...if I remember correctly. As I recall, the NG was confronting/persuing the protestors, then turned to fire on student bystanders. The protestors may or may not have been students.

...in fact, 1 was in ROTC.

I was in Detroit at the time. Several students and a professor took refuge in our apartment for a day or so until the shock subsided.

The war came home that day.

There were other murders. In Augusta Georgia on May 12 six Black men were murdered. They shot in the back by National Guard during riots caused by the murder of a mentally challenged 16 year old inmate in a local jail. The guards said he fell off his bunk, but that didn't explain the cigarette burns, the crushed skull, and signs he was flogged.

Here are the Martyrs:

Mack Wilson, Jr.
John (Johnnie) Stokes
William Wright, Jr.
Charlie Mack Murphy
Sammie Larry McCullough
John Bennings

Governor Lester Maddox ordered the use of force.

To understand the events of May 4, 1970 at Kent State and the four dead in Ohio, is to understand much of what has happened in our history before, during and after.

In response to the DOJ whitewash report Congressman Dennis Kucinich issued a statement:

“The letter also failed to indicate any efforts to reconcile the evidence in the recording with any prior statements about the incident made by FBI paid informant, Terry Norman, who was on campus that day and was known to have brandished a gun that might have created the sounds caught in the recording.

“While I appreciate the response from the Justice Department, ultimately, they fail to examine key questions and discrepancies. It is well known that an FBI informant, Terry Norman, was on the campus. That FBI informant was carrying a gun. Eye witnesses testified that they saw Mr. Norman brandish that weapon. Two experts in forensic audio, who have previously testified in court regarding audio forensics, found gunshots in their analysis of the audio recording.

Did an FBI informant discharge a firearm at Kent State?

Did an FBI informant precipitate the shootings?"

Much more http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2013/05/more-kent-state-ohio-massacre-coverup.html

Nixon unleashed the dogs of war on America's children.
It's been happening ever since, but without the use of lethal weapons, witness the militarized police state tactics and equipment employed whenever there's a demonstration directed at corruption and corruption's government handmaidens. Occupy protestors were treated more harshly than terrorists.

hunger strike, camping on the Ad bldg. lawn at U of F., some family strife, and most of a life of activism to follow.

Those ugly days started shortly after the US Revolution, with Shay's Rebellion, back in 1786.
It has only gotten worse and worse as time goes by.

Try telling a woman or an African-American they would have been better off a couple of centuries ago.

They are a little better in others.
Corporations now hold more power than they ever have. So whether you are African-American, female, LGBTQ, straight, or whatever you are, if you are not a billionaire, you have less, and fewer actual rights than you did a couple of centuries ago.

There were free African-Americans in NY more than two centuries ago (that I know about). Right in NYC, well it was Brooklyn. Women did a lot during the Revolutionary War. There was the female equivalent to Paul Revere in Kent, NY. Sybil Luddington. Look her up.
Though Sojourner Truth was a slave, she did a lot to end slavery right here in the Hudson Valley, near Kingston, NY, where I live.

Yes, there are some things that are a bit better, but all in all things have taken a big turn for the worse over the last 35 or so years.

So when one asks, "Are we all better off than we were two centuries ago?" My reply is, "As we all are slaves to the capitalist system, I don't think so."

of two centuries ago? Keep in mind that most African-Americans in the first half of the 19th Century were not free.

Women had more rights in 1814 than they do today? Really?

As now we are ALL slaves to the capitalist system.

It was absolutely shocking. Made us all wonder who'd be next.

Lest we forget.

In memoriam: James Earl Green and Phillip Lafayette Gates.

-- Mal

schools on May 8th to protest the Kent State shootings, joining similar actions of outrage occurring across the U.S.

"The press and national media covered the story in detail, with many front-page newspaper accounts using what would become the iconic photograph of the event – a young girl with arms outstretched screaming over the body of one of the slain students. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, protests and a student strike ensued across the country. Two days after the Kent State incident, police wounded four demonstrators at the University of Buffalo. On May 8th, some 100,000 protesters – angered over Kent State and the Cambodian invasion – gathered in Washington. Another 150,000 protested in San Francisco. Nationwide, four million students and 450 universities, colleges, and high schools would become involved in the student strike, which included mostly peaceful protests and walkouts. However, on some campuses, ROTC buildings were attacked or set on fire, and 26 schools witnessed clashes between students and police. National Guard units were mobilized on 21 campuses in 16 states. Public opinion polls, meanwhile, supported Nixon’s actions, with 50 percent of the American public backing him in polls taken during the second week of May. Fifty-eight percent blamed the students for what had occurred at Kent State. In one pro-Nixon demonstration in New York City on May 8th, some construction workers supporting the President’s actions rioted and attacked demonstrating students."

And sadly, we needed to try to repeat after the Jackson State shooting a few day later.





Phillip L. Gibbs and James Earl Green:

When Kent State happened, it opened his eyes and turned him against the war overnight. I'm sure this happened to many others as well.

It seems the horrible memory fades a little each year with new students and as people of that era grow older. It was nearer to you and I so it's probably etched more vividly in our minds. You could have mentioned that you were there earlier that week on little sister day.

