Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970

Subject: BS: Kent State was 50 years ago
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 May 20 - 12:11 AM

Jus' sayin'.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 May 20 - 02:28 AM

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: JHW
Date: 04 May 20 - 04:51 AM

Apologise I didn't remember, though I was around then.
Heard documentary Radio4 Sat 2May 8pm. Tragic but as Sandman says above.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 May 20 - 05:02 AM

It was shocking and appalling that Ohio National Guardsmen would shoot and kill students from their own state who were the same age as they, student who were just expressing what had been touted for generations as their sacred First Amendment Rights. We still don't know what went wrong., The violation of those rights has become even more extreme under the current Presidential Administration.

I hope and pray that the United States turns back toward its ideals, but I really don't know if that is going to happen.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 May 20 - 11:49 AM

Wait, the guardsmen could not know if the students were from in- or out-of-state.

Irrelevant, immaterial and the third one too.

Another 11 days for the Jackson State one nobody heard about.

For decades I thought the lyric was "forgetting Ohio" which seemed appropriate to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 May 20 - 12:12 PM

Hey Sandy: a musical link.

Subject: ADD: Kent State Massacre (Barbara Dane)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 May 20 - 08:35 PM

Brothers, listen to my story
Sisters, listen to my song
Gonna sing of four young people
Who are now dead and gone
Two of them were twenty
And two were just nineteen
Just stepping out to meet the world
Like so many you have seen

It was in Kent State, Ohio
On a Monday afternoon
The air was full of springtime
The flowers were in bloom
It was a scene of terror
That none will soon forget
Young students stood with empty hands
To face the bayonets

Alli Krause and Sandy Scheuer
Marched and sang a peaceful song
Like Bill Schroeder and Jeff Miller
They did not think it wrong
They laughed and joked with troopers
And some to them did say:
We march to bring the GIs home
And we are not afraid

No warning were they given
No mercy and no chance
The air was filled with teargas
The troopers did advance
Suddenly they knelt and fired
The students turned and fled
Fifteen fell at that moment
And four of them were dead

On the campus they were murdered
In the springtime of their lives
As angry sorrow swept the land
Their friends and parents cried
They’d hardly learned to struggle
But witness they will be
They died for those in Vietnam
Also for you and me

But while we march and mourn today
There's much more we must do
We must teach ourselves to organize
And see the struggle through
Blood flowed upon the 4th of May
And we'll know it's color well
'Til we sink this murdering system
In the darkest pits of hell

Kent State Massacre
Barbara Dane

https://genius.com/Barbara-dane-kent-state-massacre-lyrics

Subject: RE: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Neil D
Date: 12 May 20 - 09:38 PM

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?

Subject: RE: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 May 20 - 02:50 AM

THE ICONIC PHOTOGRAPH that those of us who were around at the time will never forget - still brings a lump to the throat
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 May 20 - 04:02 AM

Hey Sandy, hey Sandy, why were you the one?
All the years of growing up are wasted now and gone
Did you see them turn, did you feel the burn of the bullets as they flew?
Hey Sandy, hey Sandy, just what did you do?
Hey Sandy, hey Sandy, just what did you do?

Well the sun was hot and the air was heavy as the marching men came by
And you ran to the door to watch them pass and you asked the soldiers "Why?"
And the sound of the steel and the blackboot's heel was pounding in your head
And your freedom's past, they have come at last with the blessings of the dead
Hey Sandy...

In the college square they were standing there with the flag and with the drum
And the whispered word as the young ones stirred was "Now at last they've come"
And the air was still with the lonely thrill of now the hour is near
And the smell of sweat was better yet than the awful stench of fear
Hey Sandy...

Through the air the shout as you all ran out was "Why are these things done?"
And you stood and you stared but no one cared for another campus bum
And your songs were dead and the hymns instead were to the burning pyre
And the words of youth, like love and truth, just ashes in the fire
Hey Sandy...

Did you throw the stone at the men alone with their bayonets fixed for hire?
Did you doubt that they would, say no one could, did you scream when they opened fire?
As the square ran red and your bloodstain spread and the darkness 'round you grew
Through the fear and the pain did you call the name of the man you never knew?
Hey Sandy...
Songwriter: Harvey Andrews

Subject: RE: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 May 20 - 09:30 AM

What I meant was, I never even heard about Kent State till the 80's, and the whole thing seemed largely forgotten, so a song protesting the forgetting seemed appropriate to me. I did not mean the forgetting was appropriate, thank you for asking and giving me a chance to rephrase.

Subject: RE: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Raggytash
Date: 13 May 20 - 09:47 AM

One of the first songs I ever learnt, from a great songwriter Harvey Andrews




Hey Sandy

Subject: RE: Kent State was 50 years ago-May 4, 1970
From: Neil D
Date: 14 May 20 - 06:27 AM

That's OK Mrrzy. I agree that forgetting May 4th would not be appropriate. It was just that I interpreted your words as a put down of my beautiful state and I may have overreacted. You must be much younger than me to not have heard about the massacre till the 80's. Of course, where I lived it was all anybody talked about, but it was also very much a national, if not international, story. The shootings themselves as well as subsequent events: 450 campuses shut down; 11 students bayonetted by guardsmen at New Mexico State; in NYC an extremely violent counter demonstration by Nixonite construction workers gained infamy as the Hard Hat Riot; 100,000 protesters in Washington DC became so raucous that Nixon was removed from the capital for his own protection; the murder of 2 unarmed students by police at Historical Black University, Jackson State. May, 1970 was the true turning point. Before then it was mostly draft aged kids and left wingers who were against the war. After that it became increasingly unpopular with the public at large, till it became unsustainable. Many of my parents generation even found a way to not support the war without compromising their conservativism. A line I remember hearing from many voices was: "We're not going all out to try to win this thing, so we might as well get out." After spending 6 years, 50,000 American lives, trillions in materiel and dropping more bombs on Hanoi than were dropped in all of WWII, I'm not sure what more they thought we should do. Nukes?!
The song "Sandy" is indeed moving, but once again let me point out that Sandy Scheuer was not part of the protests so she would not have run out with the other students nor did she "throw the stone at the men alone with their bayonets fixed for hire?" I don't like to harp on this, but I think it is very important that people understand that half of the casualties were just kids going to class as it attests to recklessness: of the university for not suspending classes that day and the guard for indiscriminately firing M1 rifles on a crowded campus during the busiest time of day. The song could very well have been called "Hey Alison" because the other young woman killed, Alison Krause, was very much a participant in the protests.
As bad as the Kent State shootings were they, could have been so much worse, bringing me to the story of the one true, if unsung, hero on campus that day, geology professor Glenn Frank. Immediately after the shootings you'd have expected the students to disperse but, instead, they massed for an all out assault on the guard, who were locked and loaded and had taken up firing position. Professor Frank placed himself between the National Guard and hundreds of furious students and with a borrowed megaphone exhorted the students for twenty minutes to not charge into the ranks of guardsmen. Eventually they did disperse and Prof Frank's own son, one of the protestors, later credited his father with saving hundreds of lives. When I listen to the recording of the event and hear the tears and fears and miserable desperation in his voice as he implores "I don't care whether you've never listened to anyone before in your lives. I am begging you right now. If you don't disperse right now, they're going to move in, and it can only be a slaughter. Would you please listen to me? Jesus Christ, I don't want to be a part of this", it simply rips my heart out.