I remember hearing the news of the Kent State killings at my own school campus that terrible Monday May 4, 1970.
The deaths of Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glen Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder left a life long impression upon me. Their senseless killings were what launched my heart into activism and eventually led me into writing as a means to address injustice and social ills.
Each year on May 4th I set aside time to remember the Kent State shootings and to meditate upon a national tragedy that never should have taken place.
Those who learn nothing from history are doomed to repeat its errors. I hate the thought I may yet become one who shares this fate.
No one has ever been convicted for the killings of the four students. And even though previously archived evidence was released as recently as two years ago it is doubtful that anyone will ever be held responsible for the deaths of these young people.
Kent State serves as a perpetual warning to us. Some of our leaders have sought, and continue to seek, an unprecedented wielding of power and control - even to the extent of overthrowing the Constitution as the final governing authority for our nation.
Just as it was in 1970 the past decade has seen the threat of war as the justification for killing and the usurping of constitutional rights. We must remember that the quest for absolute power is never satisfied.
We owe it to our children and to ourselves to do all we can - peacefully and non violently - to elect officials, support legislation, and influence politicians to effect righteous and democratic change in our land.
Memorializing events such as Kent State can and should cause us to work for peace and for a nation where the disregard of life and liberty is never tolerated.
As a nation we allowed the displacement and murder of countless Native Americans. We countenanced and participated in the kidnapping of millions of African souls. These blights on our history as a nation can either move us to heed our better angels and change for the good or they can give us an excuse to yield to our lower demons and find justifications for senseless acts of violence and killing that righteous people should never be able to be at peace with.
This thread is dedicated to Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glen Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder - four dead in Ohio.
My thanks to Alan Canfora for his unswerving dedication to exposing the Kent State tragedy and to the archives of Kent State University for many of the images found in this piece.
twenty-eight and four
you haven't slept for thirty years
your heart and soul won't let you
the tragedy of long ago
still fills your eyes with tears
you know you turned on Blanket Hill
you know you fired rounds
you know just where you shot your gun
and where those fell you killed
thirty seven years have passed
please go - retrace your steps
stand where you stood, aim where you aimed
relive this deed at last
the blood of four young souls cries out
gunned down by twenty-eight
let each one reenact the day
to silence guilt and doubt
when once you stand where once you stood
and look to where you shot
your buried conscience resurrect
to stir you as it should
it aches for you to rest from shame
to put a seal on this
come forward now and share the truth
humanity reclaim
you can do this - you can tell
the nightmare needs to end
go to the scene recall the day
and kneel where those kids fell
remember where you made your stand
and own the shot was yours
the horror of over thirty years
can end - dear god it can
you can bring this deed to light
at last admit your crime
before you close your eyes on earth
please finally do what's right
- dk 2007; for allison, jeffrey, sandra and william
THE FOUR
THE DEAD
Allison Krause
Age: 19
Date of Birth: April 23, 1951
Pittsburgh, PA
Freshman, Honors College
Chest wound - Allison Krause dies from a shot penetrating the left side of her body.
William Knox Schroeder
Age: 19
Date of Birth: July 20, 1950
Lorain, OH
Sophomore, Psychology
Chest wound - William Schroeder is shot in the back and dies.
Jeffrey Glen Miller
Age: 20
Date of Birth: March 28, 1950
Plainview, Long Island (NY)
Sophomore, Psychology
Head wound - Jeffrey Miller is shot in the mouth and dies.
Sandra Lee Scheuer
Age: 20
Date of Birth: August 11, 1949
Youngstown, OH
Junior, Speech & Hearing Therapy
Neck wound - Sandra Scheuer dies from a shot in the neck.
THE WOUNDED
Alan Canfora
Age: 21
Barberton, OH
John Cleary
Age: 19
Scotia, NY
Thomas Mark Grace
Age: 20
Syracuse, NY
Dean Kahler
Age: 20
Canton, OH
Joseph Lewis
Massillon, OH
Donald MacKenzie
Summit Station, PA
James Dennis Russell
Teaneck, NY
Robert Stamps
Age: 19
South Euclid, OH
Douglas Wrentmore
Age: 20
Northfield, OH
Ohio - live from Massey Hall 1971
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Comments
rw, you will lose that bet.
I did not arrive on campus until 1980, a full ten years after the shootings, and after the "tent city" protestors had failed to prevent the building of the new gymnasium. But the weight of what happened there was (and is) always with everyone, I think.
Thanks for keeping the memory alive.
Fast forward a handful of years and deadly force is used against college students protesting the war in Viet Nam.
Good to see you posting, Dennis.
tears here.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Let’s hope that whether it’s a Republican or Democrat in the White House that there will be no next time.
Ardee,
Thank you for your comment. It was a devastating piece of news and a terrible time for the nation. As we move ahead toward hopefully better days such events can fuel us to make certain this type of devastation is never repeated.
Procopius,
I appreciate you taking time to comment. I remember those kinds of discussions as well. Worse yet were the reaction of some folks interviewed in the immediate aftermath of the killings. I have video of one individual expressing the wish that more students had been shot. Defending that sort of violence is as senseless as the violence itself.
Jeanette,
Thank you for your moving comment. I have become so familiar with these images and videos over the years that I felt very close to the terrible event - until I read your words. I’m grateful you shared how you felt while attending Ohio State and admire that the haunting reality of what took place there never escaped you. That sort of awareness adds meaning to the lessons learned from the death of these four kids.
