TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KENT STATE SHOOTINGS

BUT AS MAY 4 HAS ARRIVED, I CANNOT

I have wanted to be a writer since as young as I can remember.

I wasn’t motivated by the news of May 4^th at Kent (as I was only 5.5 at the time), but Kent is where I went to journalism school.

My parents, who were endlessly irked when anything suggested the innocent shot and killed “didn’t get what was coming to them,” were not thrilled when I announced to them as my freshman year of high school was wrapping up in May 1980 that I wanted to go to Kent.

I guess they had largely given up resisting when I went off to Kent in fall 1983. To me, the shootings were long ago – but looking back, they we’re really.

Back then, the J-School was in Taylor Hall. The college newspaper was headquartered where the May 4 Visitors Center now reflects on events with dignity. 

My wife-to-be’s dorm window looked out on the Prentice Hall parking lot where vigils were held for the four dead.

I couldn’t help but confront what it meant when a right-wing governor decided a military operation was needed to crush the very dissent protected in the Constitution supposedly beloved by “God and Country” people like him.

I remember a ton of my colleagues at the Daily Kent Stater – many now superstars in the field of journalism and related pursuits – vowing to move out of the state if evil Jim Rhodes ever became governor again.

I also remember dozens of us talking about coming back for the 25^th and certainly the 50^th anniversary of the events (as the 15^th that we witnessed was important, but not exactly a huge milestone.)

I recall Kent’s administration struggling to deal with a proper memorial. 

A contest to design one was fumbled, declawed and screwed up just about every way timid leaders -- at a learning institution afraid to learn from its own past history – could think of.

I openly wept when I returned not that long ago, to find that the old Stater office was now the appropriate, comprehensive and dignified visitor’s center that the Kent State community had been yearning for, for more than four decades.

My wife had the same reaction when we returned to our native NE Ohio a few years later so she could see the displays.

I certainly was no campus radical. Not even close. I waned a job, at a large newspaper. My course load, night job and daytime work for the Stater dominated such ambitions.

But I’ve always been a progressive. 

Rooting for the little guy and railing against the privileged one percent (before we labeled it as such).

I always hoped May 4^th would inspire compassion, decency, fair play and above all, a lifelong commitment to non-violent approaches/solutions to even our most visceral and explosive problems.

But as I write this – empathy, kindness and the very notion that we live under a democracy are under siege by a mad king president who acts much more like a dictator than a statesman proud to be serving the same office as Lincoln and Roosevelt.

That evil being’s cabinet is hell-bent on destroying education for all, access to healthcare and any semblance of a safety net for those who need it the most.

When I wonder how this POTUS would have reacted to Kent State, I only have to think of Charlottesville. 

A vicious and violent Ohioan, doubtlessly emboldened by a white supremacist president, took the life of an innocent.

The great #45’s weak effort to unify the nation he takes joy in dividing – praising neo-Nazis and worse.

I want to be hopeful. I want to think that, even though Coronavirus has turned on-campus observances (star-studded and other) into online activities, people can learn from Kent State.

I want to think that bullying, might and power are not the end game…to commerce, the body politic or a life lived well.

But with a GOP owned by the gun lobby and the supposed leader of the free world goading people to take the law into their own hands while defying pandemic measures designed to save precious lives, I am struggling.

https://www.kent.edu/may4kentstate50

           

MAY 4TH, 1970, A TRAGIC DATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY

AN OPEN LETTER TO KENT STATE STUDENT, NATIONAL GUARD

SHOOTING SURVIVOR AND ACTIVIST ALAN CANFORA

I wrote this letter to Alan Canfora nearly two years ago. He was shot in the wrist during Kent State protests of the Vietnam war. He worked tirelessly to ensure that the lessons learned from Kent would never be forgotten. Because it is solely from me – no back and forth – I do not believe I’m breaking any trust by publishing it.

In these times of GOP butchers and mad man in the white house, my words embracing dissent and democracy seem more poignant than ever.

My wife, who I met with both of us were students at Kent State University, lived in a dorm that overlooked the land where innocent students were gunned down by Ohio National Guardsman during a military takeover of KSU. As a journalism student, I studied in Taylor Hall, which overlooks the site where guardsmen turned and fired on innocent (most were not even protesting the war) students – killing 4 and injuring 9.

Alan,

I don't believe we’ve ever met.

