Imagine standing in the grass between the grape arbor and Taft Bridge on campus. Feel the tension run through your veins as you protest a war you think is unjust through your constitutional rights.
The days leading up to this protest have been filled with violence and turmoil. Radical demonstrators have burned down an ROTC building near campus, but you stand firm in your stance against the war.
Now picture more than 70 National Guardsmen, wearing gas masks, pointing loaded guns at you.
On May 4, 1970, roughly 3,000 students stood in this exact situation on the Kent State University campus in Kent, Ohio. All the students were unarmed, although many antagonized guardsmen by throwing rocks and tossing back tear gas grenades that had been thrown at them.
After a long period of strain, 28 of the guardsmen turned and fired blindly into the crowd of students. Some guardsmen fired into the air or the ground, but some fired directly at students.
Four students were killed and nine were injured.
This tragedy was included in the lecture from my history class April 23, and a short YouTube video called “Vietnam; Kent State Massacre May 4, 1970” was shown.
After the video ended, a conversation over the title ensued. Several students did not believe the shooting classified as a massacre. Their arguments being only four students were killed and a mere nine injured.
Yes. Four unarmed students were killed, and nine fellow protesters were injured – not to mention by fully protected guardsmen, all of whom could have apprehended the students and simply arrested them.
No matter how many students were killed or injured, the event that took place on Kent State’s campus that day was a massacre.
Another tragic event in American history occurred 200 years before the bloodshed at Kent State. The Boston Massacre was the result of British forces shooting unarmed American colonists on March 5, 1770.
The colonists were protesting British occupation in America just like the Kent State students were assembling against the Vietnam War. The opposing guards, the British and National Guards, were both armed and at an obvious advantage compared to their meager opponents.
Both guards fired at random in a large group of unarmed protestors, and both shootings resulted in death. Five colonists died in the Boston Massacre and four at Kent State.
Yet, small opposition to the name of the Boston Massacre exists. Meanwhile, some of today’s students don’t feel the cold-blooded murder of four other students is enough to justify a massacre.
Tuesday marks the 40-year anniversary of the deadly event at Kent State University. <br/>So, to those of you who think the Kent State shooting is just that, a shooting, try to put yourself in the place of those 3,000 students standing in the grass on a sunny day in May.So, to those of you who think the Kent State shooting is just that, a shooting, try to put yourself in the place of those 3,000 students standing in the grass on a sunny day in May.
So, to those of you who think the Kent State shooting is just that, a shooting, try to put yourself in the place of those 3,000 students standing in the grass on a sunny day in May.
Try to feel the terror that shook the campus after the bullets hit the ground. <br/>And try to tell yourself that it wasn't a massacre. And try to tell yourself that it wasn't a massacre.
And try to tell yourself that it wasn’t a massacre.