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Kent State, May 4, 1970

ONLINE EXTRA: "I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat"... Click HERE for pdf of Vanity Fair article.


Please scroll down for schedule of May 4, 2006 events.

PAGE RELAUNCHED APRIL 30, 2005, UPDATED FREQUENTLY




You know, you see these bums, you know, blowin' up the campuses. Listen, the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the greatest universities, and here they are, burnin' up the books, I mean, stormin' around about this issue, I mean, you name it - get rid of the war, there'll be another one.

-- Richard Nixon, New York Times, May 2, 1970



We're Still Waiting for Answers
Click HERE.


Cost of the War in Iraq
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Details here

36 Years After
4 Students Were
Slain, We're Still
Asking 'Why?'

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE




WWWMAY 4


ONLINE EXTRA! The Downing Street "Memo"

Home
Links
2005 Schedule
Archives No. 1
Archives No. 2
Obituaries


See interviews from the film, "13 Seconds: The Day the War Came Home." An Emmy Award-winning documentary.
  • Guardsman and students remember the sequence of events that led to the shootings.
  • One of the shootings is described by a former Kent State student and the guardsman involved.


  • Does the Pentagon have your child's number? Click here to learn more.
    Click Here.


    FBI REPORT: 1146 Pages

    Oral History of May 4, 1970

    May 4 Collection KSU Libraries and Media Services Department of Special Collections and Archives

    America Kills Its Children

    What Really Happened at Kent State?

    Kent State Forever Linked With Vietnam War Era

    What The Nation Learned at Kent State In 1970

    TIME: At War With War

    MAYDAY: Kent State The Movie

    Vietnam War Links: College Protests



    THE MYSTERY
    of the manipulated Mary Ann Vecchio photo has been solved. Click HERE.


    CHUCK AYRES
    retells the story of May 4 in his syndicated comic strip "Crankshaft." Click HERE.

    The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy
    by Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley

    My Son Died at Kent State
    by Elaine Holstein

    This Is Not What It Sounds Like On TV
    by Carol Mirman

    The Shooting at Kent State
    by Tom Grace

    Kent State Seen Through Peggy Wade's Eyes
    by Christine Gillette

    The Real Heroes Were Soldiers Who Organized Against The War
    by Mike Alewitz

    The '60s May Be History, But Student Activism Lives On
    by Stephanie Brenowitz

    Remembering Kent State
    by Bill Walsh

    Photographer John Filo recalls Day Protest turned to Tragedy
    by Jean Patman


    Of Loss and Learning: Haunting Reminders of Kent State Deaths

    by Staff of the Akron Beacon Journal

    Alan Canfora speech text, Kent State, May 4, 2004
    by Alan Canfora

    Kent State Shootings Shocked Viet Vet
    by Larry L. Rose

    "Peace-Loving" Protesters: Kent State Revisited
    by Steve Farrell

    "Good American" Revisionism
    by David Kirby

    "I Felt Shocked and a Little cared"
    by John and Joan Enos

    May 4, 1970: Four Children Dead
    An interview with Thomas Slomba by K. Smith

    Four Dead in Ohio: The Kent State Massacre
    An interview with Mile Alewitz by Tim Vance

    "Now Is the Time of the Furnaces, and Only Light Should Be Seen"
    by Kent Students for a Democratic Society

    It Couldn t Go On Like This
    by Jim Vacarella

    Students From Then and Now Pass On Painful Lessons of Kent State
    by Frances X. Clines

    Survivors Mark Kent State Shootings
    by Amy Beth Graves

    Proof to Save the Guardsmen
    by Alan Stang

    Military Men Never Lie?
    by Justin Stine

    Memorial Situation Saddening
    by Justin Stine

    Peaceful Rally Ends Fatally
    by Justin Stine

    Kent State's Commemorations Not Relevant to May 4
    by William A. Gordon

    Prentice Parking Lot Markers a Long Time Coming
    by Justin Stine

    Guardsmen May Have Lied About Reasons for Shooting
    by Justin Stine

    'Flowers Are Better Than Bullets'
    by Justin Stine

    Student Killed on Parents' Anniversary
    by Justin Stine

    Remembering the Life of a Victim
    by Justin Stine

    Shots Took Life of All-American Student
    by Justin Stine

    Your Campus in 1970
    by Justin Stine

    Students Must Realize May 4 Importance
    by Justin Stine

    Who Spoke Up?
    by Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan

    The Politics of Public Memory at Kent State, 1970-2001
    by Jutta Weldes and Mark Laffey

    Socialist view: The spark that set it off
    by Sherry Wolf and Mike Alewitz

    Conservative view: Who REALLY Was Responsible for the Shootings?
    by Barclay D. McMillen and William Armstrong

    Commentary, Memories, eyewitness accounts of May 4, 1970
  • Ralph Solonitz: Meet you at the Victory Bell.
  • WKSU-FM: "Remembering Kent State, 1970" documentary.
  • Larry L. Rose: Kent State shootings shocked Viet vet.
  • Richard Zitrin: 30 Years Later, the Pain of Kent State Remains.
  • Alan King: Four dead in Ohio: Memories of Kent State.
  • CNN: Remembering Kent State. (Includes Audio and Video)
  • Digital Journalist: Bitter Passage: Kent State and the Fall of Saigon.
  • Howard Ruffner: Eyewitness: Photos and RealAudio.
  • Marianne Fulton: Observances. (Includes photos and links)
  • Oral Histories: Three Eyewitnesses With RealAudio.
  • Chron. of Higher Educ.: Student Journalists of 1970 Return to Kent State 30 Years After.
  • Columbus Dispatch: Kent State photos freeze tragedy in time.
    :: List Continually Updated



    Audio Reports
  • 30th anniversary of Kent State killings -- Pacifica Radio - May 04, 2000, 10:11 PM
  • Kent State remembered -- All Things Considered/NPR - May 04, 2000, 10:21 PM
  • Remembering Kent State After 30 Years -- NPR. - May 04, 2000, 1:13 PM :: List Continually Updated




    Also of Interest:
    Yadda
    edited by Robert W. McChesney, Ellen Meiksins Wood, and John Bellamy Foster


    READ
    ABOUT
    KENT STATE...

    Books about
    KSU, or by
    May 4 authors

    cover
    "13 Seconds"
    [includes DVD]

    cover
    "The Kent State Tragedy"

    cover
    "I Was There"

    cover
    "Killings at Kent State"

    cover
    "13 seconds: Confrontation at Kent State"

    cover
    "Kent State and May 4th: A Social Science Perspective"

    cover "Hippies"

    cover
    "Four Dead
    in Ohio"

    cover
    "The Kent State Coverup"

    cover
    "From Camelot to Kent State : The Sixties..."

    cover
    "Kent State/May 4"

    cover
    "The Kent State Incident: Impact of..."

    OTHER KENT STATE BOOKS:

  • Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s
  • Truth About Kent State
  • The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest
  • Mayday, Kent State
  • Thirteen Seconds: Confrontation at Kent State
  • Click Here
    For More
    Books About
    Kent State

    Search Now:
    In Association with Amazon.com



    KSU HEADLINES



    Protest Songs

  • Ohio, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
  • Fixin to Die Rag,(short) Country Joe and the Fish
  • Fixin to Die Rag, Country Joe and the Fish
  • Fortunate Son, Creedence Clearwater Revival
  • War,(short) Edwin Starr
  • War, Edwin Starr
  • Masters of War, Bob Dylan
  • The Times, They Are a-Changin', Bob Dylan
  • Revolution, The Beatles
  • More Music of the Time

    Pro-War Songs
  • The Green Beret, Barry Sadler

    Images of War
  • RealAudio Slideshow

    May 4 Photos



    Paul Tople's May 4 Portfolio

  • View the photos



    Elsewhere
  • Alan Canfora's May 4 site
  • Kent May 4 Center
  • Prof. J. Gregory Payne's May4archive.org
  • CyBURR 1990
  • CyBURR 1995
  • CyBURR 2000
  • Iowa State e-Library Archive
  • May 4 on TV (2000)
  • May4.Net
  • May 4 30-Years Later
  • May 4 Library Archives
  • Mike & Kendra's May 4 site
  • Kent May 4 Center
  • May 4th Task Force
  • Kent State Anti-War Committee

    Vietnam Specials
  • Wellesley College Vietnam War Links
  • Head-Royce School Vietnam War Links
  • "Vietnam: An Elusive Peace"

    Journalism Jobs
  • JMC alumni employment opportunities


    JMC Notes
    Read the DKS daily on the Internet
  • The Daily Kent Stater, Kent State s student-run newspaper, is available on the Web.