This is the kind of govt overreach that bears prominent memorial lest the outrageous and pained cries of history echo back upon us.

On edit:
I love how you copied and pasted the warning not to copy & paste the article. That's stickin' it to the man. hahaha

Since then the state has learned quite well how to suppress anything that might resemble the prolonged uprising of the late 60's and early 70's. See for example the successful effort to squash Occupy.

Yeah, I barely do either.

And if you are not white or poor the police were NEVER your protectors.

FUCHT da POLESE!

I was not only there then, I was in the thick of it, retreating from the National Guardsmen and choking on tear gas along with hundreds of fellow students. To paraphrase an old country song, “we didn’t know the guns were loaded”. I could have been shot and killed. I was closer to the gunfire than Jeffery Miller or Allison Krause, freshmen students who I had befriended when I helped them register for Fall classes at KSU in the summer of 1969.


http://clubdevo.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4782%3Akent-state&Itemid=27

be put up with.

Alabama head coach Nick Saban was a Kent State football player in 1970. He and another teammate stopped for lunch before checking out the rally, and when they went up the hill came upon this war scene on campus. Saban had a class with Allison Krause, but didn't know her. He says it is something he will never forget, and believes the success of the Kent State football program over the next couple years helped unify the school after this epic tragedy.

Alabama played Kent State last year, and this was brought up. It's always interesting when we realize history is all around us in the people, not just old footage and books.

By Jewell Cardwell
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published: May 4, 2014 - 06:10 PM

... Jennifer Schwartz Wright stood vigil late Sunday morning by the concrete lanterns in memory of her cousin and KSU freshman Allison Krause, who lost her life 44 years ago.

“This is absolutely where I need to be,” she said. “I’ve been coming every year since I was 15...

“I was nine months old when she was killed. I never knew her, but I could have known her,” Wright continued, her voice trailing off. “She was an honor student and she was my spiritual mentor, because I later found out from books she had that she was curious about art therapy too.”

Wright, who is executive director of her own art therapy studio in Cleveland, brought along her 8-year-old daughter Allison, named after her cousin ...

http://www.ohio.com/news/may-4-commemoration-at-ksu-still-heavy-on-emotion-1.485700

Posted on: 6:58 pm, May 4, 2014, by Bill Sheil
updated on: 08:36pm, May 4, 2014

... One of the featured speakers was 19-year-old Allison Krause’s sister, Laurel.

“My sister, Allison, stood for peace,” Laurel said. “She believed in peace, and in her last act on this planet, she died for peace” ...

http://fox8.com/2014/05/04/campus-reflects-on-44th-anniversary-of-kent-state-shootings/

Sunday, May 4, 2014
6:00 a.m. CDT
BY Max Havey

... The protests continued for days across campus, with students skipping classes and some professors canceling classes to allow students to demonstrate. Locations included the campus residence of Chancellor John Schwada, Memorial Student Union, Schwada's Office in Jesse Hall and Francis Quadrangle. Speakers included visiting TV newsman Harry Reasoner and professors from the university ...

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/a/174071/echoes-of-kent-state-still-felt-in-columbia-44-years-later/

BY Paige Blankenbuehler

Susan Marshall was on her way to class at MU in the late afternoon of May 11, 1970, when some of her classmates flagged her down.

“Come join us,” she remembers them saying.

And why not? It was her birthday, after all.

Marshall ended up marking her 19th birthday on the grass of Francis Quadrangle outside of Jesse Hall with 3,000 or more of her peers, getting sunburned on what would become a historic day at MU, protesting the Vietnam War and the Kent State shootings ...

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/a/174153/historic-mu-protest-was-a-birthday-to-remember/

Sunday, May 4, 2014 | 6:00 a.m. CDT

... When Pike stepped out of MU's Hill Hall on May 11, 1970, she found herself in the midst of the largest anti-war demonstration to date, with more than 3,000 people urging the university to make a statement in opposition to the Vietnam War.

She remembers being trapped at the west side of Jesse Hall in a narrow passage full of people.

"The crowd was so big, you really felt crushed. It was claustrophobic, and it looked like it was going to get out of hand,” Pike said.

There had been shootings at other protests — namely Kent State and Jackson State — and Pike remembers thinking "it could happen here too — it just felt scary" ...

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/a/174152/stepping-into-a-claustrophobic-war-protest-at-mu/

By: Richard Ray | Aggrego News Service
May 04, 2014 5:36 p.m.

The events that occurred at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 impacted the lives of citizens throughout the nation, including those at Mundelein College in Chicago.

Students and faculty at the school responded to the Kent State shootings by organizing a picket line on Sheridan Road in 1970.

"May 4, 1970 marked a turning point in the youth revolution of the 1960's. After 67 rounds fired, 13 students injured, and 4 youth fatally shot by National Guardsmen during a fateful antiwar demonstration on the campus of Kent State University, Mundelein undergraduates, like their peers nationwide, reacted with fervor to the militaristic response to Vietnam protest. In return, these students only intensified their efforts, radically altering their very way of life by putting a stop to classes and a start to the 'Student Strike,' a round-the-clock curbside picket along Sheridan Road" ...

http://mundelein.suntimes.com/news/mundkent-MUN-05042014:article