Above the Shots: An Oral History of the Kent State Shootings Read online

  Above the Shots

  Above

  THE SHOTS

  An Oral History of the

  Kent State Shootings

  CRAIG S. SIMPSON AND

  GREGORY S. WILSON

  The Kent State University Press

  Kent, Ohio

  © 2016 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Catalog Number 2015036107

  ISBN 978-1-60635-291-5

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Simpson, Craig S., author. | Wilson, Gregory S., author.

  Title: Above the shots : an oral history of the Kent State shootings /

  Craig S. Simpson and Gregory S. Wilson.

  Description: Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, [2016] |

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015036107 | ISBN 9781606352915 (pbk. : alk. paper) ∞

  Subjects: LCSH: Kent State Shootings, Kent, Ohio, 1970. | Kent State University--History.

  Classification: LCC LD4191.O72 S56 2016 | DDC 378.771/37--dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015036107

  20 19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  The Narrators

  Introduction: The Project, by Craig S. Simpson

  Introduction: The Memory, by Gregory S. Wilson

  Part One: “The largest unknown university in the world”

  Part Two: “An edge in the air”

  Part Three: “A bullet is a drastic answer”

  Part Four: “The divide in this country”

  Part Five: “The beginning of an ending”

  Notes

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  Throughout the process of researching and writing this book, we benefited from the insights and assistance of several people and organizations.

  Steve Paschen and Amanda Faehnel at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives were exceedingly accommodating as we navigated the voluminous May 4 Collection. Also at KSU, Lori Boes at the May 4 Visitors Center gave valuable time and shared her insights on the events of May 4th, 1970, and their meaning. A long-standing member of the Kent community, Sandra Perlman Halem not only recorded the first official series of interviews for the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project but also generously helped forge connections for subsequent interviews. In Columbus, the staff at the Ohio Historical Society provided great assistance in locating records relevant to the shootings. At Indiana University, Joel Silver and Lori Dekydtspotter made several helpful suggestions to overcome periods of stasis and uncertainty.

  At KSU Press, Joyce Harrison and Will Underwood exhibited Job-like patience as we worked through many drafts and took longer than we anticipated in seeing this volume through to production. Tom Grace was incredibly generous with his time as an official reader of our manuscript, a historian who combines a deep academic background with firsthand experience of these events and who is a valued friend. Thanks as well to the anonymous reader for KSU Press for his or her thoughts on our manuscript. Additionally, Bill Childs and David Steigerwald read portions of the text and aided our thinking about the material and its context.

  We had the good fortune to present early, draft portions of our research at the Oral History Association meetings in 2011 (Denver) and 2012 (Cleveland). We thank our fellow panelists, audience members, and the organizers for the opportunity to share our ideas and hear their feedback. Troy Reeves deserves special thanks for arranging CSPAN-3 to record and air our 2011 panel on campus protests in the 1960s, as does Barbara Truesdell, assistant director of the Center for the Study of History and Memory at Indiana University, for her expert moderation of that panel.

  Our families deserve our deep gratitude. Laura Hilton and Kate Wilson in Ohio gave their love and support and much-needed time either for writing or for breaks away from what has been at times a difficult subject to address. Steve and Carol Simpson in Bloomington, Indiana, who lived near the Berkeley campus as the anti–Vietnam War protest movement intensified and whose own recollections of Kent State are vivid even though secondhand, demonstrated once again their indefatigable support.

  Last, and most certainly not least, we thank all of our narrators for agreeing to share their memories. Without them, this book would not be possible, and we have done our best to stay true to their words and meaning.

  The Narrators

  Mike (Meyer) Alewitz. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970, muralist and activist.

  Chuck (Charles W.) Ayers. Undergraduate student at Kent State University from 1966 to 1971, former editorial cartoonist for the Akron Beacon Journal, and co-author of the comic strip Crankshaft.

  Denny Benedict. Undergraduate student at Kent State University from 1969 to 1973.

  Richard G. Bentley. Professor of Journalism and Technology at Kent State University in 1970.

  Ellis Berns. Undergraduate student at Kent State University from 1967 to 1971.

  Anita Bixenstine. Professor in the Honors College at Kent State University in 1970.

  Ed (V. Edwin) Bixenstine. Professor in the Department of Psychology at Kent State University in 1970.

  William Brauning. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Rick Byrum. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  John Carson. Mayor of the City of Kent from 1966 to 1969; proprietor of W. H. Donaghy drugstore in downtown Kent.

  Carol Cartwright. President of Kent State University from 1991 to 2006.

  John Cleary. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970 and one of the nine wounded students on May 4, 1970.

  Linda Cooper-Leff. Undergraduate student at Kent State University from 1966 to 1970.

  Joe Cullum. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970, one of the Kent 25.

  Timothy DeFrange. Kent, Ohio, resident and Kent State University student in 1970.

  Catherine Delattre. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Bruce Dzeda. Kent State University senior in 1970.

  Michael Erwin. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970, and one of the Kent 25.

