On May 1, 1970 — a Friday — Kent State students held an anti-war rally at noon on the campus Commons to protest President Richard Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Another rally was called for noon Monday, May 4.
On Friday evening, in downtown Kent, events quickly escalated into a confrontation between protesters and local police. Bonfires were built in the streets, cars were stopped, police cars hit with bottles and some store windows broken.
The town’s mayor declared a state of emergency, ordered all bars closed and contacted Ohio Gov. James Rhodes for assistance. Using tear gas, police eventually moved students back to campus by 2:30 a.m.
On Saturday, students assisted with cleaning up downtown. But rumors were rampant of threats to merchants, confirming the fears of townspeople and widening the rift between town and gown.
National Guardsmen surrounded the wreckage of the ROTC class building at Kent State University following a violent confrontation with protestors the previous day. (Associated Press)
Shortly after 8 p.m., more than 1,000 people surrounded the wooden ROTC Building on campus. Someone set it ablaze. Firefighters’ hoses were cut and the building burned to the ground. About 1,000 Ohio National Guard troops arrived about 10 p.m. and by midnight cleared the campus.
On Sunday, the National Guard invoked the so-called Ohio Riot Act, a law banning disruption of order on college campuses, and then fired tear gas. The demonstrators reassembled and blocked traffic.
On Monday, classes were held as usual.
The noon rally also went on as planned. But now, the protest was not just about the Cambodian bombing but also the campus occupation by armed National Guardsmen. It is estimated that about 500 students were actively participating in the rally and another 1,500-2,500 were watching it or on their way to classes.
Guardsmen are firing tear gas in this scene on campus. The burned-out ROTC building can be seen in the background just above the line of guardsmen. (United Press International)
Among those observing were freshmen Joe Lewis and John Cleary, ages 18 and 19, respectively. They were not far from each other near Taylor Hall, on a steep hill known as Blanket Hill.
Mr. Lewis, then of Massillon, Ohio, wanted to “lend a presence on the side of the students. I wanted the Guard to leave and let us go about our business.” Mr. Cleary, then of Schenectady, N.Y., had no position on the war but was curious about the rally and brought a camera.
The guard deploys tear gas into the crowd of demonstrators around the Victory Bell. (University News Service)
Both young men were transfixed as a Guardsman using a bullhorn declared three times, “Students of Kent State, this is an illegal assembly. Return to your dormitories.” When that had no effect, the soldiers fired tear gas across the Commons, but a breeze diffused it and students tossed canisters back at the Guard, who were wearing gas masks.
More than 70 National Guardsmen fixed bayonets to their M1 rifles and moved toward the students, forcing demonstrators up over Blanket Hill, past Mr. Lewis and Mr. Cleary and a Pagoda sculpture. The Guard forced students down the other side of the hill onto the Prentice Hall parking lot and an adjoining practice football field with fencing on three sides.
After about 10 minutes of the Guard firing tear gas and students hurling rocks and epithets, some soldiers knelt and aimed their rifles at the students. Guard officers huddled and then the soldiers appeared to be retracing their steps in retreat.
Upon reaching the crest, 28 guardsmen turned toward the parking lot and fired upon demonstrators. (Associated Press)
“I was thinking they were leaving. I was silent as they came by me,” Mr. Lewis recalled. “I was so close to them I could hear their equipment jostling. Many of them were looking back over their shoulders toward the Prentice Hall parking lot.”
When they got near Taylor Hall by the Pagoda, the Guardsmen abruptly turned and aimed their rifles back at the students, including Mr. Lewis, who was standing still about 60 feet away.
“When they gestured with their guns, I gestured with my finger. I was frustrated and just wanted them to leave,” he said.
“I never thought the guns were loaded. The ground in front of me puffed up in a couple of spots. That’s when I realized there were bullets in their guns.” He was struck with a bullet in his abdomen just inside his right hip. While on the ground, he also was shot above his ankle.
Just before that, Mr. Cleary — standing next to the sculpture “Solar Totem #1” outside Taylor Hall — likewise felt things were winding down, but he wanted one last photo of the Guardsmen, who were 110 feet away away. And then he was struck. A bullet also pierced the metal sculpture.
“I didn’t think they had ammunition,” he recalled. “It was pretty instantaneous. It felt like I was hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.”
Some students ran for cover into Taylor Hall when the shooting started. (Associated Press)
Mr. Lewis remembers “this crazy noise and then suddenly it stopped. There was just a heartbeat of silence and then all hell broke loose. People were yelling and screaming.” Mr. Cleary doesn’t remember anything else until he was on a gurney in the hospital.
Students rushed to aid the 13 wounded students. In an iconic Life magazine cover photo, Mr. Cleary lies wounded, mouth agape, barely clinging to life as other students try to stanch bleeding from the left side of his chest.
“I don’t remember the pain,” Mr. Lewis said. “I remember not being able to breathe and thinking ‘I’m going to die. This is it. I haven’t done anything too horrible.’ I was prepared to die but just to be sure, given my Catholic upbringing, in the ambulance I said an Act of Contrition in case that helped.”
Students try to aid John Cleary after he was struck by National Guard gunfire. Cleary was in the line of fire because he had taken his camera out to photograph the guardsmen. (Post-Gazette archives)
Following surgery, Mr. Cleary and Mr. Lewis shared a hospital room with fellow wounded student Dean R. Kahler, who was struck in the back and paralyzed. Both men are retired — Mr. Cleary, 69, now of Pine, as an architect, and Mr. Lewis, 68, now of Scappoose, Ore., as supervisor of that city’s drinking water treatment plant. Mr. Cleary graduated from Kent State. Mr. Lewis did not.
Of those shot, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Cleary were the closest and second closest to the Guard. The other 11, including those who died — Allison Krause, 19, of Churchill; Jeffrey Miller, 20, of Plainview, N.Y.; William Schroeder, 19, of Lorain, Ohio; and Sandra Scheuer, 20, of Youngstown, Ohio — were between 225 and 750 feet from the Guard.
This photo by John Filo won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. It shows 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio by the body of 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller. (Associated Press/John Filo)
Those wounded — two have since died — and the survivors of those killed have bonded as family. But Mr. Lewis noted, “You didn’t have to be shot to have been wounded at Kent State on May 4, 1970.”
