Joe, I appreciate the spirit of the song but I would make one important correction. Sandy Scheuer and William Schroeder (an ROTC student) were not participating in any protest. They were walking from one class to the next and were both nearly 400 feet away from the firing position. An M1 rifle has quite a long range, one more reason for not firing weapons of war on a crowded college campus. I've always thought it was malfeasance on the part of the university to not cancel classes after four days of unrest and a National Guard occupation. There may have been pressure to stay open by Governor Rhodes who a day earlier had said of the students "They're worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes. They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. Now I want to say this. They are not going to take over [the] campus. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America." He also blamed the protests on outside agitators, but all 13 of the dead and wounded were students in good standing.
I grew up less than 30 miles from KSU and was in 7th grade at the time. I remember my mom being incensed by the shootings even though she was a life-long dyed-in-the-wool Republican. I think having sons aged 12 and 15 may have overrode her conservatism. I still live in the vicinity and I've attended many of the memorials over the years. Would have gone this year but all was cancelled because of the 'rona. One tradition that dates to 1971 has student volunteers stand overnight holding candles on the 4 spots where students were killed. In my younger days I would sometimes spend the whole night sitting nearby with the students waiting there turn. One year I could see that one of the kids was starting droop around 3 or 4 in the morning so I took his place and stood vigil for Jeffry Miller for the rest of the night. It was an emotional and moving experience.
Let me address a couple things Mrrzy said: "Another 11 days for the Jackson State one nobody heard about." He is referring to an incident at the all black university when the police randomly fired a volley into a dormitory, killing two. It is true that this didn't receive as much notice as the killing of white middle-class kids at KSU and that is sad. I would, however, like to point out that the May 4th Coalition who organizes yearly events at Kent have always included Jackson State in their programs, inviting representatives from that school as speakers every year. Often at these memorials you seldom hear Kent without "and Jackson State", as in the often chanted Two, four, six. eight, remember Kent and Jackson State.
The other thing Mrrzy said was "For decades I thought the lyric was "forgetting Ohio" which seemed appropriate to me." I can only ask, WTF is that supposed to mean?