From Protest to Tragedy
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History April 28 - May 4.
On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon addressed the country about the Vietnam War. Nixon had run for president in 1968, promising to end the conflict, which by then had claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of young Americans. Instead, Nixon announced an expansion of the war into Cambodia — and outrage erupted across the country.
Kent State University, a public institution in Ohio founded in 1910 as a teaching college, was named after railroad businessman and politician Marvin Kent. By the late 1960s, however, Kent State had become a hotbed of protest against the Vietnam War, the draft, and the increasing militarization of American life.
On Friday, May 1, 1970, Kent State students joined a nationwide school strike, walking out alongside students at more than 900 colleges and universities to tell the U.S. government, "No More War." That evening, over 100 students clashed with local police, and the mayor of Kent declared a state of emergency.
On Saturday, May 2, tensions escalated. Businesses and public officials reported threats, and Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes called in the National Guard around 5:00 p.m. The Guard did not arrive until nearly midnight. Reports from the time stated that students attacked firehouses and police stations, although accounts differ on the scale of the violence.
On Sunday, May 3, Governor Rhodes delivered a fiery speech at a local firehouse, denouncing the protesters as "revolutionaries" bent on the destruction of higher education. He pounded his desk for emphasis, vowing to take aggressive action.
By Monday, May 4, Kent State administrators declared that all protests were banned. In response, students gathered anyway, ringing the campus’s "Victory Bell" to call others to join them on the Commons.
Among the assembled students were Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Schroeder.
They never made it home.
At 12:24 p.m., after a tense standoff with demonstrators, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students, discharging 67 rounds over 13 seconds. Four students were killed — Krause, Miller, Scheuer, and Schroeder — and nine others were wounded. Some were active protesters; others, like Scheuer and Schroeder, were simply walking to class.
The Kent State shootings shocked the nation, fueling even deeper divisions over the Vietnam War and leaving a permanent scar on American history.
Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here's what I got:
1. Good Housekeeping Magazine went on sale on May 2, 1885. Poet Clark Byron started the publication covering the American lifestyle, including home decor. Byron used the opportunity to discuss curtains to get people to read his mediocre poetry. I need to look into how I can accomplish this for mediocre history essays.
2. Tennessee Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on May 2, 1955. Having won the award in 1948 for A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams landed the recognition with A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which is not about a Cat, nor a roof. But instead, about poor white people in the South who lie to each other a lot. It’s okay.
3. The Soviet Union shot down a US spy plane on May 1, 1960. The Soviets shot down the plane with a surface-to-air missile. The plane was flown by CIA operative Francis Gary Powers, who was captured, tried, and sentenced for being a spy and served two years. Tragically, Powers would end up dying in a helicopter crash, which is another reminder that I will never ride in a helicopter.
I hope everyone has a good last week of April. I don’t know where the month went! I have a busy week, but I hope to be back on Friday. Thanks for the support, and I hope you enjoyed my Even More Okay piece on Pope Francis.
See you soon!
Okay,
Chris
Just to clarify: although hundreds of thousands of persons died in the Vietnam conflict, the number of Americans who died was 58,220.
Chris, the tragic Kent State
protest was a monumental event for my generation. You would think it moved the electorate to reject Nixon, but he won reelection anyway. He had to resign for more mundane reasons.