48 Years ago today: Kent State

On the morning of May 4th, 1970, Dean Kahler, a student at Kent State University, called the professors of his morning classes to let them know he wouldn't be there that day. He wanted to check out the protest, he told them, that was scheduled for noon at central campus. The action, a continuation of weekend-long actions at Kent, was in response to President Nixon's announcement on April 30th of the Cambodian Incursion, which had set off anti-war demonstrations across the country. He'd planned to attend his 1:10 class.
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Kahler, then 20 – a pacifist and approved conscientious objector during the time of the draft and the Vietnam War – was among the protesters present when the Ohio National Guard began telling the crowd of thousands to disperse. That command was greeted with jeers and stone throwing. Then, Kahler says, the Guard put their bayonets on the end of their rifles, secured their gas masks, gloves and helmets, and began lobbing tear gas cannons into the crowd. Those canisters were defiantly tossed back. The Guardsmen began marching, forcing the protesters down a hill and into a practice football field, where the Guardsmen found themselves surrounded by fences on three sides and protesters on the other. The Guard moved back up the hill, and when they reached the top, an estimated 28 of them turned and began to shoot.

"There was no place to hide," remembers Kahler. "So I dove on the ground and covered my head, and as I hit the ground, I could hear bullets hitting the ground around me. And I thought, 'Why are they shooting at me?'' Then he was hit, shot in the back – suffering a spinal cord injury, which left him paralyzed.

This month marks 48 years since Kent State University and Jackson State College were each upended by violence. At Kent State, the Ohio National Guard killed four and injured nine. At Jackson State, police shot into a group of students, killing two and injuring 12. The tragedies happened within eleven days of each other, during a time of immense anti-war and racial tensions and uprisings. And though Kent State, the predominantly white university, received lots of media coverage, most people remained unaware of what happened at Jackson State, the historically black college. Decades later, survivors see similar forces at play with media coverage and public perceptions around today's young activists, struggling to curtail school shootings and police violence.