    View TV2 daily on the Internet
  • TV2, Kent State s student-run television station, offers nightly broadcasts on the Web. The 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. broadcasts can be viewed after 10 p.m., eastern time.

    Listen live to WKSU on the Internet
  • WKSU-FM, the Kent State University broadcast service featuring NPR News and classical music, ranked as the number 15 Internet Broadcaster with 72,501 hours of Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) for the week of January 12, 2004 according to Arbitron Internet Broadcast Ratings. Click here for Corey Deitz on Radio.

    Listen live to WKSR on the Internet





  • WKSR-AM is the student-run radio station on Kent State's main campus. The station broadcasts on the university's cable TV network and on the internet.

    The Gray Lady undressed
  • Who owns the title of "The Guy Who Exposed Jayson Blair?" In this corner is Howard Kurtz, noted media critic for the Washington Post. In the other is Mike Gardner, not-so-noted cub reporter for the Daily Kent Stater. "For the record, Mr. Kurtz did not break the Jayson Blair story; Mike Gardner of the Daily Kent Stater did."
    Cleveland Scene 9/07/03


    Jeff Fruit, who heads the journalism and mass media program at Kent State University, stands at the entrance of Franklin Hall, the future home of the program. [Ed Suba Jr. / Akron Beacon Journal] Media majors will get new home
  • Kent State to renovate venerable Franklin Hall. Officials hope School of Journalism and Mass Communication can move to North Campus, university's oldest section, by 2007. [MORE]
    Akron beacon Journal 6/9/05
  • The 80-year-old Franklin Hall will get an approximately $21.5 million face-lift. [MORE]
    Summer Stater 6/15/05

    Renovations to begin in Franklin Hall as JMC prepares for relocation

  • Earlier: The reconstruction of Franklin Hall is under way. Faculty and architects are in the planning stages of the project that will create a new building for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
    Daily Kent Stater 9/24/03


    Franklin Hall renovations create JMC's future home
  • Earlier: The School of Journalism and Mass Communication will have a little more leg room in the future. Regardless of how much money the state gives, the school is moving forward with the Franklin Hall renovations, which will be complete no later than Fall 2007.
    Daily Kent Stater 11/18/04

  • JMC site
  • JMC Alumni
  • KSU Alumni

  • For information on the KSU Alumni Association, please call (330) 672-KENT or toll free at 1 (888) 320-KENT, or e-mail the Association at alumni@kent.edu.

  • Alumni who want to volunteer to speak in JMC classes, please e-mail Barbara McFarland or call (330) 672-2572.





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    for Journalism Jobs




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  • Audio/Video Documentary:
    Four Dead in Ohio: 35th Anniversary of Kent State Shootings


    Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3      
    Watch 128k stream       Watch 256k stream
          Read Transcript


    STREAMING KENT STATE VIDEOS
    Alan Canfora David Crosby Don Henley The Year That Trembled May 4th 2003 Dean Kahler The Day the War Came Home Symposium on Democracy 2001 Nixon and Vietnam
    Please click on each image.





    36th Annual May 4th Commemoration

    May 2 - 3, 2006
    The 7th Annual Kent State Symposium on Democracy

    May 3, 2006
    Annual Candlelight March*:

      Please gather at 10:45 p.m. near the Victory Bell on The Commons.  We will depart at 11 p.m.  The route is stroller, wagon and wheelchair accessible. 

    May 4, 2006
    Annual Candlelight Vigil*: Midnight - 12:24 p.m. in the Prentice Hall Parking Lot.

      Reserve your 1/2 hour vigil time slot beginning in April with the May 4 Task Force.

    Annual Speakers Program*: Noon - 2 p.m. on The Commons.
      Classes at Kent State are canceled from noon - 2 p.m. to allow more students to attend these events.
      * This program is funded with Undergraduate Student Fees.

    :: Kent May 4 Task Force



    Obituary
    Glenn Olds, guided Kent State
    through turbulent era

    Glenn Olds, who served as Kent State University's president in the aftermath of the 1970 killings of four students by National Guardsmen, has died at age 85.

    Olds, who was president of the northeast Ohio school from 1971 to 1977, died Saturday in his hometown of Sherwood, Ore., after a long battle with heart and kidney diseases. He was buried Tuesday at a cemetery about 100 feet from the front door of his home atop a hill with views of the Cascade Mountains.

    Troops killed four people and wounded nine at a May 4, 1970, demonstration against the Vietnam war.

    When Olds arrived the following year, he said his role was "helping students find constructive ways of bringing about change."

    Tim Watson, an attorney at the university who once was Olds' chauffeur as a graduate student, said Olds was known to mingle with students at rallies and sit-ins.

    "He was the right president for the time," Watson said.

    An ordained minister and former professional boxer and United Nations official, Olds left Kent State for Alaska Methodist University, now Pacific University, in Anchorage. He later won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, but lost the general election.

    Olds held a master's of divinity from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Illinois, a master's of philosophy from Northwestern University and a doctoral degree in philosophy from Yale.

    He was a consultant to President John F. Kennedy on the creation of the Peace Corps and played a role in the formation of VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America. While he chose to be ordained a Methodist minister, his parents raised him as a Quaker.

    Olds is survived by his wife, Eva, and two children.

    A memorial service is set for Saturday in Portland, Ore.


    :: Associated Press via Akron Beacon Journal 3/20/06



    History Channel filming May 4 documentary
    The History Channel will be airing a documentary about the May 4 shootings, as the first episode of a series focusing on key events of the baby boomer generation.

    The crew will be on campus throughout the week, filming and interviewing in various locations.

    John Mounier, director, producer and cameraman for the series, said May 4 was selected as the first event because of its significance.

    "I mean, what a truly defining moment," he said.. [MORE]

    :: Daily Kent Stater 3/15/06





    video:
    Anti-War, But What Can You Do?

    Kent State students helped stop a war, but current crop feels powerless. [See Video]

    :: ABC News, World News Tonight 2/26/06



    PETE JEDICK:
    Rawls' death brings back sad memory

    When soul singer Lou Rawls died recently, many people remembered him for how much money he raised for charities such as the United Negro College Fund.

    I remembered him for a different reason.

    Many years ago I had a friend in college who called me Lou. Sandy Scheuer had jet-black hair, a freckled nose and a contagious laugh. We were both sophomores at Kent State University in the fall of 1968. [MORE]
    :: Cleveland Plain Dealer 2/13/06



    Kevin C. Sheard, professor of law,
    defended guardsmen in KSU deaths

    Kevin C. Sheard, a retired law professor who helped provide counsel to Ohio National Guardsmen charged in the Kent State University shootings of May 4, 1970, died Friday at age 89.

    The retired law professor, who taught at Cleveland State University's Cleveland Marshall College of Law for nearly 20 years, co-founded the John Adams Society in 1974 to provide free legal help to eight former guardsmen charged with violating the civil rights of 13 Kent students who were shot during an anti-war demonstration. Four of the students died. [MORE]
    :: Cleveland Plain Dealer 1/23/06



    WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR KSU?
    A Protest, a Spy Program and a Campus in an Uproar

    The protest was carefully orchestrated, planned for weeks by Students Against War during Friday evening meetings in a small classroom on the University of California campus at Santa Cruz.

    So when the military recruiters arrived for the job fair, held in an old dining hall last April 5 - a now fateful day for a scandalized university - the students had their two-way radios in position, their cyclists checking the traffic as hundreds of demonstrators marched up the hilly roads of this campus on the Central Coast and a dozen moles stationed inside the building, reporting by cellphone to the growing crowd outside.

    "Racist, sexist, antigay," the demonstrators recalled shouting. "Hey, recruiters, go away!"

