tagged w/ Kent State Massacre
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“Epic” is a much overused and abused word these days, but in this case it’s appropriate. UC-Davis isn’t the first campus to be confronted with students unhappy about the state of things. In fact, university administrators and law enforcement personnel have fifty years of history to draw on, at least. By now, there is zero excuse for not having productive philosophies and procedures in place that stress the unique role of the higher education institution in American society. These are students, not escaped convicts. They are, if I might borrow a cliché that we toss around way too casually, the leaders of tomorrow. There are no barbarians at the gate. Visigoths are not storming the walls. The only danger to anyone’s safety and well-being is posed by the authorities.“Epic” is a much overused and abused word these days, but in this case... more
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PART ONE...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-03-kent-state_N.htm
By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
KENT, Ohio — Forty springs ago, on the day the Vietnam War came home as it never had before, Mary Ann Vecchio was there. She's the girl in the haunting photo — crying, kneeling over the student's body.
That was Kent State University, May 4, 1970, a few days after Richard Nixon, who'd campaigned for president on an implicit promise to end the war, widened it by invading Cambodia.
Across the nation, students protested. At Kent State, where two days earlier the ROTC building was burned down, National Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four unarmed students, the closest of whom was nearly a football field away.
Vecchio found Jeffrey Miller dead on the ground, a moment captured by a student photographer.
Rarely has an American home front been so traumatized — Yale historian Jay Winter calls the Kent State shootings "a wound in the nation's history" — and for a time the school was so ashamed it shortened its name to "Kent," changed its logo and ended its annual May 4 observances.
But things have changed in 40 years, during which the United States left Vietnam and entered Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, a campus that unwillingly became synonymous with protest is more focused on remembering opposition to that war than opposing the current ones.
Unlike Vietnam, the wars America now fights have never really come home. Students don't worry about getting drafted. The campus anti-war group is inactive. The big cause is Haiti, the big issue the cost and availability of parking.
"There's no strong opposition to it," junior Kassandra Meholick says of the fighting today, "and no strong support for it."
Although there's little of the real thing here, student anti-war protest is studied in class, chronicled in archives and commemorated on monuments, markers and even a postcard sold in the bookstore.
May 4 has become a teachable moment, part of what President Lester Lefton calls Kent State's "brand." A documentary on the shootings is shown at freshman orientation. "You feel like you're part of history," says Meholick, of Harrisburg, Pa. "Something significant happened on this campus."
This year Kent State has taken new steps to acknowledge and make sense of the incident. An application to add the site of the shootings to the National Register of Historic Places — rare for an event less than 50 years old — was approved by the Interior Department. A self-guided "May 4 Walking Tour," featuring trail markers and audio narration by civil rights leader Julian Bond, debuts next month. A visitors center is planned.
Speakers at 40th anniversary observances this week include Mark Rudd and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of the anti-war group Students for a Democratic Society, Black Panther Bobby Seale, singer Country Joe McDonald and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights pioneer.
A trauma is turning into history, objectified for students and visitors, some of whom walk the site of the shootings like a Civil War battlefield. The campus is a sort of museum of protest, in which something raw and wild has been stuffed for study and shelved for display.
There is the granite May 4 Memorial (when it was dedicated in 1990, a daffodil was planted for every American killed in Vietnam). A May 4 archive contains artifacts such as a student's shirt with a bullet hole through the back and spent M1 shell casings. Four spaces in a parking lot are marked off with light posts to indicate where the four students died.
CONTINUED...PART ONE...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-03-kent-state_N.htm
By... more
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Da Nang, Vietnam
May 2, 2010
Chuck Palazzo
We Kill Our Own – The 40th Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre
On May 4, 1970, at Kent State University, in the city of Kent, Ohio, members of the Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. These were unarmed college students who were exercising their constitutional rights to speak their mind, to demonstrate peacefully, and to protest openly against the then recent incursion by US combat forces into Cambodia.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/05/01/we-kill-our-own-%E2%80%93-the-40th-anniversary-of-the-kent-state-massacre/Da Nang, Vietnam
May 2, 2010
Chuck Palazzo
We Kill Our Own – The 40th... more
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May 4th, 2010, will mark the 40th Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings, also known as the Kent State Massacre, which took place at Kent State University in Ohio. It involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others.
Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon had announced in a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance. There was a significant nation-wide response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States resulting from a student strike of four million students.
This piece includes vintage photographs, a slide show and a short documentary film about the Kent State Shootings.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/kent-state-the-day-the-war-came-home/May 4th, 2010, will mark the 40th Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings, also known... more
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Family Members of Victims Seek Full Accounting for Events that Triggered National Outrage; Call for Healing and “Restorative Justice”
Kent, Ohio - On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting America’s bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. In a day that changed America, four students were killed and nine were wounded as they protested against the war. The incident triggered national outrage in a country already divided. In response to the Kent State Shootings, more than four million students rose up in dissent across 900 campuses, generating the only nationwide student protest in U.S. history. Fearing civil unrest, President Nixon was taken to Camp David for his protection.
