FOUR DEAD IN OHIO 1970 : We don’t forget . . . Sandra Lee Scheuer, aged 20, Allison B. Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, and William Knox Schroeder, 19.

 

I was going to post this yesterday but it gets swamped in all the fey Starwars jokes . . . . but can you recall or even imagine what it was like waking the next day to realise the National Guard (fully armed soldiers after all) had shot four students dead on campus in America!? We don’t forget and as a burgeoning teenager (17) and fellow student, I recall the horror and sheer disbelief that unarmed peaceful protesting fellow students guilty of nought but complaint and organising a sit in of their buildings and classrooms should die that day

Shame on you America!

"On this day, 4 May 1970, the Kent State massacre took place when the Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds into a crowd of students protesting against the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war, killing four and wounding nine others, including bystanders and one person who was permanently paralysed. 

Student John Cleary was there, and recalled how he tried to take a photograph of the soldiers: 

“As they got near the top of the hill, I wanted to get one last picture of them before they went over the crest of the hill. So I was kind of getting my camera, I was winding it, getting ready to take another shot and suddenly, they just turned and fired. It was like this volley of gunshots.

“And then I got hit in the chest. I guess the best way I can describe it is like getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. It just really knocked me down. I don't remember too much after that. I don't remember the ambulance ride.”

Cleary survived, but four people were killed: Sandra Lee Scheuer, aged 20,  Allison B. Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, and William Knox Schroeder, 19.

The repression galvanised anti-war sentiment, with students in New York hanging banners stating "You Can't Kill Us All" and in the next few days millions took to the streets in protest. 

In the wake of the massacre, rather than charge any of the killers, 25 students were indicted. But charges were dropped by the following year."

workingclasshistory.com

Learn more about the movement against the Vietnam war in our podcast episodes 43-46. 

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or here on our website: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/09/23/e43-46-the-movement-against-the-vietnam-war-in-the-us/

unarmed students faced THIS

tear gas and guns

KENT STATE UNIVERSITY : Killing of Students 53 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH

FOUR DEAD IN OHIO!

‘We’re finally on our own . . . . .  

Students Allison 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

Twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired more than 60 rounds over 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis 

That is STUDENTS! Little more than children at their studies finding out about life! Protesting the war in Vietnam! 

Unarmed students fired on by their own security services. If you step out of line and express your complaints by peacefully occupying a building as protest, they WILL SHOOT YOU! 

Make no mistake. 

Lest we forget!

(Richard Hamilton ‘Kent State’ screenprint 1970) 

Like Richard Hamilton the father of British Pop Art so called I saw this on my TV screen and it haunts me to this day . . . . as it clearly did him! I went on to interview him for my degree in Fine Art at Leicester under Historian Fred Orton and composer Gavin Bryars. Richard and his partner Rita Donagh, became life long friends 

John Filo   -  14-year Old Runaway Mary Ann Vecchio Kneeling Over the Dead Body of Kent State University Student Jeffrey Miller, One of Four Kent State Students Murdered by the National Guard During Anti-Vietnam War Protests May 4, 1970

The photo was taken by John Filo, a Kent State student majoring in photojournalism, 53 years ago today.

“It was because she was 14, because of her youth, that she ran to help, that she ran to do something. There were other people, 18, 19, 20 years old, who didn’t get close to the body. She did because she was a kid. She was a kid reacting to the horror in front of her.” John Filo

The National Guard getting ready , , , against unarmed children