    Things got messy. As the building filled, students storming in were blocked from entering. The recruiters left, some finding that the tires of their vehicles had been slashed. The protesters then occupied the recruiters' table and, in what witnesses described as a minor melee, an intern from the campus career center was injured.

    Fast forward: The students had left campus for their winter vacation in mid-December when a report by MSNBC said the April protest had appeared on what the network said was a database from a Pentagon surveillance program. The protest was listed as a "credible threat" - to what is not clear to people around here - and was the only campus action among scores of other antimilitary demonstrations to receive the designation. [MORE]
    :: New York Times 1/15/06



    Judge in Pentagon Papers Case Dies at 75
    William Matthew Byrne, Jr., Was Executive Director of President's Commission on Campus Unrest

    In 1970, with the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War leading to student protests and violence such as the Kent State University shootings, President Nixon created the President's Commission on Campus Unrest and chose Judge Byrne as its executive director.

    After public hearings, the commission issued a report concluding Americans were dangerously polarized. The report condemned both police and anti-war protesters for engaging in violent behavior.

    "Students who bomb and burn are criminals. Police and National Guardsmen who needlessly shoot or assault students are criminals," the report stated. [MORE]
    :: Associated Press via Los Angeles Times 1/15/06



    A Long Way From Baghdad: Young Adults Feel Removed from Iraq War

    When Neal May was a student at Ohio's Kent State, the United States was embroiled in the Vietnam War. These are members of the anti-war group, Students for a Democratic Society, that lead the campus demonstrations. Young people today, however, say they feel removed from the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.  (Neal. W. May) Unlike the Vietnam Generation, Many Say They Are Unaffected by War

    A generation ago, the country was aflame with activism. Young people rallied against the Vietnam War, staging sit-ins at their college campuses and declaring "Hell no, we won't go." But the war in Iraq, despite some similarities to the Vietnam conflict and growing discontent among the general population, appears not to have the same effect on people in their late teens and 20s.

    "It seems like it's not in the forefront anymore. Just a blip on the news," said Raeann Veneziale, 24, of Brook Park, Ohio. "It doesn't really affect day-to-day life."

    Neil May's experience during the Vietnam War couldn't be more different (Photo, right).

    "I was a long-haired hippy rock 'n' roller," said May, now a charismatic Catholic priest. He photographed the Kent State's Students for a Democratic Society a leading group in the anti-war movement and recalls violent demonstrations in front of the ROTC buildings. Sometimes, they were set on fire, he said.

    "It was like a powder keg, building," said May, who stayed off campus the day of the shootings at the behest of his father, a police officer. "Kent it exploded." [MORE]
    :: ABC NEWS 12/21/05



    Charges dropped against Airhart

    Dave Airhart, Marine veteran and freshman anthropology major, had all disciplinary charges against him dropped by the university. His lawyer, Nancy Grim, was notified by the administration last night, less than 24 hours before Airhart s scheduled hearing.

    The administration s reasons for dropping the case were not immediately revealed.

    Airhart was charged with disorderly conduct and faced possible expulsion. The charges were the result of Airhart climbing an Army recruiters rock wall on Oct. 19 and hanging a banner advocating peace. He was briefly detained by police after climbing down the back of the wall. [MORE]
    :: Daily Kent Stater 11/17/05





    ANGUISH: In an interview in 2002, Bruce Sommer said the face in his sketch was loosely patterned after the facial expression of a woman kneeling beside a dead student in a famous photo of the Kent State protests. But some Vietnam veterans look at the piece and see themselves.


    Portrait of a veteran's grief
    When Bruce Sommer returned to Minnesota from the Vietnam War in 1971, he did not find the refuge that he sought.

    Instead of parades, there were marches. Instead of accolades, the Marine sergeant who volunteered for an extended tour felt blame. While he was away, his world had turned upside down. Protests, pollution and graft dominated the news.

    So he hunkered down in his mother's basement in Fridley, where he poured a multitude of worldly troubles into an ink drawing that became a portrait of a veteran's grief.

    "This was about coming back to a country he didn't recognize anymore," said Vickie Wendel, program director for the Anoka County Historical Society, which recently acquired a print of Sommer's drawing, "Anguish."

    Sommer died last year. [MORE]

    ::St. Paul Pioneer Press 11/11/05



    Donovan, Mellow Yellow, and Kent State

    Donovan Leitch Singer to perform rare acoustic set of plaintive folk and psychedelia in Kent Folk Festival

    Folk singer-songwriter Donovan Leitch, better known simply as Donovan, has been making music, when he feels like it, for 40 years. The Glaswegian who will be performing a rare acoustic set at The Kent State Folk Festival this week, has traveled as a touring musician and citizen of the world to exotic locales all over the globe to perform and to learn.

    He says playing in Kent will be special for him.

    ``It will be a moving kind of concert. I will be doing my hits, but my early acoustic music will be very sympathetic to the extraordinary story in Kent State, that great tragedy that happened there,'' he said.

    Though he was not there for the 1970 Kent State confrontation between students and National Guardsmen that left four people dead, he saw a documentary that affected him deeply and has stayed with him all these years.

    ``There was great suffering and I will have a song for that -- I sing Buffy Saint-Marie's Universal Soldier, he said quietly.

    ``In the documentary there was suffering on both sides of the establishment and the students that awful day all those years ago. Yeah, that was a very touching thing and I can't avoid feeling something coming to Kent State.

    ``At the same time it won't be all doom and gloom,'' he continued. ``There will be lots of songs of joy and celebration.'' [MORE]
    :: Akron Beacon Journal 11/10/05



    A different approach to recording history
    The Kent State Shooting Oral Histories collection contains audio files of 69 oral histories contributed by people who were students, faculty members, Kent residents, students and faculty from other universities and one account by an Ohio National Guardsman. Many of the contributors were eye witnesses to the event and its aftermath.

    As of Spring 2005, these histories are accessible online through the OhioLINK digital media center and are available worldwide.

    Special Collections Curator Cara Gilgenbach said anyone is able to access this part of history. Transcripts also are available online for most of the recordings so people can read along as they listen.

    Click HERE for oral histories.

    ::Daily Kent Stater 11/08/05



    ONE-ON-ONE:
    An Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart

    "I was in the Marine Corps Infantry. I Learned Absolutely Nothing of Value in the Rest of the World."

    Q: Now, the big question. What made you decide to oppose the US wars in these countries?

    A: Mostly personal reasons. Like the fact that most of the dead bodies that I saw were women and children, innocent civilians. Also, most of my friends that were killed were killed by friendly fire from close air support. It is obvious that there is some hidden agenda behind Bush's motivation for going to war in Iraq, because they had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks, and there were no weapons of mass destruction. We should know the real reasons that we are fighting and dying over there. At the very least, we should know that, be it a good or bad reason, it is important that we know why. If it is that crucial that it stays a secret, it is probably too crooked to be worth fighting for anyway. [MORE]

    ::Counterpunch.org 11/01/05





    SIGN OF THE TIMES: Dave Airhart, freshman anthropology major and member of the Kent State Anti-War Committee, climbs a rock wall sponsored by U.S. Army recruiters to put a peace banner reading Kent, Ohio 4 Peace atop the structure Oct. 19. Airhart was charged with disorderly conduct and fined $105 at the event, according to police.


    Activists Protest Military Recruitment On Kent Campus
    All over America Thursday, protesters spoke out against the war, but some protestors at Kent State University had another message to go along with the anti-war message. Activists at Kent were also protesting active military recruitment on college campuses, reported NewsChannel5. David Airhart is an Iraq war veteran charged with disorderly conduct after climbing a rock wall set up by Army recruiters at Kent and hanging an anti-war banner. [MORE]

    ::NewsNet5.com 10/27/05

  • Daily Kent Stater: Activists protest recruiters
  • Daily Kent Stater: Kent State activists protest war in Iraq, military recruiters on campus
  • Canton Repository: More media than KSU students attend campus Iraq war protest
  • LeftHook.org: Kent State Student and Marine Corps Veteran Remains Defiant, Slams Iraq War
    As a veteran of the Marine Corps who served in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Airhart has seen his fair share of bullets, blood, combat and casualties, and is now an eager foot soldier in the growing movement to end America s war campaign.



