Kent State Shootings (1970): National Guard Fire on Students

The Kent State shootings took place on 4 May 1970, when Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. Four students were killed and nine wounded, one of them permanently paralysed. The killings shocked the United States, triggered a nationwide student strike and became one of the defining images of the bitter divisions of the Vietnam era.

Background: the Cambodian incursion

By 1970 many Americans hoped the Vietnam War was winding down. President Richard Nixon had begun withdrawing troops, but on the evening of 30 April 1970 he announced on television that US and South Vietnamese forces had entered Cambodia to attack North Vietnamese bases. The Cambodian campaign appeared to widen the war, and protests erupted on campuses across the country.

At Kent State, a public university of about 21,000 students, a rally was held on the campus Commons at noon on Friday 1 May, where students buried a copy of the Constitution to symbolise its “murder”. That night, disturbances broke out in downtown Kent: bonfires were lit, cars were stopped and shop windows were broken.

The weekend of escalation

On Saturday 2 May Kent’s mayor, LeRoy Satrom, declared a state of emergency and asked Governor James A. Rhodes to send the National Guard. That evening a crowd gathered around the university’s wooden Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) building, which was set on fire; demonstrators hampered firefighters. The National Guard arrived on campus that night.

On Sunday 3 May Rhodes held a press conference in Kent at which he denounced the protesters in harsh terms, comparing them to Nazi brownshirts and communists and promising to use every force of law. Many students believed that the Guard had banned all gatherings, while others were unclear whether a noon rally planned for Monday was permitted. On Sunday night there were further confrontations near the campus.

The shooting on 4 May

Around noon on Monday 4 May about 2,000 to 3,000 people gathered on and around the Commons; many were spectators or students passing between classes. Guardsmen under Brigadier General Robert Canterbury ordered the crowd to disperse and fired tear gas. Some students threw back canisters and stones and shouted at the troops.

A group of about 75 guardsmen with fixed bayonets advanced over Blanket Hill, beside Taylor Hall, to a practice football field, where they found themselves hemmed in by a fence. After several minutes they marched back up the hill. At 12:24 p.m., on reaching the top near a concrete structure known as the Pagoda, a number of guardsmen turned and fired towards the students in the car park below.

In about 13 seconds, 28 guardsmen fired between 61 and 67 shots. Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, who had been protesting, were killed, along with Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder, who were not part of the demonstration. The nearest of the dead, Miller, was about 265 feet (81 metres) from the guardsmen. Nine others were wounded; Dean Kahler was left paralysed from the waist down.

Guardsmen later said they had felt threatened and feared for their lives, and some claimed to have heard a sniper. No evidence of a sniper was found. A faculty member, Glenn Frank, persuaded the remaining students to disperse and prevented further bloodshed.

The victims

• Allison Krause, 19, from Pennsylvania, had taken part in the protest; she had reportedly placed a flower in a guardsman’s rifle the day before.
• Jeffrey Miller, 20, from New York, had been protesting and was shot in the mouth at a distance of about 265 feet.
• Sandra Scheuer, 20, from Youngstown, Ohio, was a speech therapy student walking between classes.
• William Schroeder, 19, from Ohio, was an ROTC student and was watching the protest from a distance when he was hit in the back.

Among the nine wounded, Dean Kahler was paralysed and later became an advocate for remembering the shootings. Several of the wounded were more than 100 metres from the guardsmen when they were struck.

The national student strike

News of the shootings, and John Filo’s photograph of the 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over Jeffrey Miller’s body, spread across the country. Students at hundreds of colleges and schools went on strike; estimates suggest around 4 million students took part, and more than 450 campuses closed at some point. Kent State itself was shut for six weeks.

On 9 May about 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, DC. Not all Americans sympathised: on 8 May construction workers attacked anti-war protesters in New York in the “Hard Hat Riot”, and polls showed that many people blamed the students. On 14–15 May police fired on students at Jackson State College in Mississippi, a historically Black college, killing two young men.

Investigations and trials

The President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, chaired by former Pennsylvania governor William Scranton, reported in September 1970 that the shootings were “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable”. An Ohio grand jury, however, cleared the guardsmen in October 1970 and indicted 25 people, mostly students and a faculty member, over the earlier unrest; most of these charges were later dropped.

In 1974 a federal grand jury indicted eight guardsmen for violating the students’ civil rights, but a judge dismissed the case later that year for lack of evidence of specific intent. Civil suits by the wounded and the families of the dead were first decided in favour of the defendants in 1975, then overturned on appeal. In January 1979 the case was settled out of court for $675,000, and the defendants signed a statement expressing regret.

Legacy

The shootings became a symbol of the violence that the war had brought home to America. Neil Young wrote the song “Ohio”, released by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in June 1970. Filo’s photograph won the Pulitzer Prize.

Kent State University holds an annual commemoration every 4 May. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 2016, and a May 4 Visitors Center opened on campus in 2013. Markers in the car park now show where the four students fell. In 2010 a newly enhanced audio recording made by a student on the day renewed debate over whether an order to fire had been given, a question that has never been settled.

Timeline

• 1970, 30 April: Nixon announces US operations in Cambodia.
• 1970, 1 May: Anti-war rally at Kent State; disturbances in downtown Kent that night.
• 1970, 2 May: State of emergency declared; the ROTC building burns; the National Guard arrives.
• 1970, 3 May: Governor Rhodes condemns the protesters at a press conference in Kent.
• 1970, 4 May, 12:24 p.m.: Guardsmen open fire, killing four students and wounding nine.
• 1970, 9 May: About 100,000 protesters gather in Washington, DC.
• 1970, 14–15 May: Two people killed by police at Jackson State College, Mississippi.
• 1970, September: The Scranton Commission report is published.
• 1979, January: Civil suits end in a settlement and a statement of regret.

Why it matters

The Kent State shootings showed that the conflict over the Vietnam War could turn deadly on American soil. They intensified opposition to the war, deepened the divide between generations and political camps, and remain a reference point in debates about the right to protest and the use of armed troops against civilians.