FAQ
Q. What were the Kent state Shootings?
A. The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre, were the killings of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio, 40 miles south of Cleveland. The killings took place during a peace rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into neutral Cambodia by United States military forces as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus. The incident marked the first time that a student had been killed in an anti-war gathering in United States history.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What is the Civil Rights Movement?
A. The civil rights movement in the United States was a decades-long campaign by African Americans and their like-minded allies to end institutionalized racial discrimination, disenfranchisement and racial segregation in the United States. The movement has its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the mid-1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the human rights of all Americans.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What is the Anti War Movement?
A. Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War began with demonstrations in 1964 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social movement over the ensuing several years. This movement informed and helped shape the vigorous and polarizing debate, primarily in the United States, during the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s on how to end the war.
Many in the peace movement within the United States were students, mothers, or anti-establishment hippies. Opposition grew with participation by the African-American civil rights, second-wave feminist movements, Chicano Movements, and sectors of organized labor. Additional involvement came from many other groups, including educators, clergy, academics, journalists, lawyers, physicians—such as Benjamin Spock—and military veterans.
Their actions consisted mainly of peaceful, nonviolent events; few events were deliberately provocative and violent. In some cases, police used violent tactics against peaceful demonstrators.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What is Apartheid?
A. Apartheid (South African English: /əˈpɑːrteɪd/; Afrikaans: [aˈpartɦɛit], segregation; lit. "aparthood") was a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap (or white supremacy), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. According to this system of social stratification, white citizens had the highest status, followed by Asians and Coloreds, then black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What was the Fair Housing Act?
A. Titles VIII through IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, are commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, which was meant as a follow‑up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (this is different legislation than the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, which expanded housing funding programs). While the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions.[2] The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, sex. Since 1988, the act protects people with disabilities and families with children. Pregnant women are also protected from illegal discrimination because they have been given familial status with their unborn child being the other family member. Victims of discrimination may use both the 1968 act and the 1866 act's section 1983 to seek redress. The 1968 act provides for federal solutions while the 1866 act provides for private solutions (i.e., civil suits). The act also made it a federal crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone... by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin, handicap or familial status."
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What is the SDS?
A. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships and parliamentary procedure, the founders conceived of the organization as a broad exercise in "participatory democracy." From its launch in 1960 it grew rapidly in the course of the tumultuous decade with over 300 campus chapters and 30,000 supporters recorded nationwide by its last national convention in 1969. The organization splintered at that convention amidst rivalry between factions seeking to impose national leadership and direction, and disputing "revolutionary" positions on, among other issues, the Vietnam War and Black Power.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What is the organization Black United Students?
A. Since its start in May 1968, BUS developed into an organization recognized for its advocacy of social justice for people of color, and African-American students in particular.
According to the university website, the philosophy of BUS “is to serve and unify all black students at Kent State University by addressing their needs. It seeks to identify relevant issues ... to reduce or eliminate any impediments to be adverse to students.”
The organization was founded during a period of intense activism. BUS focused its early initiatives on inclusion as members questioned why Kent State did not provide events and activities that reflected their own cultures and experiences.
Source: KentWired.com
Q. What is the Center of Pan-African Culture?
A. The Center of Pan-African Culture (CPAC), founded in 1970 by the Black United Students (BUS), provides the opportunity and the facilities for exposition of art forms—painting, sculpture, oral and written literature, music, dance, theatre—and other cultural modes of expression that define people of African descent.
Source: Kent.edu
Q. What was Who Rules Kent?
A. An undated publication by the Kent State University Chapter of SDS, titled "Who Rules Kent?" The publication focuses mainly on members of the Ohio Board of Regents and the Board of Trustees and was part of the student protests there.