    Akron man charged in KSU protest
    24-year-old veteran accused of disorderly conduct after unfurling peace banner on rock-climbing wall

    A 24-year-old Akron man has been charged with disorderly conduct for climbing an artificial rock wall and unfurling a peace banner at Kent State University.

    David Airhart said he unhooked his safety gear and tied the homemade cloth sign to the top of the 30-foot wall outside the MAC Center to protest the war in Iraq and the presence of military recruiters on the Portage County campus.

    ``I hope that Kent State realizes that what I'm trying to do is in their best interest,'' he said. ``I don't want to see any more young, innocent people go to Iraq and die for something that doesn't make any sense.''[MORE]

    ::Akron Beacon-Journal 10/26/05



    May 4 Task Force may lose block funding

    Executive Director William Ross met with the May 4 Task Force Thursday to discuss a bill that could potentially remove block funding for the student organization. The Undergraduate Student Senate will tentatively vote on the bill at its meeting Friday.

    If the bill is passed, the funds usually set aside for the task force will be made available to all student organizations, according to a press release from USS.

    Currently, the task force automatically receives 1.75 percent block funding, or roughly $10,000 each academic year. The organization uses this money towards May 4 commemoration activities. If the task force uses all the allotted funding, it can request more from the Allocations Committee. [MORE]

    ::Daily Kent Stater 10/18/05

  • STATER EDITORIAL: Ending of block funding a good idea
  • USS delays vote on task force funding

    The Undergraduate Student Senate decided last week to postpone voting on automatic block funding for the May 4 Task Force.[MORE]

    ::Daily Kent Stater 10/24/05



    IRV LETOFSKY:
    PBS revisits 'Sixties'

    If you enjoyed the Kent State shootings, the lies about us winning in the Vietnam jungles, "Alice's Restaurant," the righteous Daniel Ellsberg, Hey hey LBJ, the election of Nixon, Jimi Hendrix and his flaming guitar, assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the takeovers at Columbia, the clubbings at San Francisco State, Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers, the war protests, the march from Selma, the Mexico City student slaughter, various drugs, Mayor Daley and his police riot, crazy Woodstock, the sexual revolution and all of our lost innocence, then you'll especially love a rampage on PBS: "The Sixties: The Years That Shaped a Generation."

    Producers-directors-writers David Davis and Stephen Talbot do a thought-provoking job for Oregon Public Broadcasting and try to find some sense in some of the senselessness, though there is inexplicably nothing on the JFK murder or the Manson massacres, which would be considered seminal events.

    But the fact is that it's daunting if not impossible to cram 10 years into two hours.

    Because many of the "movements" started in the '60s and trundled into the '70s, the producers spilled over into the next decade, like the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, the sexual revolution, the Watergate caper, etc., etc. There were many et ceteras in the '70s. Look for the sequel.

    ::Reuters/Hollywood Reporter 9/30/05



    RUSS BAKER:
    Homeland Security's Casualties
    • The grim spectre of American troops in American streets is not just a nightmare scenario any longer. On August 8, The Washington Post reported on Pentagon plans to have normal military troops intervene domestically in various crisis scenarios, despite the fact that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 severely restricts the use of troops in domestic law enforcement. The long-range concern here is that introducing active-duty troops onto American streets could lead to military involvement in politics and eventually, under the cloak of some future crisis, to military government. In the meantime, worries arise about the transferability of skills that troops need in war zones where civil liberties and other niceties play little or no role, to political demonstrations on the streets of, say, Washington, D.C., or Cleveland.  The article contains various reassurances that there’s no cause for alarm. But the Post got this story from “officers who drafted the plans.” Assuming the officers spoke to the reporter with the permission of their superiors, that means the military is floating the idea to see whether it actually bothers anyone.   Do the words “Kent State” mean nothing to today’s Pentagon planners?

    :: TomPaine.com 8/24/05





    VIDEO: 'Something's In the Air/
    But It's Not on the Airwaves'
    While working on a political short film about the war in Iraq, Kent State cast member Sarah Rolan, playing the part of a widowed war bride, received news that her long-time friend, U.S. Marine reservist Lance Corporal Daniel "Nate" Deyarmin of Tallmadge, Ohio, had been killed during active duty in Iraq on Monday, August 4, 2005, along with 13 other Ohio servicemen.



    Karen Kilroy:
    WARNING: You Are Under Martial Law

    Amerika is DevouringThe title of this article is what the notice read on the morning of May 4, 1970 it sat largely unread in the mail boxes of Kent State University students.
    Later that day, four students were murdered when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a hillside filled with students some protesting, some watching, others merely changing classes.
    Whether or not you are old enough to remember the tragedy at Kent State, please pay attention to this history.
    [MORE]
    :: American Chronicle 8/23/05





    Arlington West memorial desecrated

    The Arlington West memorial, a traveling tribute to America's fallen soldiers, visited Kent State on May 4, 2005. Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan (standing, left) looks over volunteers repairing crosses that were wrecked by a malicious driver near the ranch of U.S. President George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas. Dozens of the symbolic crosses, each representing Americans killed in Iraq, were knocked down by Waco resident
    Larry Northern, 46, late Aug. 15. He was later charged by police with criminal mischief. [REUTERS/Jason Reed]



    NEW PLAY
    No one Gets Out Alive

    AmerWreckA logoIn a world gone wrong, what would you do to make a difference? The characters in AmerWrecka are faced with exactly that question. The play begins with the historic killing of the four unarmed American students at Kent State University, shot by the National Guard at a peace rally on May 4, 1970. Thirty-five years later, they return to earth on a mission to peacefully shake up the current political climate in the States. [MORE]


  • Play Review: For what it's worth, being anti-war's all well and good, but, man, it would be nice to observe that things are way more complicated than they were back in Vietnam. There's no danger of that in J D Lewis's spunky little play, which buys the 1960s dream wholesale in all its political naivety, then grafts it on to modern times.
    Four hippies are shot at the Kent State riots in 1970. Winging their way to Heaven, they're assigned the task of shadowing four 21st-century randoms, with the aim of co-ordinating a revolution.
    So, a stripper, a fireman, a dyke and a wannabe congresswoman receive celestial visitations which may or may not change the world, as history looks destined to repeat itself ad nauseam. It's a neat little premise that falls somewhere between Scooby Doo and Wings Of Desire, as The Actor's Lab's easy-on-the-eye ensemble struts its stuff in a way that suggests it has escaped from a free-love revival of Hair in a world where calling someone a square still has kudos, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. Coming to a benefit gig near you soon.
    -- Neil Cooper, The Glasgow (Scotland) Herald 8/26/05



    A Tragic Ending

    Social Science

    On May 4th, 1970, students gathered on the Commons at Kent State University to protest the presence of the Ohio National Guard on campus. The decision to bring the Ohio National Guard onto the Kent State campus was directly related to the American involvement in the Vietnam War.

    Shortly after noon, General Canterbury ordered the demonstrators on the campus to disperse. When this had no effect, members of the Guard fired over 50 shots into the unarmed crowd of students, killing four and wounding nine others, causing the first national university student strike in the nation's history.

    Kent State and May 4th: A Social Science Perspective, Second Edition, by Thomas R. Hensley and Jerry M. Lewis, provides both a background and social science insight into an event that is seen as a major historical event of the Vietnam War era, as well as in the culture of the 1960s.

    Kent State and May 4th: A Social Science Perspective looks at four aspects of the tradgedy:
    - the events of May 4, 1970
    - the legal aftermath of the shootings
    - the sociological interpretation of the events
    - the analysis of the Gym dispute of 1977-1978

    All royalties go to the memoral fund in honor of the four students.

    :: Kendall/Hunt Publishers


    TV ALERT

  • C-SPAN is showing a panel discussion held as part of the annual commemoration of the May 4, 1970 shooting of Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard. The panelists are: Dean Kahler, Jim Russell, Joe Lewis (students wounded in 1970), Rita Rubin-Long (friend of students killed in 1970), Greg Schwartz (student columnist), and Erin Roof (current Kent State student).
  • Update: Times and dates of repeat broadcasts will vary. Click HERE for latest C-SPAN schedule.



    University puts finishing touches on paint job for May 4 Memorial posts

    The university recently began to finish painting the May 4 Memorial posts in the Taylor Hall parking lot.

