The student
anti-war movement was itself a genuine mass movement, and coinciding as it did
with the later stages of the Black Power movement. The Black Panther Party saw
black communities in the United States as a colony and the police as an
occupying army.
“Because
black people desire to determine their own destiny, they are constantly
inflicted with brutality from the occupying army, embodied in the police
department. There is a great similarity between the occupying army in Southeast
Asia and the occupation of our communities by the racist police.” Huey P.
Newton
Students for
a Democratic Society, the leading antiwar and draft resistance organization,
declared the Black Panther Party the “vanguard in our common struggles against
capitalism and imperialism.”
In 1970,
tensions came to a fever pitch when tragedy struck on one college campus. On
May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State
University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students.
The impact of
the shootings was dramatic. The event triggered a nationwide student strike
that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close. Beyond the direct
effects of the May 4th, the shootings have certainly come to symbolize the deep
political and social divisions that so sharply divided the country during the
Vietnam War era.
Four Kent
State students died as a result of the firing by the Guard. The closest student
was Jeffrey Miller, who was shot in the mouth while standing in an access road
leading into the Prentice Hall parking lot, a distance of approximately 270
feet from the Guard. Allison Krause was in the Prentice Hall parking lot; she
was 330 feet from the Guardsmen and was shot in the left side of her body.
William Schroeder was 390 feet from the Guard in the Prentice Hall parking lot
when he was shot in the left side of his back. Sandra Scheuer was also about
390 feet from the Guard in the Prentice Hall parking lot when a bullet pierced
the left front side of her neck.
Nine Kent
State students were wounded in the 13 second fusillade. Most of the students
were in the Prentice Hall parking lot, but a few were on the Blanket Hill area.
Joseph Lewis was the student closest to the Guard at a distance of about sixty
feet; he was standing still with his middle finger extended when bullets struck
him in the right abdomen and left lower leg. Thomas Grace was also
approximately 60 feet from the Guardsmen and was wounded in the left ankle.
John Cleary was over 100 feet from the Guardsmen when he was hit in the upper
left chest. Alan Canfora was 225 feet from the Guard and was struck in the
right wrist. Dean Kahler was the most seriously wounded of the nine students.
He was struck in the small of his back from approximately 300 feet and was
permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Douglas Wrentmore was wounded in the
right knee from a distance of 330 feet. James Russell was struck in the right
thigh and right forehead at a distance of 375 feet. Robert Stamps was almost
500 feet from the line of fire when he was wounded in the right buttock. Donald
Mackenzie was the student the farthest from the Guardsmen at a distance of
almost 750 feet when he was hit in the neck.
The news of
the Kent State University shootings shocked the public. The school was closed
for the rest of the semester, as were hundreds of other colleges across the
country. The next weekend, 100,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., to
protest the troops being sent into Cambodia.
Mary Vecchio,
a fourteen year old runaway, screaming over the body of Jeffery Miller appeared
on the front pages of newspapers and magazines throughout the country.
All Power To
All The People!
Bobby Seale
http://bobbyseale.com/
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