Guest Author - Vance Rowe


The Kent State Tragedy May 4, 1970

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.” From the song "Ohio" by Neil Young.

During the height of the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon ordered troops into Cambodia to raze North Vietnamese Army bases that were located there. College students across the country protested this order. College campuses were already in unrest because of the war and this just inflamed them. In Kent, Ohio, at the Kent State University, student protests became violent. The National Guard had been called in as there was trouble in town in the three days prior to the May 4 demonstration.

There was a riot in the city that was started by people in bars. Someone began throwing beer bottles at a police car and around midnight, there were at least a hundred people in the street. Bars began to close early to avoid trouble. The crowd was a mixture of motorcycle gangs, students and kids from out of town who often frequented the bars in Kent. There was even a bon fire in the middle of the street. Storefront windows were broken as well as windows on a bank. Police finally came in and restored order and the crowds dispersed. The next day, students came into town to help clean up the mess but were met with disdain from storeowners and other people there.

On Saturday, May 2, Kent's Mayor Leroy Satrom declared a state of emergency and, later that day, he asked Ohio Governor James Rhodes to send the National Guard to Kent to help enforce a curfew that he ordered until further notice. When the Guard arrived in Kent around 10pm, the students were demonstrating on the campus. The students were told that a curfew was in place and that they had to go back to their dorms. the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) building was on fire; a building that was scheduled to be demolished anyway. The arsonists were never caught so it is unclear if it was students or not that started the fire. The protesting students did however hinder the fire department from extinguishing the fire. The National Guard finally dispersed the demonstrating students and at least one student was wounded from a bayonet.

On May 4, the students met on the campus commons to demonstrate and protest and the National Guard tried to disperse them as they feared there would be another violent protest. The tossed tear gas canisters at the crowd of almost 2,000 and the students began lobbing the canisters back at the Guardsmen. Realizing that the crowd was not dispersing, the Guard with bayoneted weapons began to encroach on the crowd. As the guardsmen advanced, the protesters retreated up and over Blanket Hill, heading out of The Commons area. Once over the hill, the students, in a loose group, moved northeast along the front of Taylor Hall, with some continuing toward a parking lot in front of Prentice The guardsmen chased the protesters over the hill, but rather than turning left as the protesters had, they continued heading straight, down toward an athletic practice field enclosed by a fence.

After a few minutes in the field, the Guardsmen left and went back up Blanket Hill. When they crested the hill, they turned and fired their weapons down toward the parking lot. Sixty-seven bullets were fired and four students were dead while nine others were injured and one was permanently paralyzed. Two of the students that were killed were not even part of the protest. They were walking from one class to the next. It is not known why the Guard fired on the students except to say that they were fired on by a sniper. The four people killed were: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder.

May 4, 1970 will always be remembered as a dark day in our nation’s history.