    Structural Superintendent Edward O’Connell said the posts were painted black in order to help maintain appearance of the memorials.

    “The memorials are very important to us and the history of the university, and they are on a schedule to receive periodic maintenance,” he said.

    The painting began in May, but one of the four memorials was left untouched until late last week.

    “It was due to time constraints and other priorities that arose, which required us to temporarily reassign personnel to other areas of campus,” O’Connell said. ­—William Schertz

    :: Summer Stater 6/15/05



    Campus Loop bus Katharine Ross and Dustin Hoffman aboard bus

    KSU Campus Loop bus, left, and Katharine Ross and Dustin Hoffman aboard bus in final scene of "The Graduate."

    Memories:
    Kent State Bus appears in "The Graduate"
    This has nothing to do with May 4, but a bus which used to circle Campus Loop appeared in the climactic scene of the 1967 movie "The Graduate" staring Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross and the late Anne Bancroft. [MORE]

    :: CBScoaches.com



    Uncle Sam Wants Them
    Uncle SamMilitary recruiters are grabbing student info from local schools without parents' permission
    My 15-year-old son jolted me out of my morning trance the other day with a question that sent my mind reeling. "Dad, did you know that high schools are providing the names, addresses and phone numbers of students to military recruiters without permission?" Looking up from my coffee, I replied, "What? Are you sure? How do you know that?" [MORE]

    :: Phoenix New Times, 6/02/05





    Ohio Natonal Guardsmen patrol the Kent State campus after a three-day riot with students in May 1970 that culminated in four deaths and the wounding of 9. Guardsmen fired into a crowd of Vietnam War protesters.
    [Associated Press]

    '13 Seconds' recounts wounds opened at Kent State
    As a result of Kent State, the antiwar movement took on new energy, and America took on new polarization. One poll taken after the shootings showed 58 percent of Americans thought the guardsmen had done the right thing. Twelve percent thought the shootings unjustified. One writer opined that the killings were "the most popular murders ever committed in the United States." [MORE]

    :: Rocky Mountain News, 5/27/05



    Silence haunts Kent State memorial
    The site was marked more by silences, absences, erasure. The memorial site left us with more questions than answers. I came away feeling unsatisfied, ignorant, unsettled. [MORE]

    :: Daytona News Journal, 5/31/05





    DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR DRAFT LOTTERY NUMBER? Rep. Alexander Pirnie, R-NY, draws the first capsule in the lottery drawing held on Dec. 1, 1969. The capsule contained the date, Sept. 14. The lottery drawing determined the order in which men, born from 1944 through 1950, were called to report for induction into the military for the Vietnam War. The highest lottery number called for this group was 195; all men assigned that lottery number or any lower number, and who were classified 1-A or 1-A-O (available for military service), were called to report for possible induction. Lotteries were again held in 1970, 1971 and 1972.
    [Selective Service System]



    QuickTime AUDIO:
    Oral Histories of the 1970 Kent State Shootings
    A collection of 69 oral histories related to the May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State University has been added to OhioLINK's Digital Media Center. The oral histories include many eyewitness accounts of the event and its aftermath, contributed by people who were students, faculty members, and City of Kent residents at the time, as well as an account by an Ohio National Guardsman. This is the sixth collection to be added to the Historic & Archival Digital Media
    database, which is freely available to anyone worldwide via the Internet. [MORE]
    :: Freepress.org, 5/22/05



    It's very hard to ignore that Kent State thing. They were down there, man, ready to do it. You can see them, they're all kneeling there, they're all in the kneeling position and they got their slings tight and they're ready to shoot. And there's this kid, this long-haired kid standin' there with a flag wavin' it... I mean, I cannot be a man, and be a human, and ignore that.

    -- David Crosby, July 23, 1970



    TV ALERT
    Public TV to air documentary
    on May 1970 anti-war riots in Athens
    WOUB-TV will air a new documentary, "The Sky Has Fallen," on Monday, May 30 at 8 p.m. that will focus on the riots that occurred in May 1970 at Ohio University. On May 4, 1970, riots at Kent State University erupted after President Nixon announced that he had sent troops into Cambodia. National Guard troops killed four Kent State students that day and riots exploded at campuses across the country in protest, and OU was no exception. [MORE]

    :: The Athens News, 5/19/05




    CD remembers May 4, 1970
    Neil Young's `Ohio' starkly missing on Kent State project
    The May 4 Task Force, with the help of Sean Carlin, former Dink member and current beatmaker for House of Sectionals, has produced a double-disc compilation simply called The Kent State May 4 CD Project. The collection features 36 tracks, mixing music from area and national artists past and present, as well as interviews with people who were there. ... Since Cleveland record label Telarc underwrote the entire project and Sony pressed the CDs for free, 100 percent of the compilation's sales will go to The Kent State May 4 Commemorative Student Activism Scholarship Fund. It's available for $20 at
    http://dept.kent.edu./may4/. [MORE]
    :: Akron Beacon Journal, 5/19/05



    EXCLUSIVE:

    Battling Over
    a Deadly Past

    By Tom Grace
    While bitterness lingers, memories fade, aided in no small part by the conscious efforts of those who want to erase the legacy of Kent State. [MORE]

    :: 5/04/05



    Vietnam: The music of protest
    The Vietnam war spurred a protest movement that spread among the student movement in the 1960s. And songs were an important part of that protest.
    In the early 1960s, the folk-song movement was already well-established with artists like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan reaching
    spacerspacer
    spacer
    I FEEL LIKE I'M FIXIN
    TO DIE RAG
    spacerspacer

    Come on mothers throughout the land,
    Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
    Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
    Send your sons off before it's too late.
    You can be the first one on your block
    To have your boy come home in a box.
    --Country Joe and the Fish


    a relatively small but devoted audience. But as the war escalated, the song that probably captured the intensity of feeling by young people who faced the possibility of serving in Vietnam through the Selective Service draft was I Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag, written by Country Joe MacDonald a few years after he was discharged from the Navy. Its bitter lyrics "you can be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box" were played again and again at rallies and demonstrations. [MORE]

    :: BBC, 5/01/05



    Official recalls Kent State tragedy
    The tragedy at Kent State that occurred 35 years ago last week was remembered recently by Paul Quinn, Bensenville director of public works, who grew up in an Ohio town near the university's campus.
    Quinn said he went to school there in the late 1970s, years after the May 4, 1970, incident in which National Guard troops killed four Kent State students during a campus protest.
    But Quinn said a friend of his was at the campus that fateful day.
    "He still owns this 1966 Mustang with bullet holes in it from the Kent State shooting," said Quinn, who grew up in Streetsboro, Ohio.
    Quinn said his friend collects vintage cars.
    "I remember him saying he had finished his classes by the time the shootings occurred, and once the guns went off, he was done," Quinn said. "He never went back to the campus, skipped the graduation, and had the college mail him his diploma."

    :: Chicago Tribune, 5/08/05



    KSU reborn in aftermath of shootings
    Sixty-seven shots were fired, four students were dead at Kent State University on an afternoon 35 years ago Thursday. That day, the university too died, another casualty of the Vietnam War. Many of us who were students there still don t understand it. For us, May 4 passes peacefully with our sad memories and unanswered questions. I m not writing about the shootings today. We ve had plenty on that. This is about the aftermath. [MORE]

    :: Canton Repository, 5/07/05



    Book Review:
    Both sides to blame at Kent State?
    13 Seconds; Philip Caputo; Chamberlain Bros./Penguin: 200 pp., $21.95, includes DVD
    The sad and shocking photograph of the Kent State student lying face down, shot dead by rifle fire from a National Guard unit on May 4, 35 years ago, was especially shocking to me. For several long moments, as I pored over it, I had to force myself to recognize that the small, dark-haired young man lying on the ground was someone who'd been a classmate of mine in high school and junior high school. [MORE]

    :: Los Angeles Times, 5/06/05

  • Caputo on Book TV, 11 a.m. and 5 and 10 p.m. EDT, Sunday, May 8, C-SPAN2.
  • Pulitizer Prize-winning author looks back on his May 4th experiences on WKSU-FM.



