Kent State University in Ohio, May 4th, 1970
“Flowers Are Better Than Bullets” –Allison Krause, one of the four Kent State Univesity students who was shot and killed during a May 4rth, 1970 anti-war protest at Kent State University in Ohio
A Brief Remembrance by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted May 3rd, 2024 on Niagara At Large
On the 25th Anniversary of the Kent State University shootings, a young girl lays flowers on a spot where one of the four students lay dead following the shootings. Photo by Doug Draper
With all of the discussion and debate that has been triggered by protests now taking place on university and college campuses across the United States and Canada, taking place over, I am reminded, once again, of a shocking event that took place 54 years ago this May 4th during an anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus of Kent University in Ohio.
That event involved units of Ohio’s National Guard putting live ammunition in their rifles and shooting into a crowd of unarmed students. When the smoke from the rifle fire cleared, four students –two of them not even involved in the protest – were dead and a number of other were injured.
One of the iconic photographs taken in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings
In both the United States and in Canada, where thousands of young Americans were coming to escape being drafted to fight in that war they viewed as unjust and unnecessary, even those who supported America’s involvement in that war were mortified at what happened on the grounds of an institution for learning on that May 4th day.
Immediately following the Kent State shootings, Canadian rock legend Neil Young wrote a song called Ohio that he recorded with his friends in the group Crosby, Stills and Nash. The song, which David Crosby later said brought tears to his while they recorded it, was banned from play in the spring and summer of 1970 on several American radio stations. Yet it became one of Crosby, Stills Nash & Young’s biggest hits.
The four young students who were killed on that day – from left Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, William Schroeder and Allison Krause
Years later, Neil Young wrote of the song and the event that inspired it like this; “It’s still hard to believe I had to write this song. It is ironic that I capitalized on the deaths of these American students. Probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning.”
A memorial to the dead and wounded at Kent State University. photo by Doug Draper
Every year since the shootings, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people, including friends and family members of the victims, have gathered at the Kent State campus to remember and to hold seminars devoted to building a more peaceful world.
I attended the gathering in 1995 where the legendary folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary sang ‘Blown’ In The Wind’ and ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ while parents and siblings of the four fallen students sat in the front row.
I was still a teenager attending high school in Welland when this terrible event happened and it still fills me with sorrow for those who were killed and injured and with anger for those responsible for those guardsmen putting live bullets in their rifles when I think about it.
It also has me fearing what we see unfolding on campuses across North America where protests around the Hamas-Israel War are taking place today.
You can sear and watch Neil Young performing Ohio by clicking on the screen below –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVMGKOFIwYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVMGKOFIwY
For more on the Kent State shootings, click on – The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy | Kent State University
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