Ric,
Thanks so much for your comment and kind words. The order to use live rounds was one of many decisions that were deeply regrettable. Guardsmen who fired live rounds into groups of students are people I have always hoped to reach with these articles - for their consciences sake and to allow closure for those few surviving family members of the slain.
wakingupslowly
Thank you for your kind comment. Your response is a tremendous encouragement.
A kneejerk taste for authoritarianism, black-and-white thinking, unfounded paranoia, with-us-or-against-us mentality, and the easy availability of weapons of deadly force will all conspire to create a repeat. History does, sadly, repeat itself, and it's always predictable.
Your words, “It made a big difference in how I viewed the world--and still does” express so much of my heart to this day. Even the greatest tragedies can move us in a better direction if we allow them to. That’s my constant hope.
Verbal,
Thank you for your comment and take. The words “haunting” and “horror” are incredibly accurate. I am more often than not foolishly hopeful. I believe you are right. I just hold out that one day the, “with us or against us” mentality will fall prey to a long overdue and gleefully cheered extinction.
Stacey,
Thank you very much for your kind remarks and comment. Reading you held a candlelight vigil while in college and that you learned today that one of the surviving victims was from your home town was very moving.
Jeanette,
Thank you for your additional comments and for the NPR link. That recording is the more recently released evidence I referred to in the article.
I have a Kent State sticker in the back window of my car (I've always been proud to be an alumnus), and I remember once, at the grocery store, a nice young man was helping me put my groceries in the car, and he asked me if I went to college in Kentucky. He had never heard of Kent State. I was kind of shocked.
Maybe in the new era of mass shootings happening all the time, a death toll of four doesn't seem like such a big deal.
It was such a horrible event. I still have a hard time believing that it happened, even though I remember it.
Nearly forty years have passed since that terrible time. Posts like this one are aimed at garnering the attention of more than one generation. I have hope that those younger than myself will carry the burden onward for generations to come.
ktm,
Thank you for your comment. You have no idea how grateful I was to read your words. That was exactly my intent.
scanner,
They are terrible memories indeed. Kent State did in fact serve as one of the major turning points regarding the public’s reaction to the war.
bill
Thanks for your comment. I'm grateful the post allowed this day to be remembered.
I have worked on the Kent campus. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like the whole town is cast in a pall.
Thank you for your comments. I am always amazed and grateful (in a sad way) that so many people who are reminded of the Kent State shootings have such vivid recollections of that day.
Reading of your father’s reaction was moving and the sharing of your personal impressions and feelings while working on the Kent State University campus and by observing the town was more moving still.
chey,
Thanks for your kind words. One of the motivations I have for posting this memorial each year is for the sake of the families as well as the shooters. I hope for some sense of closure to be granted to those left behind as a result of the triumph of conscience in those who fired the shots that dreadful day.
It's amazing how differently the world seemed to those of us just a couple years after. It makes me aware of just how easily a people can go from keenly aware of political danger to complacent and ignorant of what can happen as soon as the danger seems no longer imminent.
I very much appreciate your work to make this so easily accessible. It helps me understand. Thanks.
Thank you for your thoughtful and generous comments. I really appreciated your remarks concerning the complacency and ignorance that can spread so easily when no apparent eminent threat appears.
The friends and acquaintances which I had during those years were, for the most part, young people who questioned nearly everything that was felt to be status quo. The shootings at Kent State became - as Stacey Youdin so aptly put it in an earlier comment - one of the “most formative” experiences for many of us who questioned things as they were.
Like others, I remember the "well, they deserved it" attitude prevalent in some segments of society. It still has the power to enrage me, even all these years later.
Rated
Thank you for your very kind comments. You really have understood the motivation behind the piece. The passing of time can soften many things. It has always been my hope that the Kent State Four will be remembered more fondly, in softer hearts, as each anniversary of their senseless killings comes around. A reckoning of what actually took place and some closure for the few living relatives would be a beautiful triumph of light over darkness.
Skeptic Turtle,
Thank you for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it.
Boanerges1
Thank you for your insightful comment. You’ve pointed out a vital truth. Neil Young felt the outrage over the killing of the Kent State four as a caring human being. Violence is a global plague with the power to infect like a virus - justified by the most empty of arguments. Outrage is a most appropriate and compassionate response to horrors such as those which took place that terrible day.
Kellylark,
Thank you for your kind remarks. It was a mind-boggling decision especially since live rounds, as was pointed out at the time, leave no room for other options in any situation of crowd control where they are used.
JK,
Thank you for you kind and informative comments. I’ve heard that first demo of “Ohio” and it’s remarkable. I think the live version as recorded on CSN&Y’s “4 Way Street” captures the raw emotion of the Kent State tragedy better than almost anything that has ever been written.
(rated in solemnity)
I sat motionless for a while as your words and images brought back the memory of that dreadful time. The disbelief, horror, anger and saddness came flooding back, it was still fresh waiting there, I buried it. Maybe these memories have prompted me to be such an advocate against violence and against a government that knows no bounds, such as the last administration. However, their darkness remains in people who want this power still and will incite any means they could, even violence to get it. Thank you for writing this. It must have been difficult.
markinjapan,
Thank you for taking the time ot post your appreciation.
Tandalyn,
Thank you so much for the kind words and for your insightful remarks. It is difficult to write this but it’s very hard to refrain from doing so. These young souls are not forgotten - and should not be.
while his punk office boy looked terrified held up against the wall by chicago mean polak god.....ya, right you make heros of 4 dead in ohio too bad the national guardmen did not get enough practice on the rifle range or maybe there would have be 40 dead in ohio!