    2005 Commemoration Headlines

    May 5, 2005



    PEACE MARCH: Following the commemoration, an anti-war protest, organized by the Portage Community Peace Coalition and the Kent State Anti-War Committee, marched peacefully from the Commons to the gazebo in downtown Kent at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Main Street. [Record-Courier]

  • Anti-war protest follows May 4 commemoration

  • More Photos: Protesters march down W. Main st. in Kent, Wednesday, May, 4, 2005.



    Protesters line up in the Taylor Hall parking lot and memorial site yesterday afternoon. [Melissa Gaug | Daily Kent Stater]

  • Taking action on May 4

  • Fracas over a protest
  • Remembering Kent State
  • Four days that changed Portland
  • WHLO radio show hosts discuss the other side
  • '13 Seconds' provides in-depth look at May 4



    TAKING A STAND IN TOLEDO: Al Hart of Toledo, left, and Keith Sadler, of Stony Ridge stand with their signs in front of mock gravestones at the base of the statue of former Gov. James Rhodes at One Government Center, Toledo. The rally memorialized the four students who were killed 35 years ago by National Guardsmen called out by Rhodes during a rally protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. Other activities included a speech by University of Toledo professor Laurence Coleman, who was on the Kent State campus that day, and music completed the program.. [Lori King | Toledo Blade]

    May 4, 2005

  • Video: Peace march marks 35th anniversary of Kent State shootings
  • May 4 on talk radio
  • Left Wing: Jerry Springer and Air America
  • Right Wing: Quinn and Rose
  • Kent State remembers students killed protesting Vietnam War
  • Anti-war fervor fades at KSU


    CANDLELIGHT: Kent State University graduate Faith Barnett, center, places a candle at the base of a memorial to Kent State University students Wednesday, May 4, 2005, in the parking lot of Taylor Hall. Four students were killed and nine were wounded, on May 4, 1970, by Ohio National Guardsmen who opened fire during anti-war protests. [Jeff Glidden | Assoociated Press]

  • Silent march commemorates fallen students
  • Witnesses remember Kent State shootings
  • Audio, Video, book excerpt: The Kent State Shootings, 35 Years Later
  • Audio: Kent State Letters to NPR [Includes Voice of National Guardsman]



    ROTC: Students for a Democratic Society march past the ROTC building protesting the war in Vietnam in the spring of 1969. [Tom Difloure | Special to the Daily Kent Stater]

  • How the Kent State shootings affected students, faculty and community
  • 'I was there'
  • Fallen students memorialized
  • May 4 panel discusses experiences from different perspectives
  • Former SDS members talk past politics
  • SDS members reunited to discuss current events, remember the past
  • Some want Taylor Hall to become a National Historic Landmark
  • Many remember May 4 in different ways



    ARLINGTON CEMETERY WEST: Student George Tayek affixes a flower and a note to one of the 1,000 crosses in the field adjacent to Centennial Court B. The crosses were arranged to look like the tombstones of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. [Gavin Jackson | Daily Kent Stater]

  • May 4 marchers sue KSU, Kent

  • Sacrifice `never forgotten'


    READY FOR THE VIGIL: Kent State University students Meredith Compton and George Tayek light candles Tuesday, May 3, 2005, prior to the start of the 35th annual candlelight march and vigil. [Jeff Glidden | Associated Press]

  • Opinion: Images we can't forget
  • Opinion: Students' questions about May 4 answered
  • Opinion: Only those with agendas, hippies care about May 4
  • Opinion: 13 seconds that changed nothing
  • Opinion: Unsolved mysteries of May 4, 1970
  • Opinion: Point/Counterpoint, Part 1
  • Opinion: Point/Counterpoint, Part 2
  • Opinion: Students found freedom after May 4 events
    May 2, 2005

  • Audio: Anti-War Activists Look Back and Look Forward
  • Four dead in Ohio: More than a memory


    FIRE IN THE HEARTLAND: Daniel Miller embraces Julie Heim of Akron, a 1968 Kent graduate, after the showing of Miller's film, Fire in the Heartland -- A History of Dissent at Kent State University, 1960-1980, on Sunday. [Phil Masturzo | Akron Beacon Journal]

  • Film on Kent shootings shows emotions, fervor
  • Extra police for May 4
  • Shootings at university color witnesses' lives
  • Button display a reminder of May 4 tragedy
  • Man recalls Kent State shootings
  • Q&A: 'Four dead in Ohio'
    May 1, 2005

  • The 13 seconds that brought the war home
  • May 4 March and Speak-Out against War


    MOVING MEMORIAL: Dona Greene visits Arlington West, a traveling memorial to honor soldiers from the Iraq War, at Kent State University on Tuesday. Greene, a retired Kent State instructor, also was paying tribute to Allison Krause, one of the students killed at the school in 1970. She left a note with the daisy that read, Peace through love. . [Marvin Fong | Cleveland Plain Dealer]

  • Peace activists to set up 1,000 crosses
  • Kent State students discuss 1970 clash
  • U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S 1970 SUMMARY OF FBI REPORTS



    KSU documentary to debut Sunday
    Examination of two decades of dissent at school is among events marking May 4
    Daniel Miller lived through a lot of the turbulence of May 1970 at Kent State University. On Sunday, he debuts his documentary about those days. The University of Oregon filmmaker is among this year's attractions in the remembrance of the Kent State shootings. The 35th anniversary commemoration by the May 4 Task Force will include the signature events: a candlelight march at 11 p.m. Tuesday and a candlelight vigil at midnight Wednesday to mark the shooting deaths of four students and the wounding of nine others by Ohio National Guardsmen. Details, scroll down.

    :: Akron Beacon Journal, 4/30/05




    THE FALL OF SAIGON, 1975: Their backs to the wall, evacuees are helped aboard an Air America helicopter perched atop a Saigon building on April 29, 1975. The evacuation site was one of many in the downtown area from which Americans and foreign nationals were evacuated to waiting Navy ships. .




    Bill Gordon:
    Is KSU in Denial About What Happened There 35 Years Ago?

    Kent State commemorates the thirty-fifth anniversary of the May 4, 1970 killings on its campus by doing what it always does. It will change the subject. The university recently announced it will sponsor a symposium, "Democracy and the Arts," which, like previous years' programs ("Democracy and Religion" and "Media and Profits"), has nothing even remotely to do with the killings of four of its students by members of the Ohio National Guard. Once again, Kent State has decided to play it safe rather than look in the eye of the most important event in its own history. :: History News Network, 12/13/2004

  • Kent State's commemorations not relevant to May 4
    :: Daily Kent Stater, 4/8/2005

    They re worse than Brown Shirts and the Communist element, and also the nightriders and the vigilantes. They re the worst type of people we have in America ... we will use whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent!

    -- Gov. James Rhodes, May 3, 1970







    AFTER 35 YEARS, DEBATE OVER 'PARTIALLY BURIED WOODSHED' CONTINUES: People are coming to Kent State University from around the country over the next two weeks for a conference about one piece of artwork. The work is hard to find, it's hard to tell if you do find it; You can't really see it, and you might not even consider it art. But Robert Smithson's earthwork, created days before the shootings of May 4, 1970, and later marked with memorial graffiti, is worthy of consideration.
    :: WKSU, 04/06/05


    One man's quest
    The late Charles A. Thomas spent more than 3 decades investigating many of the unresolved issues in the 1970 Kent State shootings

    Charles A. Thomas was a 32-year-old specialist in vintage radio recordings at the National Archives in 1975 when he was given the task of cataloging the film footage of the Kent State shootings that occurred on May 4, 1970.

    As he began cataloging the film, Thomas made a disturbing finding: None of the footage showing dead and wounded students after the lethal volley had been used in the public hearings of the Scranton Commission in the months following the shootings.

    Suspicious, Thomas pulled the sound tapes that had been played at the hearings and found that the moments when students were shouting loudest at the guardsmen had been spliced to occur just before the shootings, eliminating the disturbing lull before the shots could be heard on the original tape.