  Naomi Goelman Etzkin. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Julio Arturo Fanjul. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Eldon Fender. Undergraduate student majoring in education at Kent State University in 1970.

  Linda Fifer. Student at Kent State University from 1970 to 1975.

  Rob Fox. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Joann (Peterangelo) Gavacs. Senior at Kent State University in 1970.

  John Guidubaldi. Professor in the Counseling and Personnel Services Education Department at Kent State University in 1970.

  Ken Hammond. Undergraduate student studying political science at Kent State University from 1967 to 1971, and one of the Kent 25.

  David Hansford. Senior at Theodore Roosevelt High School (Kent, Ohio) in 1970.

  William Derry Heasley. Vietnam veteran and an undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Rebecca V. Howe. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Peter Jedick. Undergraduate student at Kent State University from 1967 to 1971 and author of the 1998 book, Hippies.

  Dean Kahler. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970, paralyzed from the waist down after being shot
on May 4.

  Arthur Koushel. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Art (Arthur) Krummel. Member of the 145th Infantry, Ohio Army National Guard; on duty on the Kent State University campus in May 1970.

  Jerry (Jerry Middleton) Lewis. Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Kent State University; faculty marshal on May 4, 1970.

  Lisa Lynott. Student at Kent State University beginning in 1985 and a member of the May Fourth Task Force.

  Ellen Mann. High school senior at the Kent State University School in 1970.

  Carol Mirman. Senior majoring in fine arts at Kent State University in 1970, and one of the Kent 25.

  Carl M. Moore. Director of Forensics and Assistant Professor of Speech at Kent State University in 1970.

  Tim (Edmund Timothy) Moore. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970, and later president of Black United Students (BUS); at the time of his interview, was Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Kent State.

  James Mueller. Student at the University of Akron during the 1960s and a resident of Akron in 1970.

  Shirley Ohles. Wife of Kent State University professor of education John Ohles in 1970.

  John Panagas. Professor in Speech and Hearing program in 1970.

  John A. Peach. Chief of Police and Director of Public Safety at Kent State University at the time of his interview; native of Kent who had just started his career with the campus police force in the fall of 1970.

  Murv (Murvin H.) Perry. Director of the Kent State University School of Journalism and Associate Dean of the College of Fine and Professional Arts in 1970.

  Curtis Pittman. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970 and member of Black United Students (BUS).

  Rosann Rissland. Resident of Kent in 1970.

  Michael Schwartz. President of Kent State University from 1982 to 1991.

  Barry Seybert. Ninth-grade student in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in 1970; later involved in Tent City and co-founder of May 4 Task Force.

  Joseph M. Sima. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Ron (J. Ronald) Snyder. Captain and company commander of Company C of the 145th Infantry of the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970.

  Nathan R. Sooy. Undergraduate student at Kent State University beginning in 1973; involved in Tent City protests in 1977.

  Kathy Stafford. Undergraduate at Kent State University in 1970, involved in President’s Commission on KSU Violence; retired in 2008 as Vice President for University Relations.

  Ronald Sterlekar. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970 and member of student organization the Mobobrious PIT.

  James T. Vacarella. Undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970.

  Albert Van Kirk. Vietnam veteran and an undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1969–1970.

  Winona Vannoy. Physical education instructor at Kent State University in 1970.

  Janice Marie Gierman Waskco. Freshman at Kent State University in 1970.

  William Wilen. PhD candidate studying at Pennsylvania State University and, in April 1970, had accepted a teaching position at Kent State University beginning in the fall.

  Diane Yale-Peabody. Sophomore majoring in journalism at Kent State University in 1970.

  Lowell S. Zurbuch. An instructor in the School of Technology at Kent State University in 1970.

  Introduction

  The Project

  Craig S. Simpson

  Anyone who believes the tragic events at Kent State University (KSU) on May 4, 1970, are no longer relevant needs only to have been where I was a few years ago to deduce otherwise. It was a beautiful spring day not unlike that infamous afternoon forty years earlier, and I was taking a lunchtime stroll along the southwest side of campus, where the Liquid Crystals Institute and the burned-out remnants of Partially Buried Woodshed—Robert Smithson’s work of land art—commingle. Up ahead, an undergraduate tour guide was shepherding a herd of middle schoolers, and his boilerplate was drowned out by the kids’ boisterous chant,

  If you go to this school, you’ll get shot!

  If you go to this school, you’ll get shot!

  If you go to this school, you’ll get shot!

  The guide, clearly rattled, tried explaining that the campus was safe, that the shootings had happened a long time ago, but to no avail. The four-decades-old deaths of four KSU students from gunshots fired by members of the Ohio National Guard have offered the most tragic kind of name recognition, the sort that eclipses all the university’s fine citizens, programs, contributions, and communities. If you go to this school, you’ll get shot: it’s for what Kent State is known, and the story of the institution has been, in many ways, a struggle to come to terms with how this perception has shaped reality.

