I recently taught my students about the shootings at Kent State University in 1970.

I think it’s extremely relevant for them for a number of reasons. The anti-war mood jives with the current sentiment about Iraq. The death of civilians resonates with recent (and not-so-recent) killings of civilians by police (especially the NYPD).

It also opens up opportunities for students to explore related issues: What happened at Jackson State? Why were we in Vietnam? Why did people disapprove of Vietnam? Why were the students protesting?

Those are just a few of the questions that were raised, and hopefully it sparked some curiosity in the students so that they can continue to investigate this moment in American history. [Note: I engineered the Jackson State question, but the others were genuinely student-driven.]

In prepping for the topic this year, I spent some time looking for useful resources on the web… in part because I’ve got access to a project and desktop computer that I didn’t last year.

Here are a few useful resources that I found.

YouTube Videos

I find there’s nothing better to grab students attention in the beginning or end of a lesson than a short, musical, move.

YouTube is full of photo montages set to the song “Ohio,” by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.  A search for Kent State should bring up dozens, but here are two that I found pretty good. I played both of them in class (one each day) while we were exploring the topic.

These are great attention grabbers, and they’re also an interesting point of study themselves (What perspective do the artists and the creators of the videos take? Are they biased?), but they don’t do a lot to explain the events. I found another video that uses explains it pretty well, using some funny paint animation.

Pictures Are Worth a Thousand Words

Oh, so true. The “Ohio” videos contain some nice pictures, but I was looking for some other images that I could use in a Power Point overview of the events at Kent State (May 1-4).

Searching on Google Images brought up a few useful pictures, but for the most part it was just copy after copy of the Mary Vecchio picture (the girl kneeling over her friend’s body).

I eventually found a collection on Google Images, uploaded by one Howard Ruffner. It includes dozens of photos from the tumultous days at Kent State. It’s a great resource for anyone trying to match realistic visuals to an account of May 1 to May 4.

Information and Research

The ‘net is full of information and research about Kent State.

The wikipedia page provides a good overview and seems to be more or less accurate. It also includes citations you can use for further information.

Members of the Kent State Sociology department published a short paper about the Kent State shootings. This provides an extensive bibliography, and it deals directly with misinformation and misconceptions about the shootings. A must-read for anyone researching the topic online.

The Kent State May 4 Center is also a good starting point. It contains links to a lot of other resources, as well as an ongoing collection of news related to Kent State and the shootings. It certainly seems slanted in favor of the student demonstrators, though, so be sure to read some more objective sources to balance it out.

Why?

From the paper by Kent Sociologists Jerry Lewis and Thomas Hensley…

First, the shootings have come to symbolize a great American tragedy which occurred at the height of the Vietnam War era, a period in which the nation found itself deeply divided both politically and culturally. The poignant picture of Mary Vecchio kneeling in agony over Jeffrey Miller’s body, for example, will remain forever as a reminder of the day when the Vietnam War came home to America. If the Kent State shootings will continue to be such a powerful symbol, then it is certainly important that Americans have a realistic view of the facts associated with this event.

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Third, and most importantly, May 4th at Kent State should be remembered in order that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. The Guardsmen in their signed statement at the end of the civil trials recognized that better ways have to be found to deal with these types of confrontations. This has probably already occurred in numerous situations where law enforcement officials have issued a caution to their troops to be careful because “we don’t want another Kent State.” Insofar as this has happened, lessons have been learned, and the deaths of four young Kent State students have not been in vain.