    :: Dayton Daily News 5/03/2004
  • "Blood of Isaac" e-book by Charles A. Thomas
    Chapter One -- "Bad Moon Rising"
    Chapter Two -- "All Enemies, Foreign -- and Domestic"
    Chapter Three -- "Lost Crusades"
    Chapter Four -- "The Burning Question"
    Chapter Five -- "Flowers and Bullets"
    Chapter Six -- "The Blood of Isaac"
    Chapter Seven -- "The Harvest"
    Chapter Eight A -- "Noon on Stone Mountain"
    Chapter Eight B -- "Noon on Stone Mountain"

  • Chapter Eight -- "The Killing Fields -- Prelude"
    Chapter Nine -- "The Defeated; The Protestors"
    Chapter Ten -- "The Defeated; The President"
  • KENFOUR
  • Mission Betrayed. (incomplete work)
  • The Scales Overturned








  • Mystery of the manipulated
    May 4 photo is solved

    There has been a some heated back-and-forth discussion on the net concerning an allegedly manipulated image in the May 1995 issue of LIFE magazine (John Filo's Kent State Pulitzer-winning picture). The original photo shows a fence post appearing behind the head of protestor Mary Ann Vecchio; the photo in the May issue of LIFE does not.
    :: Michigan Press Photographers Assn. 06/02/95
  • John Filo: "The Picture from Kent State" by Dirck Halstead (includes RealAudio).


    May 4 Expert J. Gregory Payne Speaks of that 'Dark Day'
    "Dr. Payne knows more first-hand information about the events of May 4, 1970 than anyone on the planet," said Dr. Michael Carrafiello, director of The Colligan History Project. "He has traveled the globe telling his story and inviting people to recall where they were and what they were doing on that dark day 35 years ago."
    :: Hamilton (Ohio) Journal News 4/3/2005



    May 4 Task Force receives funds
    The May 4 Task Force was the last student organization this semester to request programming funds from the Undergraduate Student Senate Allocations Committee. The committee allocated $13,399.80 for the Task Force s May 4 commemoration and denied a request for $2,600.
    :: Daily Kent Stater 3/31/2005




    WIRED: Jeanette Smithson of Ames, Iowa, helps her grandson Kyle Doehrmann, 8, use interactive computers at "Public Vaults," a new permanent exhibit at the National Archives in Washington.

    Archives View May 4 at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
    ... Another ambitious computer-based project has been taking place at the National Archives in Washington, where there are three computers hidden behind a cluster of archival boxes in a stack area. Visitors can move a computer screen along a horizontal track in front of the boxes. Stop in front of a box that says Kent State, for example, and various archival files can be viewed, including a video of students demonstrating at Kent State University in 1970 shortly before National Guard troops opened fire, killing four.

    "As we began to develop this exhibit, we started to talk about how we could get people to think beyond the rotunda walls," said Bruce Bustard, senior curator at the National Archives. The $6.4 million interactive exhibit opened last month, and although it is still too early to gauge its popularity, Bustard is optimistic.

    "I hope this is more than just technological bells and whistles," Dr. Bustard said. "I hope the technology allows more people to see more documents in more detail."

    Bustard said that researchers who use the archives find it exciting to go into an actual stack area and open a box and look through materials. "So to a great extent we try as best we can to replicate that experience, the thrill and sense of discovery that researchers feel when they come to our research room."
    :: New York Times 12/04/2004




    POINTED PHOTO:
    Kent State Vice President Ronald Roskens, right, as he appeared in a 1970 Daily Kent Stater poster. He later was fired as chancellor of the University of Nebraska under secretive circumstances only to be hired by the White House as director of Agency for International Development. Allegations were made that he used his agency access for personal financial gain. Details, click HERE.



    Uncle Sam 'Vietnam Remembered' documentary makes debut
    One of the most unique perspectives on the whole experience was offered by a veteran who could not understand how National Guardsmen could be allowed to fire on American students protesting the war at Kent State University, when American soldiers in Vietnam could not fire until they were fired upon.
    :: South Bend Tribune 11/04/2004

    What's the matter with peace? Flowers are better than bullets!

    -- Allison Krause, Shot and Killed on May 4, 1970




    RealAudio Audio
    War, Protests and the Election: Kent State

    NPR's Robert Siegel visits the area around Kent, Ohio, to gauge attitudes on protesting war during a time of conflict. Kent State University is remembered for the shootings that killed four students during a campus demonstration in May 1970.
  • Audio letter about May 4 report [Click Here]
    :: National Public Radio 10/25/2004



    RealAudio Audio
    Fahrenheit 911 Film-maker Michael Moore at Kent State University

    Documentary film-maker Michael Moore spoke to a packed house at Kent State University's gymnasium last night in a rally that resembled a political convention. In what is billed as the "Slacker Uprising Tour," Moore is traveling to 60 cities urging young people to vote in next week's election. WKSU's Mark Urycki reports.
    :: WKSU-FM 10/25/2004



    The shootings at Kent State
    were 'unwarranted, inexcusable
    and unnecessary'


    To the Editor [of the Boston Herald]:

    I am quite disturbed by the graphic images of our slain Emerson student [Victoria "Tori" Snelgrove]splashed on the pages of the Boston Herald. The motive for this type of sensational exploitation of the tragedy is clearly to sell papers. In the subsequent apology for printing the photos, the Herald story of October 29 quoted Steve Rendall, of the Fairness and Accuracy Center, that publication of these photos were similar to those published to portray the horror of the "Kent State Riots."

    My doctoral dissertation at Illinois was on Kent State. The shootings at Kent State in 1970 were never referred to as "riots," except by the right wing types who tried to blame the students for the actions at Kent State. The facts surrounding the shootings at Kent State do not substantiate Mr. Rendall's claim of "riots" at Kent State. The President's Commission on Campus Unrest, called together by President Richard M. Nixon, and the FBI Report, commissioned by J. Edgar Hoover in 1970, reported that the gathering of the students at Kent State was peaceful prior to the actions of the National Guard. These official investigations concluded the shootings at Kent State were "unwarranted, inexcusable and unnecessary," and that the self-defense argument by the Guard that their lives were in danger as a reason for shooting the students was "fabricated subsequent to the event."

    The Pulitzer prize winning photo at Kent State, taken by John Filo of Mary Vecchio over the body of slain student Jeff Miller, that was published globally was the least graphic of those taken by Filo. The Herald printed the most graphic grisly photos of Tori. Those killed at Kent State were like Tori, innocent bystanders -- all four students killed at Kent were honor students.

    Another agenda setting cue is the use of "riot" in the description in the Herald coverage. This is an attempt by the establishment to once again put the blame on the victims, not the establishment agents -- the police in 2004 or the National Guard in 1970-who should have had adequate riot control training to deal with this type of disturbance. In 1970, the Guard used M1 bullets -- like what was used in Vietnam. In 2004, the Boston Police used a "non-lethal" response -- which we tragically have witnessed was lethal in Tori's case.

    As the explanation for this terrible tragedy that has beset our community continues to unfold, I would ask all of us to examine the arguments provided to explain this horrible event. We owe it to Tori at Emerson, as well as to the memory of Jeff, Sandy, Jeff and Allison at Kent State - to learn from this horrific event. As Santayana said, "Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it."

    Regards,

    Gregory Payne, Ph.D.
    Organizational and Political Communication
    Emerson College
    :: 10/24/2004


    Crankshaft returns to KSU in 2000

    Crankshaft and his syndicated cartoon family returned to Kent State Universty in May 2000 to recall the events of 30 years earlier. See a slideshow of the entire story.




    Kent State memories rekindled

    At first she thought someone had foolishly set off some firecrackers.

    "I heard the gunshots," said Deborah Peterson of Lincoln Township. "I didn't know that's what gunshots sounded like. To me, it sounded like firecrackers. I went into the cafeteria and told some friends that some idiot had set off some firecrackers." It was Monday, May 4, 1970, and Peterson, a freshman at Kent State University in Ohio, was watching the confrontation between demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War and members of the Ohio National Guard. She was at the old Student Activities Center building, looking down at the action.

    But instead of firecrackers, what she heard was a fusillade of rifle fire from the Guardsmen into the crowd, a volley that some witnesses say lasted as long as 13 seconds. When it was over, four students had been killed -- one of them an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadet -- and several more had been wounded, some seriously.

    A student at what she described as the most non-political university possible, Peterson had become an eyewitness to history.

    "That's a scary thought," she said. "You don't expect history to come looking for you."