We were in the same room a few times, when I was a reporter for the Daily Kent Stater or when I was attending a May 4 observance event when I attended KSU 1983-1987.

I'm going to briefly share an all-too-familiar narrative with you.

I was only 5 when the shootings took place.

My folks were typical factory worker, striving for white collar work and leaving Akron for the exurbs of Wadsworth.

My dad served in Korea -- hated every moment of it -- but was much closer to a “my country right or wrong type,” than a “dissent is key to a Democracy” guy.

I grew up with him cursing at you on the TV. Saying you suffered an injury no greater than most do on a football field and that you made a career out of being in the wrong place at the right time.

My folks really didn't want me to go to Kent, but I was already working part-time at the Beacon Journal and I convinced my dad that Kent's Journalism School was better than Akron's -- so I got to live in Kent dorms and race to work nights at the Beacon.

I was probably far more interested in 3.2 beer, girls, pulling a B average with little sleep, impressing the Beacon newsroom bosses and earning the first college degree in Wright family history -- than I was in the bloody events of May 4.

Being a journalist and taking classes in Taylor Hall, even a beer bellied college boy couldn't really ignore the history that took place 13 years before right outside the doors of the building that housed the journalism school.  

One of the Stater editors, an older non-traditional student, was big with the May 4 Task Force, so we all got a strong introduction into the weight of the events.

I never really discussed my evolving feelings about May 4 with my dad.  He was no tyrant and not nearly as right wing as a lot of the suburban dads. But it really wasn't worth trying to convince him that what he viewed as "hippies throwing rocks" weren't at least 25% at fault for the shootings – in his way of thinking...

I always wanted to say “dad, if I gave the finger or tossed a pebble or waved a sign at a rally protesting a terrible war that killed more than we can count,” would he want me to suffer the death penalty?  Because that’s what four students got. And most were not even protesting.

But he passed away a few years ago, at least hating Vietnam casualties and feeling the Gulf Wars were a waste of time.

I just read the 67 Shots book and a flood of memories came back....from being a bring 5 year old who read the paper daily and trying to figure out what happened at Kent....to being a proud Kent grad who felt the presidents of the University --even in my day and right after my graduation -- continued to fumble the opportunities for 20K+ students to learn from the history that took place in the heart of their campus.

I read the stories in 67 Shots, about Kent housewives and workingmen sharing the "they should have killed more" sentiment. I thought about Dean Kahler (my wife, who I met at Kent, is a wheelchair user).  The only accessible dorm was Prentice, another exposure to the volunteers who lay on the ground at the candle light ceremonies to remember the dead) and his pain…some, but his resolve much more.

I thought about you living in Barberton (the school that kicked Wadsworth's butt in every sport!) and staying active in my Democratic Party.

I think about Trump and how easy it is to picture him uttering the same incendiary words that Reagan, Nixon and Rhodes did -- demonizing acts of dissent and conscience as some kind of threat to white middle class way of life.

I never have understood why right wingers tell me I should be ashamed of speaking out about wrongs in my nation -- "because soldiers died for your freedom" -- when I always thought the core tenant of that freedom is dissent, the right to assemble, etc.

I cannot fathom the amount of negative letters, phone calls, emails, screams, and worse that you have endured for nearly half a century.

I cannot imagine what it is to be the victim of a violent act, but labeled (by far too many) as the cause.

As I am now past 50, I have much more perspective than a hormonal 18 year old Kent freshman.

I pretty much know that had I been on campus in 1970, I may have hated the war, but I likely would have stayed on the sidelines.

And how ironic it is that in doing so, I would have had just as great a chance of dying in a pool of blood on my beloved campus -- as the front line protestors.

I'm glad I googled this morning and found your email.

I do not have words to express my thanks for your dedication to true democracy, to learning, to reminding generation after generation that if right wing intolerance goes unchallenged, we’ll have many more tragedies like that of May 4 1970.

Thank you for protesting the expansion of a bloody, pointless war...and thank you for making my university a place for learning about what is good and bad in America.

I've always felt that great life lessons are learned from some of the most horrible crises.

That's why I never could understand why the KSU of the 1980s, 90s, etc was so squeamish about acknowledging its history.

Perhaps, without your dedication, there would be no May 4th Center to visit – right there in Taylor Hall, where the college newspaper newsroom was located when I went to Kent.

Thanks again for being, in my vision, a true American in the most Democratic, room for dissent, sense of the word.

https://www.kent.edu/may4

http://alancanfora.com/