May 4, 1970: Four Dead in Ohio (Kent State)

(Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken by John Filo of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling over the body of student Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot dead by the National Guard at Kent State, Ohio.)

In the spring of 1970, despite massive nationwide marches, demonstrations, teach-ins, protests, letter-writing, petitioning of the government and demands from the citizens that the U.S. War Against Vietnam be ended and the troops be brought home, Richard Nixon decided to expand the war by starting a war against another country, Cambodia. When the nation learned that the war had been expanded, and the United States was attacking Cambodia, all hell broke loose all across the country.

(National Guard with riot gear, rifles up, bayonettes in fixed position, ready to "confront" unarmed college students in anti-war demonstrations at Kent State, Ohio).

Students from law schools, colleges, high schools and junior high schools walked out of their classrooms and gathered on their campuses and in the streets to protest the war. Not only students and hippies marched in the streets, but also mothers, fathers, children, car-dealers, veterans, CPAs were out demanding that this illegal, immoral, disastrous war be ended.

The response of the Republicans who were in charge was to get tough and send in the National Guard to any area where there was any possibility of a disturbance of the peace through peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, mass rallies or otherwise. The National Guard has never been so dispersed in modern times among the civilians, told to raise their weapons against the citizens of this country, in such a broad manner, for the purpose of preventing the citizens from protesting the actions of the national government. If anyone wonders how Fascism would come to this country, it would likely start by the government turning the National Guard against the people of their own communities such as happened in 1970.

(Kent State students being gassed by National Guard - streams show cannisters being lobbed at students)

One college which had protests and demonstrations and teach-ins and sit-ins was Kent State in Ohio. The National Guard was sent in and told to disperse the students (although they went to school there, and there was no legitimate reason they should not or could not have been there). But the National Guard nonetheless went in and ordered all the students to leave.

(Kent State students, "armed" only with their bookbags, teen-agers, almost still children, after being shot and killed by the National Guard which had been sent to their college to stop them from publicly protesting against the Nixon government.)

The National Guard, in full riot gear, rifles up, bayonnettes in a fixed and ready position, began moving on the students in one long line, shoving them back, yelling, and threatening. Chaos was the inevitable result. Then the National Guard began lobbing cannisters of tear gas into the middle of the crowd of students, blinding the students, causing a stampede with some shoved to the ground. Some of the students picked up rocks and threw them at the National Guard.

As the students moved back, away from the line of the National Guard, the National Guard also began to retreat but stopped at one point, turned, faced the retreating students. Someone in the National Guard gave the clear order to "Fire," and the National Guard fired directly into the crowd of unarmed students -- 67 shots in total. Four students were killed. No one was ever held accountable. This was murder.

Kent State was followed by police shootings ten days later at another college named Jackson State, in Mississippi, where African-American students demonstrating against the war were shot, two killed and 12 wounded. There was also a shooting by the National Guard-occupied campus at the University of California in Santa Barbara, where one student was killed.

Neal Young wrote the song "Ohio" ("Four Dead in Ohio") as a tribute to the murdered students and a rallying cry for the anti-war movement:

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.