the kent state shootings (1970)

• on 4th may 1970, ohio national guardsmen shot dead 4 unarmed students during a protest on the kent state university campus against the vietnam war
• 2 of the dead students were not even protestors, just students who were moving between classes
• 9 more students were wounded
• the shooting came 4 days after nixon's announcement of US troops being sent into cambodia
• on friday 1st may, a group of students decided to bury a copy of the US constitution as a protest, one of them who had fought in vietnam, decided too also bury his discharge papers
• about 500 students took part in the protest, causing events to spiral out of control
• in the evening after the protest, there was fighting between pro-war and anti-war groups
• on 2nd may, there were several demonstrations
• in the evening of 2nd may the officer training corps building on campus was burned down, and there were now over 1,000 demonstrators
• the mayor declared an emergency and 900 members of the national guard arrived with rifles and tear gas
• on 3rd may, there were several demonstrations, broken up by the national guard with tear gas
• on 4th may, officials banned a demonstration planned for 12am, and about 2,000 people ignored the ban
• the national guard could not break up the demonstration with tear gas and students threw empty gas canisters and bricks at them, leading to the national guard firing into the crowd
• the public were horrified by the kent state shootings, mainly because it involved white, middle-class students
• 2 weeks after the shootings, in contrast to this, 2 black students were shot during anti-war protests at jackson state university, a predominantly black university, and there was very little publicity
• public reaction over the mississippi murders of 1964 followed a similar pattern
• there was a horror over the mississippi shootings, however the regular murder of black men in mississippi had produced far less reaction