Kent project to collect memories

Forty years have passed, but memories remain fresh of what occurred during four days in May on a pretty campus in northeastern Ohio.

That year, the gently rolling grassy hills of Kent State University were dotted not by people relaxing in the sun but by Vietnam War protesters and National Guardsmen with rifles.

Emotions ran high, spurred by news of U.S. bombings in Cambodia on one side and by exhaustion on the part of the guardsmen, fresh off a Teamsters strike.

Trouble began on Friday night, with vandalism downtown and a bonfire in the street. The ROTC building was burned on Saturday.

And on a sunny Monday, shortly after noon, guardsmen shot and killed four students and wounded nine others.

Many details of the day remain debated, but the names of the dead have become well-known: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder.

Faculty members kept the situation from escalating that day. Immediately after the shootings, they received permission to speak to students and persuaded them to leave the Commons area.

Geology professor Glenn Frank pleaded: "I don't care if you've never listened to anybody before in your life. I am begging you right now, if you don't disperse right now, they're going to move in. It will only be a slaughter. Please, listen to me. Jesus Christ, I don't want to be part of this. Listen to me."

My sisters were both Kent students in May 1970. They have never liked to talk about that day. They and the 22,000 other students enrolled were ordered off the campus after the shootings. They took what they could carry and made their way through chaos, leaving the rest of their belongings in their dorm rooms, to be picked up later.

University students finished their classes by mail that quarter or by meeting in small groups in the homes of professors. A curfew was in place.

By June, normalcy was returning. About 1,200 students received their degrees in a ceremony.

I learned a lot about those days from a wonderful book - The Kent Affair - by professors Ottavio M. Casale and Louis Paskoff, the latter who became my English professor in the 1980s.

Out of print, the book sticks in my mind because of its level of detail. It describes the search of dorms and the confiscation of "weapons," including a felt-covered brick, which likely had been a doorstop.

This year, a project has been formed to record and broadcast the memories of those who were present on May 4, 1970.

Spearheaded by the sister of Allison Krause, the Kent State Truth Tribunal will operate May 1-4 from Franklin Square Deli Building at the corner of Water and Main streets. The group invites people to tell their stories on camera in front of an interviewer. For more information, visit www.truthtribunal.org.

The tribunal has a page on Facebook in which people are beginning to recount their recollections. Excerpts from a few of the postings:

"I'll never forget Sandy's blood on my hands. It was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War. Why was such a high price paid?"

- Larry Raines


"I was at Oberlin College at the time, and Kent State students came to our campus - very close - as a refuge. Many of us feared that the country was headed for a police state."

- David Palmer


"On the afternoon of Sunday, May 3, I went out on a walk to dispel some nervous energy. I ended up over at Walls Elementary School, which was being used for a sort of impromptu military base for the newly arrived National Guardsmen who arrived the night before.

"I spoke to a guardsman on the playground and noticed the . . . strap of bullets he was carrying. I asked him if I could see one, since I'd never before seen a bullet.

"He handed it to me and it was the size of my middle finger and remarkably heavy. I asked him if he was going to shoot someone and he confessed he was ready to shoot anyone right now.

"For years, I've wondered if that one lone man and that one lone bullet I held killed or injured anyone."

- Sally Burnell


What happened at Kent State in 1970 changed a nation forever. The new walking tour will help us retrace our history, and learn from that pivotal time.

Its lessons should not be forgotten.

Cindy Decker is Dispatch travel editor. Reach her at 614-461-5027 or by e-mail.

cdecker@dispatch.com