The Ohio National Guard has never publicized the findings of its investigation of command responsibility for the shootings. And importantly, there has never been a public inquiry to hear, record and preserve the stories of those directly impacted by Kent State.
Forty years later, family members of those killed have initiated the Kent State Truth Tribunal to preserve and honor the stories of those whose lives have been touched by this tragedy. The Truth Tribunal will generate the only comprehensive historical record and live archive of the Kent State massacre. The tribunal will take place for four consecutive days, mirroring the events of 1970, and held at Franklin Square Deli Building, corner of Water & Main Streets, 110 S. Water Street, in downtown Kent, Ohio on May 1, 2, 3 & 4, 2010. Organizers are asking for all who were original participants and witnesses of the 1970 Kent State to pre-register at www.TruthTribunal.org
“The Kent State shootings have never been thoroughly examined,” said Laurel Krause who was 15 years old when her older sister Allison was cut down by a Guardsman’s bullet. “We hope the Kent State Truth Tribunal will shed light on the truth of the murders that transpired on May 4, 1970. We have not set out in pursuit of punitive justice, but rather the restorative justice that comes from collective, historical inquiry and healing,” she added.
Organizers are reaching out to participants and witnesses to the events of May 4th 1970 and others who were present on campus and in the community including protesters, Ohio National Guardsmen, Ohio State officials, local residents, students, family members and others who were affected by the shootings.
The personal narratives of original 1970 Kent State witnesses and participants will be beamed via integrated, new and social media technologies to broadcast live over the first four days of May 2010 and will be available on the Internet at the Truth Tribunal website where it will continue to grow (http://TruthTribunal.org).
The Library of Congress has expressed interest in the recorded masters of the Kent State Truth Tribunal event on May 1, 2, 3 & 4 for inclusion in the American Folk life Center. It is America's first national archive of traditional life, and one of the oldest and largest of such repositories in the world.
With 18 days away until the event organizers report a groundswell of interest reflected by more than 500 face book fans in its first week, an upswing in registrations from original participants and an endorsement from Michael Moore who has offered free advertising and other support to the Truth Tribunal.
For More Information, visit: http://www.truthtribunal.orgFamily Members of Victims Seek Full Accounting for Events that Triggered National... more
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Anderson Valley Advertiser, 'The AVA,' February 24, 2010
LAUREL KRAUSE was 15 when her sister Allison, 19, was gunned down by the National Guard at Kent State. Laurel lives near Fort Bragg these days but still suffers the loss of her big sister who was one of thirteen kids shot that early May day in 1970, four of them fatally. Forty years later, Laurel and her 84-year-old mother have enlisted some heavy hitting help in founding a group called the Kent State Truth Tribunal. Laurel is co-founder with Emily Kunstler, daughter of the late William Kunstler. Howard Zinn endorsed Laurel’s project, as have Paul Krassner and Bill Schaap of the Institute of Media Analysis. The idea, Laurel says as she refers us to full details on Facebook, is to get the stories of everyone involved, get them recorded, preserved and honored in as thorough a way as possible 40 years after the event.Anderson Valley Advertiser, 'The AVA,' February 24, 2010
LAUREL KRAUSE... more
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Watch my sister Allison Krause in this amazing YouTube. She was murdered at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard. Shortly before the shootings, she said: "Flowers are better than bullets." http://bit.ly/63xySEWatch my sister Allison Krause in this amazing YouTube. She was murdered at Kent State... more
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Shortly before his passing in January 2010, Howard Zinn endorsed the Kent State Truth Tribunal to be held in early May 2010 on the Kent State University campus. Read what he thought about the Truth Tribunal here http://bit.ly/clEVp2. We invite your support and participation as we reveal the 'People's Truth' at Kent State!Shortly before his passing in January 2010, Howard Zinn endorsed the Kent State Truth... more
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Since Neil Young wrote 'O-hi-o' we've been searching for the truth. This year at the 40th memorial event on the Kent State University campus we will reveal the truth about the Kent State Massacre. Please join us! http://bit.ly/9mKASeSince Neil Young wrote 'O-hi-o' we've been searching for the truth.... more
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My sister, Allison Krause, was slain in the Kent State Massacre in 1970 on the Kent State campus in Ohio. On May 4, 1970 (soon to be 40 years), four protesters were shot/killed and nine were wounded. The reports of the shootings are all incorrectly depicted in civics textbooks around the world. This year at the 40th memorial of the massacre, Allison calls for the truth to be revealed; we holding the Kent State Truth Tribunal...and for history to be corrected! More here: http://bit.ly/asF1LRMy sister, Allison Krause, was slain in the Kent State Massacre in 1970 on the Kent... more
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