained to do anything necessary to settle the crowds. They began by firing tear gas to help disperse all the protesters, which was effective. Soon, the guardsmen were ordered to march away. After walking up a hill, they all of the sudden turned around and began firing on a group of students.

67 shots. 13 seconds. 4 students killed. 11 others wounded.

Famous photographs taken on May 4¹⁰

Local Newspaper¹¹

The four dead students included Allison Krause, 19, Jeffrey Miller, 20, Sandra Scheuer, 20, and William Schroeder, 19. They were all standing between 71 to 730 feet away from the guards.

The four students that died¹²

Nixon’s first reaction when he heard the news:

“Are they dead?” he first asked. “Is this because of me, or Cambodia?... How do we turn this stuff off?” He then said, “I hope [the protesters] provoked it.”

“[The protesters] should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy. It is my hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the determination of all the nation’s campuses, administrators, faculty, and students alike, to stand firmly for the right which exists in this country of peaceful dissent and just as strongly against the resort to violence as a means of such expression.”

Life Magazine¹³

As a result of the massacre, Kent State University was closed by court order, and remained closed for the rest of the spring quarter. Letters and telegrams of grief were sent to Kent from people across the United States, and even from other parts of the world, including Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. However, Gloria Emerson, journalist in Cambodia who rode along with US soldiers, described what it was like when the soldiers heard the news:

“So much killing was around us, all of us had seen such unimaginable things, that the information about Kent was information.”

Alan King, student at Kent State University, stated: “Kent was in middle America. And the Ohio National Guard rioted, killed, and wounded its children.”