It involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard, who 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 announced on television April 30, 1970. Other students who were shot had just been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance. There was an emotional national response to the shootings. For example, hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of four million students.
Student protestors burned down the campus ROTC building. This led the governor to call in the National Guard. During the ongoing protest “one platoon opened fire with their rifles on the students, killing four and wounding nine” (Bateman, 2007, p. 75). The reaction to this was overwhelming “some four hundred and fifty schools, from colleges and universities down to high schools closed almost immediately” (Bateman, 2007, p. 76). This was the first and only nationwide strike of American students and was estimated to include over four million students and over nine hundred schools (Bateman, 2007).
On October 15, 1969, one of the largest anti-Vietnam war protests took place, as thousands gathered in a nonvilent protest against the war.The protest came with an ultimatum: if the war did not end by October, a general strike would take place, where millions of Americans would participate. Because the Vietnam War was the first televised war, more and more people realised that war was not about adventure and glory; from the blood on the cameras and the horrific scenes shown on TV, the public understood how bloody and terrible war was. The general opinions towards the war quickly became strained as drafts were quickly passed. Young men had to leave home and fight a war on the other side of the world. Protesters began breaking into offices and burning draft cards and mass opposition towards the war spread like a wildfire.
The Hollywood Ten was a group of ten men who, because they would not cooperate with the HUAC were jailed. Two spy cases shocked the nation. The first case in 1950, involved Alger Hiss, who was a State Department official. He was convicted of perjury after being accused of passing documents to the Soviets. The second case involved the Rosenbergs giving information on the atomic bomb to the Soviets.
The Ole Miss riot of 1962 was fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 29, 1962; segregationists were protesting the enrollment of James Meredith, a black U.S. military veteran, at the University of Mississippi (known affectionately as Ole Miss) at Oxford, Mississippi. Two civilians were killed execution style during the first night, including a French journalist, and nearly 70 people were wounded. By the end of the conflict, one third of the US Marshals assigned to the campus had been wounded. On September 30, 1962, James H. Meredith became the first African-American student to be enrolled at the University of Mississippi. His entrance had earlier been barred by segregationist Governor Ross Barnett, despite back door discussions with the administration in which he had committed to protect Meredith.
It all began with two hundred students who gathered on February 6 to protest the segregation of the All Star Bowling alley, the city’s only bowling alley. The next night, students gathered again to protest and fifteen were arrested. On February 8, students gathered again on South Carolina State’s campus. Students built a bonfire and an officer attempted to put it out, being harmed in the process. A highway patrolman shot his gun in the air and that is when all the chaos broke loose.
The Shots That Won’t Be Forgotten As the 61 shots which were fired by the National Guards, 13 of the 61 bullets struck 13 protesting students, leaving nine of them wounded, and the remaining four students dead. Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year old runaway, saw the body of Jeffery Miller, a student of Kent State University, fell to her knees holding him and cried out in agony, even though she never knew him (“Four Students Killed At Kent State by National Guard, May 4, 1970.”) On May 4th 1970, students from Kent State University gathered together to protest against President Nixon’s decision of deploying American troops to Cambodia in order to complete an invasion. As the students began their protest, they began to turn from peaceful protesting into an unfriendly demonstration which caused the National Guard to step in. The students began to rile up, they began to threaten the guards by throwing rocks, and yelling obscene remarks to them. The National Guard felt they had no choice, but to fire their weapons, causing the four students to be killed (“Kent State Shootings- Timeline.”) Although the shooting was a tragic event, the whole event could’ve been avoided if the students would have left the Guards alone, and if the National Guard didn’t feel the need to shoot the students out of self-defense.
Kent State University was placed in an international spotlight after the tragic end to an anti-war demonstration. The divisive effect to the calamity was predominately evident on college campuses across the United States, as a nationwide strike was provoked. According to a scientific study by the Urban Institute in May of 1970, “the Kent State massacre was the single factor which triggered the only national student strike in US history.”(Katsiaficas) Ultimately, nearly five million American students joined the growing strike. By mid-May, more than five hundred colleges and universities were closed, immediately followed by four hundred more by the end of May, 1970. “Approximately eighty percent of U.S. colleges and
The investigation that took place questioned many motives of the white house and its connections in the scandal; however, the president denied all allegations. The president at the time was Richard Nixon, after his re-election in n November 1972 he had taken office for his second term. Initially the American people had chosen the president of their choice; however the tragedy that followed made most Americans loose trust in government and political leaders. The Watergate scandal in June 17th had five men caught in the offices of Democrats campaign headquarters. The uncovering of
The Kent State Massacre, May 4 1970, saw a peaceful protest by students turn violent when the National Guard was called in to disperse the protest. The National Guard shot and killed 4 students. They also shot bystanders – it led to a greater number of