# Kent State/Jackson State Massacres; Fifty Years Ago **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 3, 2020, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052 "2020-05-03T03:37:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/1 "2020-05-03T03:37:37Z")
On 4 May, Kent State will be fifty years ago. I note the first news story that brought to my attention was a good article from [AARP.](https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2020/kent-state-shooting.html) I was twelve years old. I remember when I heard the news. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/2 "2020-05-03T08:00:28Z")
I was a freshman at U. C. Berkeley then. The major unrest on colleges of the late 1960’s had partially quieted down by then, but demonstrations and smallish riots still happened, and tear-gas was still an occasional thing. The Kent State massacre causes such a massive upwelling of unrest at colleges all across the country that the rest of the quarter was thoroughly disrupted. Many classes were cancelled, and many others were somehow reduced to just rump remnants of what they were. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/3 "2020-05-03T09:38:10Z")
I knew people who were there that day, including a close friend and a cousin, though none had been injured or involved in the protest. A tragic day in U.S. history. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/4 "2020-05-03T10:39:02Z")
Neil Young said it best: Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/5 "2020-05-03T17:27:53Z")
My memories are murky a half-century later. I was a new father and had just started electronics school in San Francisco. Unrest, protests, brutalities, riots, assassinations, were the backdrop. I’d been around the Crescent Heights riots in L.A. (source of FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH), the Columbia U riots in NYC (source of UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER), and somewhat less violent scenes in the SF Bay Area. But then US troops fired on US civilians, students, the children of America. We ARE the enemy. They WILL kill us. That’s a clear lesson. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/6 "2020-05-03T18:14:35Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Neil Young said it best: > Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, > We’re finally on our own. > This summer I hear the drumming, > Four dead in Ohio. Nixon had nothing to do with it. It was Governor Rhodes who called out the guard at the request of local leaders who didn’t think they could contain the rioting. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/7 "2020-05-03T22:18:54Z")
A girl from my high school was one of the four killed at Kent State. In May of 1970 I was a freshman at a large urban college. My buddy and I stayed up all night, the night before finals, studying like mad, aided by ingestion of some ‘black beauties.’ In the morning, we marched confidently into the auditorium to take our sociology final. They had no sooner handed out the exam booklets than a radical on-campus leader stood up and exclaimed, “in protest of the killings at Kent State and the invasion of Cambodia, we are walking out!!” My buddy and I, still speed-fueled, looked at each other in anguish. “No, no, we WANT to take the test!!” But it didn’t happen. Shortly thereafter, campus was shut down for the summer. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/8 "2020-05-03T23:59:12Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I was a freshman at U. C. Berkeley then. > > The major unrest on colleges of the late 1960’s had partially quieted down by then, but demonstrations and smallish riots still happened, and tear-gas was still an occasional thing. I was a freshman at Cornell. I recall being in the lobby of the student union and hearing someone shouting out “They killed them, they killed them!” A week later I hitched to Washington with a dorm-mate (as did many other members of my dorm) to join the protests against the Cambodia Incursion and Kent State. We were put up over night in dorm rooms at George Washington University. Crowds in the street had earlier been hit with CS gas. As I walked around Washington the day after the protests I recall periodically being hit by whiffs of tear gas or other gases that had been used earlier. (The previous October I had participated in the Moratorium protests in DC, and actually did get tear gassed. But mostly by accident, as I and a friend inadvertently found ourselves in the middle of a protest in front of the Department of Justice as we were trying to find the Greyhound station to return to New York.) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/9 "2020-05-04T00:03:02Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Nixon had nothing to do with it. It was Governor Rhodes who called out the guard at the request of local leaders who didn’t think they could contain the rioting. Way to totally miss the point. The protests were against Nixon’s policies. And Nixon’s divisiveness had everything to do with why a National Guard unit decided to use deadly force against college students. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/10 "2020-05-04T04:08:23Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Way to totally miss the point. The protests were against Nixon’s policies. And Nixon’s divisiveness had everything to do with why a National Guard unit decided to use deadly force against college students. I didn’t miss anything. It was the governor who sent the guard out because the local leaders asked him. They were afraid rioting would get out of control and setting fire to buildings falls under that expectation. Regardless of how poorly the Guard performed it’s the arsonists who caused the incident. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/11 "2020-05-04T05:26:55Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I didn’t miss anything. Except for a [classic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRE9vMBBe10). ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/12 "2020-05-04T05:43:32Z")