    :: The Herald-Palladium 9/26/2004





    FOR TWO 9/11 MEMORIALS, A MAN WHO LISTENED: Frederic Schwartz (above) is standing on a peninsula at Liberty State Park where ground is to be broken tomorrow for the 9/11 memorial he has designed for New Jersey, only three-and-a-half hours after ground is broken in Westchester County for the 9/11 memorial he has designed there. But for a moment, his sad eyes are not focused on the empty sky across the Hudson River where the World Trade Center is supposed to be. Instead, they are looking across an ineffable inner distance at another terrible image, at another terrible moment. It is May 4, 1970. A photograph is being transmitted around the world that shows Jeffrey Miller, his high school classmate from Plainview, N.Y., lying dead on the ground at Kent State University, killed by the Ohio National Guard. "It was the first time we turned our guns on our own students," Mr. Schwartz said, as if he still had difficulty believing it.
    (Photo by RUBY WASHINGTON / New York Times)

    :: New York Times 09/09/04




    SHOT: Joe Lewis talks to a group at Western Oregon University about his experience at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, when he and others were shot by Ohio National Guardsmen.
    (KOBBI R. BLAIR / Statesman Journal)


    Antiwar forum recalls
    Kent State dead

    Joe Lewis stretched out his right arm and extended his middle finger toward a line of Ohio National Guard soldiers. Then a bullet tore through his abdomen.
    Meanwhile, Jim Russell tried to duck behind a tree when buckshot hit him in the temple and ripped off part of his knee.
    That was more than 34 years ago.
    :: Journal Statesman.com 05/21/04





    THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MAY 4: Pop singer Britney Spears appears to be wearing a KENT sweatshirt while sharing a Stockholm, Sweden, afternoon with boyfriend Kevin Federline. Is this the beginning of a fashion trend? (TheSun.co.uk)



    FBI surveillance report
    quotes John Kerry on Kent State
    From a speech before 200 students at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in the fall of 1971: "My 10 years of political consciousness in America is very wrapped up in gravestones," he said. "These are the gravestones of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, the Kent State students, the men of Attica and the other 53,000 brothers in Vietnam." [MORE]


    :: Los Angeles Times 5/07/2004





    TAPED SHUT: Kent State sophomore Erin Roof holds a flag that she dragged on the ground last year in protest of the war. Roof protested today by taping her mouth shut. (PAT JARRETT/Daily Kent Stater)

    March for peace remains peaceful
    Some marched for an end to the war.
    Some marched in remembrance of those who died on May 4, 1970.
    Whatever their reasons were, at least 100 protesters joined at the Taylor Hall parking lot to march in the Sidewalk Peace Procession organized by the Portage Community Peace Coalition. [MORE]


  • Students, community members remember May 4 during candlelight vigil
  • Commemoration remembers past, discusses war
  • May 4, 2004 commemoration photo slide show
  • May 4, 2004 Candlelight Vigil photo slide show
    :: Daily Kent Stater 05/05/04


    VIDEO:
    Group demonstrates against Iraq War at Kent State
    Students and the community were remembering the May 4th shootings at Kent State University. The bell on the university commons rang out at mid-day marking the start of the memorial observance. Thirty-four years ago Kent State was put in the national spotlight after National Guard troops opened fire during a Vietnam War protest. Four students were killed and nine others were injured. Click HERE for video link.
    :: WKYC3 / PAX23 05/04/04



    Vigil Held In Honor Of KSU May 4 Shootings
    A silent 12-hour candlelight vigil to remember the Kent State tragedy is being held this morning, NewsChannel5 reported.

    Thirty-four years ago, four students were shot and killed by the National Guard at the KSU campus. They were protesting the Vietnam war.

    The memorial started Monday night to honor the four students killed and nine others injured May 4, 1970.

    The May 4th Task Force, students who are putting the memorial together, said this year's theme is the Patriot Act.

    The kick off to this year's remembrance began last night. At 11 p.m., students marched with candles to the site where the students were shot.

    At noon, students will detail what led up to the shooting along with ringing the victory bell at 12:24 p.m. 15 times in honor of those who lost their lives in Kent State and Jackson State that year.

    WEWS reported many students believe this year's memorial is extra special because of the war on terror and the loss of troops in Iraq.


    :: NewsNet5.com 05/04/04



    Anger over Iraq evident at KSU commemoration
    Thirty-four years ago, National Guardsmen armed with World War II-era rifles marched up Blanket Hill, turned at the Taylor Hall pagoda and fired into a crowd of students -- some of whom were protesting troops on their campus and America's presence in Cambodia.
    Four students -- Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder -- fell in the Taylor Hall parking lot and never rose again.
    Tuesday afternoon, the overwhelming sense among those who gathered to remember those four was how little has changed.
    Palpable anger at the Iraq war and its similarity to Vietnam was the unifying theme among the few hundred who sat and watched the event. [MORE]
    :: Akron Beacon Journal 05/05/04




    ON THE MARCH: Kent State May 4, 2004 protest. (Record-Courier)

    May 4 speakers urge activism 34th anniversary marked
    Speakers at the 34th annual May 4, 1970 commemoration at Kent State University said the government is treading the same path as it did during Vietnam, and urged activism to get troops out of Iraq. Labeling President Bush a war criminal, Alan Canfora, wounded on May 4, 1970 and one of the speakers Tuesday, said that though they were, and continue to be, a minority on campus, student protesters made a difference in ending the Vietnam War, and can do the same now. [MORE]


    :: Recourd-Courier 05/05/04



    DICK FEAGLER:
    Tales the snapshots tell are hard to live down
    Today, 34 years ago, every morning newspaper in the nation carried a photo of a young woman grieving over the dead body of her classmate. The photo was taken in Kent, Ohio. Our country was at the tail end of a war that had long before gone sour. By 1970, all the great protests had happened. Now we were mired in a glue war. Nixon's "secret plan" to end it hadn't worked. The only news we could trust was the death toll. Kent State University was an unlikely place to punctuate this great American tragedy. [MORE]


    :: Cleveland Plain Dealer 5/05/2004




    Patti Smith sings "Ohio"
    PATTI SMITH, left, covered NEIL YOUNG's 1970s protest song "Ohio" Tuesday night during a performance at Brooklyn, New York's Warsaw. Smith played the song to mark the anniversary of the May 4, 1970 massacre at Kent State University, when the Ohio National Guard killed four students protesting the Vietnam War, and she likened it to the climate of fear in America today. As a backdrop, Smith used the iconic image of a woman screaming over the body of slain student Jeffrey Miller . . .


    :: Rolling Stone 5/05/2004




    Forgotten tragedy: Jackson State shootings
    Today is the 34th anniversary of the Kent State University shootings. On May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine wounded when national guardsmen opened fire on an anti-Vietnam war demonstration on campus. Ten days later two students lay dead on the asphalt at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., shot by armed policemen. Only they weren't demonstrating against the war, and their story is often forgotten. [MORE]
    :: The Rocky Mountain Collegian 05/04/04



    Students party in peace
    Proper planning, a police presence and cool, wet weather led to a quiet weekend at the University of Akron and Kent State University. Traditionally, the first weekend in May has led to wild parties and problems. In recent years, as police gave advance notification to students that they would prosecute anyone who broke the law, parties have been controlled. Akron police said 21 males and nine females were arrested on alcohol-related charges near the University of Akron but there were no injuries or property damage. Kent police said there were few problems at KSU.
    :: Cleveland Plain Dealer 05/04/04



    Wanted: The Truth About The Kent State Killings
    To this day, the definitive book about that terrible day has not been written. Certainly, some informative works have been published but they have concentrated only on some aspects. What we need is a book that fairly examines all the events. "And yes, there are new materials" to be found, especially in the invaluable and extensive May 4 collection at the Kent State library, says Nancy Birk, its Curator and University Archivist, citing as examples the US Department of Justice and Charles Thomas papers.
  • The May 4th Deaths: Kent State 30 Years Ago [May 4, 2000]

    :: AntiWar.com 5/04/2004


    ABOUT THIS SITE In 2000, the student journalists who covered the events of May 1970 returned to Kent State to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the shootings. This website grew out of that gathering. Reader suggestions and comments are welcome. Thank you.

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