  When I arrived in 2004 as Assistant Curator (eventually Special Collections Librarian, although my duties were the same), I had at most a rudimentary understanding of Kent State and even less concerning Jackson State, where two students had been killed only ten days after the tragic events at Kent. Having specialized in medieval history, I did know that campus violence was not a modern phenomenon. Crime was rampant at European universities in the Middle Ages. Riots broke out sporadically, as when students at the University of Paris in 1229 protested a strike by their instructors, shutting down the university for two years. Town vs. gown tensions festered and occasionally erupted into conflict: in 1355, townspeople attacked the University of Oxford with bows and arrows. In my coursework, I learned the difference between medieval revolts and the later European and American revolutions; strictly speaking, that the former tended to be spontaneous bursts of violence borne out of a sense of injustice, while the latter were governed by an underlying ideology.

  This distinction may be obvious, but it has been one source of contention among many when attempting to describe what happened at Kent State. During my first year at KSU Special Collections and Archives, which climaxed with the thirty-fifth annual commemoration in May 2005, my colleague, Kathleen Siebert Medicus (Special Collections Cataloger), successfully petitioned the Library of Congress to change the subject heading “Kent State University—Riot, May 4, 1970” to “Kent State Shootings, Kent, Ohio, 1970.” (“May 4,” while a common regional term, was correctly considered by the Library of Congress to be less familiar on a national level.) Has the revision from “Riot” to “Shootings” signaled a change in the American cultural perspective—a shift in focus from those who initiated the protest to those who pulled the trigger? (The international perspective has always been overwhelmingly sympathetic toward the students.) Also in 2005, when I became head of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, it was soon apparent that opinions about what happened in 1970 varied drastically. There was a general demarcation between alumni and faculty who viewed the events as a crime, and citizens of the community who justified the actions of the National Guard.

  Then, as now, Kent, Ohio, was a conservative Democratic town in a conservative Democratic county (Portage), with a student population that leaned toward liberal in a way that alumni who witnessed the events of 1970 see as vague and noncommittal. However, KSU students of the late 1960s and early 1970 were on the whole reluctant to embrace the counterculture compared to students at Berkeley; Columbia; Madison; or even Columbus, Ohio. While the majority of Kent State students in 1970 were against the Vietnam War, even more were against the immediate presence of the National Guard on campus. Out of a student population of twenty-one thousand, some two thousand protesters were actively involved in the events of May 4; others were curious onlookers. And the Guardsmen who fired their weapons did not discriminate between them.

  Four Days in May

  The shootings themselves, lasting all of thirteen seconds, have reverberated for more than four decades. In the lingering debate over historical memory, these shots have been regarded—depending on one’s point of view—as the responsibility of either left-wing radicals or a right-wing government, as
a symbol of younger- or older-generation malfeasance, as the end of the 1960s campus protest movement, or the beginning of a new protest movement entirely. To understand the historical memory of the Kent State shootings, it is essential to first become familiar with the events immediately preceding them (as well as the broader cultural time frame, which my coauthor will address). A basic chronology of these events is as follows:

  •Friday, May 1, 1970: The day after President Nixon’s announcement of the invasion of Cambodia by the United States, war protesters rallied on the Kent State campus, symbolically burying the Constitution. In the evening, riots spread across town, resulting in property damage for local Kent business establishments. The Kent mayor, Leroy Satrom, gave an initial estimate of $50,000 in damage; later estimates reduced this to $10,000.

  •Saturday, May 2, 1970: That night, protesters set the campus ROTC building on fire. Hearing of these events, at 8:35 P.M. Mayor Satrom formally requested National Guard troops, who were already on duty in the region. They arrived on campus about 10:00 P.M., and using tear gas and bayonets, they cleared the campus of protesters.

  •Sunday, May 3, 1970: Initial calm during the day was interrupted by an inflammatory speech by Governor James Rhodes (who was in the middle of a senatorial primary race), who claimed the protests were largely the work of traveling dissident groups that he likened to Nazi brownshirts, Communists, Ku Klux Klan nightriders, and vigilantes. Later that evening, a sizable crowd of students gathered on the Kent State Commons, and others staged a sit-in just off campus demanding an audience with Kent State president Robert White and Mayor Satrom. As the Guard dispersed the crowds, another hostile verbal and physical confrontation between protesters and Guardsmen occurred.

  •Monday, May 4, 1970: Midterm week classes and exams were held in the morning. During the noon hour, more than two thousand protesters (and a few thousand more onlookers) gathered at the Commons on campus. Guardsmen fired tear gas canisters, fixed bayonets, and marched toward the crowd. After dispersing the demonstrators, the Guard went back up to the top of the hill that they had descended. Then, at the crest, near the sculpture known as the Pagoda, at 12:24 P.M., twenty-eight Guardsmen, mainly in Troop G, fired sixty-seven shots. Four students were killed: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Nine Kent students were wounded: Alan Canfora, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Dean Kahler, Joseph Lewis, Donald Scott MacKenzie, James Russell, Robbie Stamps, and Douglas Wrentmore. Kahler was paralyzed from the waist down.