Double post, damn these stupid errors! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/13 "2020-05-04T06:04:51Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I didn’t miss anything. Yeah, you did. Your post just further emphasized it. You’re completely ignoring the bigger picture, which is what the song was concerned with. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/14 "2020-05-04T06:51:39Z")
Gee, it seems a _ **lot** _ of the replies to this thread are from people who were freshmen at their college. As for me, I was a freshman at Boston State College (a small state college). I was devastated by the news of the Kent State incident. And I was disappointed that no one was ever held responsible for this. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/15 "2020-05-04T07:04:09Z")
I was 13 and stunned by what had happened. My parents and I were glued to the TV. I remember how worried they were about my older siblings, who were in college. Then Jackson State happened, and I expected much more outrage than there was. I couldn’t figure out why it got so little press. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/16 "2020-05-04T14:19:25Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Yeah, you did. Your post just further emphasized it. You’re completely ignoring the bigger picture, which is what the song was concerned with. the bigger picture is you don’t needlessly risk other people’s lives by setting fire to buildings in a riot. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/17 "2020-05-04T15:58:13Z")
Did anyone here ever read James Michener’s book _Kent State: What Happened and Why_ I think it was excellent, extremely detailed, and it debunked a lot of stories that tried to lie about the students, and what happened. He did tons of interviews with people involved, especially the students themselves. He had scathing things to say about local law enforcement, the military commanders, and the FBI investicagations after the massacre. One interesting bit of trivia. Michener included a photo of a house in Kent, Ohio. As he put it, people had _already_ seen it on film. Some years earlier an author who lived in one of it’s apartments thought it was a perfect model for a haunted house. Even other student residents seemed to think it haunted. It became the model for the house in _ **Psycho** _. Pictures were taken of it and a replica was built in Hollywood, for the film. Later in Kent some other bizarre things occurred there but read the book and find out. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/18 "2020-05-04T16:17:42Z")
I wasn’t born yet but I did graduate from KSU in 2001. I was there as part of the journalism program (the incident happened at the journalism building) for the 30th anniversary. It’s all pretty sobering and heavy around campus every May 4. The whole rise of the “Star Wars Day” thing on the Internet has always made me feel uncomfortable. We did a lot of work in the journalism school for the 30th anniversary events. There are a lot of personalities involved and some split factions between the families of the deceased and the surviving victims, and with the school even. This year they were planning a huge event and Jane Fonda was one of the scheduled speakers. Veterans groups were NOT amused and from what I could tell there was going to be quite a protest. My dad is active in the local VFW and yesterday when I brought it up he said “Yeah Jane Fonda got cancelled. Now they can save the $87,000 they were going to pay her to speak.” Dad didn’t go to college but he and his buddies did go down to Kent “to see what was going on” on May 7. He said he ended up in a police car (I forget why) and his father was livid. Dad was shipped off to Vietnam May 10, 1970. Ken Burns’ “Vietnam” series did a good job covering the shootings at Kent State. I saw some footage on that show that I’d never seen before. ---
**Author:** ![Courk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/91b2a8/32.png) [@Courk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Courk)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/19 "2020-05-04T16:43:34Z")
My mom was a teenager when it happened, and lived in a city near by – she said she remembers hearing sirens going towards Kent all day. I went to Kent State in the mid 2000s. Dr. Jerry Lewis was my sociology professor (he was one of the faculty marshalls there that day). Towards the end of the semester he dedicated a lecture to what happened May 4. Before hand he told us he wouldn’t do the usual after-class office hours. He told us to bring anyone who would be interested, so I brought my mom and aunt. I remember him counting out 10 or 13 seconds, and banging on the desk (it couldn’t have been for every gun shot, I don’t remember exactly what it symbolized), and the entire hall was so quite it was just… Obviously it left an impression. Then he stormed through a door, ending the talk. I don’t remember what he said, I just remember thinking here it was 35 years later and how it clearly stayed with him. I mean, it sounds trite to say, how could it not?, but actually _seeing_ it in a person really brings it home. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052/20 "2020-05-04T18:40:58Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I was a freshman at U. C. Berkeley then. > > The major unrest on colleges of the late 1960’s had partially quieted down by then, but demonstrations and smallish riots still happened, and tear-gas was still an occasional thing. > > The Kent State massacre causes such a massive upwelling of unrest at colleges all across the country that the rest of the quarter was thoroughly disrupted. Many classes were cancelled, and many others were somehow reduced to just rump remnants of what they were. President Nixon had gone on TV only days before to announce his invasion of Cambodia. (Fishhook. Parrot’s Beak. Damn, I still remember that after all these years.) Campuses were _already_ erupting in response to that. That’s what students were protesting at Kent State that day. Then the shootings there caused the protests that were already happening across the country to go ballistic. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kent-state-jackson-state-massacres-fifty-years-ago/853052.md?page=2)