Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Vietnam Research Exercise: Kent State Shooting- Jireh White

On April 30, 1970,President Nixon broadcasted that the U.S. invaded Cambodia and they would need more troops to go into the war. This caused a uproar and protesting across the Kent State campus along with the rest of the United States.During the protest, people started giving speeches, setting fires in the streets, breaking store windows, and throwing bottles at police cars. The local police force was not enough to handle this level of rioting. The governor of Ohio at that time sent in 900 National Guardsmen to control the rioting. On May 8, there was a large protest on campus and General Canterbury of the the National Guardsmen ordered the crowd to leave. This had no effect on the angry college students. The crowd continued to shout and throw things at the guards. Not long after, the guards began shooting. Some of them shot at the ground and some shot directly into the crowd. During this shooting, they killed four students and wounded nine.

This event was important because it negatively impacted the whole nation. After the shooting happened it caused an uproar across college campuses all over the nation and many colleges shut down because of strikes. An important thing to know about this event relating to the Vietnam war is that it caused tension between the people and the government. The citizens as a whole were highly against getting involved in the war. They felt that the US should be withdrawing from the war instead of being more involved in it.




This famous photo shows a woman bent over Jeffery Miller, one of the victims of the shooting.



Sources
 http://dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/lewihen.htm
http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/11/chances_dim_that_house_will_pr.html

5 comments:

  1. The Kent state shooting hits home to me, during the Virginia Tech shooting my family had a mutual friend who was in one of the classrooms. Thankfully they survived but they had a bullet skim the top of her head.

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  2. I had never heard about the Kent State shooting until we got assigned this exploration. I can't believe that something like this happened so close to home for us. It's sad that the national guardsmen felt the need to shoot and it's sad that people were hurt because of it. I'll never forget this after learning about. It's just so crazy that it happened right here in Ohio.

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  3. I had heard about the Kent State shooting before but I was not completely aware that is was a result of Vietnam. I think the picture shown above is really powerful because it shows the pain that was caused as a result of the war. Not only were Americans dying in Vietnam, but people were dying at home too. Also, I am curious what happened to the guards who did the shooting (if they got in trouble or what).

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  4. I had learned briefly about the Kent state shootings in a history class o took in high school. Though we only talked about the logistics of the shootings we never actually discussed the reason behind the shootings that the students were protesting for. I now know that the students were protesting against the war that they were going to have fight even if they didn't want too. The Kent state shootings were frightening because it violated one of the constitutional rights and that is freedom of speech. The Kent state shootings will forever be a day that the nation is not proud of but it also shows how frowned upon the Vietnam war was.

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  5. Such a sad day im sure not just at Kent or anywhere in Ohio, but across the nation. This was a huge epidemic but the reaction to it and the will of the people make this so symbolic and important. Its crazy such a historical moment happened where my best friend attends school.

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