Source: Kent.edu
Q. What was The National Moratorium?
A. In May 1969, Life magazine published in a single issue photographs of the faces of the roughly 250 or so American servicemen who had been killed in Vietnam during a "routine week" of war in the spring of 1969. Contrary to expectations, the issue sold out with many being haunted by the photographs of the ordinary young Americans killed. On October 15, 1969, hundreds of thousands of people took part in National Moratorium anti-war demonstrations across the United States; the demonstrations prompted many workers to call in sick from their jobs and adolescents nationwide engaged in truancy from school. About 15 million Americans took part in the demonstration of October 15, making it the largest protests in a single day up to that point. A second round of "Moratorium" demonstrations was held on November 15 and attracted more people than the first.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What was The ROTC Building Fire?
A. On May 2, 1970, City officials and downtown businesses received threats, and rumors proliferated that radical revolutionaries were in Kent to destroy the city and university. Several merchants reported they were told that if they did not display anti-war slogans, their businesses would be burned down. Kent's police chief told the mayor that according to a reliable informant, the ROTC building, the local army recruiting station, and post office had been targeted for destruction that night. There were unconfirmed rumors of students with caches of arms, plots to spike the local water supply with LSD, and of students building tunnels for the purpose of blowing up the town's main store. Satrom met with Kent city officials and a representative of the Ohio Army National Guard. Because of the rumors and threats, Satrom feared that local officials would not be able to handle future disturbances. Following the meeting, Satrom made the decision to call Rhodes and request that the National Guard be sent to Kent, a request that was granted immediately.
The decision to call in the National Guard was made at 5:00 p.m., but the guard did not arrive in town that evening until around 10 p.m. By this time, a large demonstration was underway on the campus, and the campus Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) building was burning. The arsonists were never apprehended, and no one was injured in the fire. According to the report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest:
Information developed by an FBI investigation of the ROTC building fire indicates that, of those who participated actively, a significant portion weren't Kent State students. There is also evidence to suggest that the burning was planned beforehand: railroad flares, a machete, and ice picks are not customarily carried to peaceful rallies.
There were reports that some Kent firemen and police officers were struck by rocks and other objects while attempting to extinguish the blaze. Several fire engine companies had to be called because protesters carried the fire hose into the Commons and slashed it. The National Guard made numerous arrests, mostly for curfew violations, and used tear gas; at least one student was slightly wounded with a bayonet.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. Who sang Street Fighting Man?
A. "Street Fighting Man" is a song by English rock band the Rolling Stones featured on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet. Called the band's "most political song", Rolling Stone ranked the song number 301 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The song was released within a week of the violent confrontations between the police and anti-Vietnam War protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Worried about the possibility of the song inciting further violence, Chicago radio stations refused to play the song. This was much to the delight of Mick Jagger, who stated: "I'm rather pleased to hear they have banned (the song). The last time they banned one of our records in America, it sold a million." Jagger said he was told they thought the record was subversive, to which he snapped: "Of course it's subversive! It's stupid to think you can start a revolution with a record. I wish you could."
Keith Richards weighed into the debate when he said that the fact a couple of radio stations in Chicago banned the record "just goes to show how paranoid they are". At the same time they were still requested to do live appearances and Richards said: "If you really want us to cause trouble, we could do a few stage appearances. We are more subversive when we go on stage."
Source: Wikipedia
Q. Who died on May 4th?
A. Twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. Students Allison Beth Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, and Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, died on the scene, while William Knox Schroeder, 19, was pronounced dead at Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna shortly afterward.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What was the Ohio Grand Jury?
A. A grand jury indicted five guardsmen on felony charges -- Lawrence Shafer, 28, and James McGee, 28, both of Ravenna, Ohio; James Pierce, 30, of Amelia Island, Florida.; William Perkins, 38 of Canton, Ohio; and Ralph Zoller, 27, of Mantua, Ohio. Barry Morris, 30, of Kent, Ohio; Leon Smith, 27, of Beach City, Ohio; and Matthew McManus, 28, of West Salem, Ohio, were indicted on misdemeanor charges. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense, testimony that was generally accepted by the criminal justice system.
On November 8, 1974, U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti dismissed civil rights charges against all of the accused on the basis that the prosecution's case did not warrant a trial. “It is vital that state and National Guard officials not regard this decision as authorizing or approving the use of force against demonstrators, whatever the occasion of the issue involved," Battisti said in his opinion. "Such use of force is, and was, deplorable.”
Source: Wikipedia
Q. Who sang Ohio?
A. "Ohio" is a protest song and counterculture anthem written and composed by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, and performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
An article in The Guardian in 2010 describes the song as the 'greatest protest record' and 'the pinnacle of a very 1960s genre.' while also saying 'The revolution never came.'
The lyrics help evoke the turbulent mood of horror, outrage, and shock in the wake of the shootings, especially the line "four dead in Ohio," repeated throughout the song. "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming" refers to the Kent State shootings, where Ohio National Guard officers shot and killed four students who were protesting against the Vietnam War. Crosby once stated that Young keeping Nixon's name in the lyrics was "the bravest thing I ever heard." The American counterculture took the group as its own after this song, giving the four a status as leaders and spokesmen they would enjoy to a varying extent for the rest of the decade.
After the single's release, it was banned from some AM radio stations including in the state of Ohio, because of the challenge to the Nixon Administration but received airplay on underground FM stations in larger cities and college towns. Today, the song receives regular airplay on classic rock stations. The song was selected as the 395th Greatest Song of All Time by Rolling Stone in December 2004. In 2009, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What happened at Jackson State University?
A. On May 14, ten days after the Kent State shootings, two students were killed (and 12 wounded) by police at Jackson State University, a historically black university ("HBCU"), in Jackson, Mississippi, under similar circumstances—the Jackson State killings—but that event did not arouse the same nationwide attention as the Kent State shootings.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What was the Kent 25 Legal Defense Fund?
A. In September 1970, twenty-four students and one faculty member, identified from photographs, were indicted on charges connected either with the May 4 demonstration or with the one at the ROTC building fire three days before; they became known as the "Kent 25". The Kent Legal Defense Fund was organized to provide legal resources to oppose the indictments. Five cases, all related to the burning of the ROTC building, went to trial: one non-student defendant was convicted on one charge and two other non-students pleaded guilty. One other defendant was acquitted, and charges were dismissed against the last. In December 1971, all charges against the remaining twenty were dismissed for lack of evidence.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What was the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest?
A. On June 13, 1970, as a consequence of the killings of protesting students at Kent State and Jackson State, President Nixon established the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, known as the Scranton Commission, which he charged to study the dissent, disorder, and violence breaking out on college and university campuses across the nation.
The Commission issued its findings in a September 1970 report that concluded that the Ohio National Guard shootings on May 4, 1970, were unjustified. The report said:
Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.
Source: Wikipedia
Q. What is the May 4th Taskforce?
A. The May 4th Task Force is a student led organization at Kent State University founded to preserve the history of May 4th, 1970 and its aftermath. The M4TF seeks to enshrine the legacy of protest and dissent at Kent State and draw parallels between the civil rights and anti-war movement of the 60's and 70's to now. The M4TF intends to evolve as commemoration, events, and education changes while maintaining the rich history and traditions on the KSU campus dedicated to honoring the lives of Jeff, Sandy, Bill, and Allison. May we never forget.
Source: Kent.edu
Q. What was the Tent City Protest?
A. From May 12, 1977 to July 12, 1977, more than 100 protesters lived in tents on Blanket Hill. It was a diverse community in terms of both class and status. Students, community members and people from across the country, including children, resided in the tents. For two months, demonstrators camped in opposition to the university’s decision to build a gym annex on part of the land where the May 4 shootings occurred. During the Tent City protests at Kent State, July 12, 1977, More than 190 people were arrested this day, when an order to disperse was read and the camp was cleared.
Tent City can serve as a reminder that if students feel strongly about something, they can find others who share their values and work together to fight for justice, especially at Kent State. The legacy of May 4, 1970 includes the struggles the community went through to see that the tragedies were remembered, and it will continue to transform as new students learn about the shootings and react to them in the years that come.
Source: KentWired.com