At Jackson State, another shooting stirs memories
http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2010-05-04-1Akentstate04_VA_U.htm?csp=34
Updated 5/3/2010
By Rick Hampson
Eleven days after Kent State, white police killed two black students
and wounded at least nine others at Jackson State College in Jackson, Miss.
Anger over the Ohio shootings, the Vietnam War and racial tensions
had parts of the city on edge. On May 14, 1970, about 100 students at
the historically black school had gathered near a busy street that
cut through campus. There had been protests about white motorists who
allegedly taunted black college students, but that night there was no
formal protest, says C. Liegh McInnis, a Jackson State instructor.
Some motorists complained that their cars were stoned, and some
youths it's not clear whether they were college students set
fires and overturned vehicles.
After local and state police arrived, the students moved toward a
women's dorm. Just after midnight, a thrown bottle smashed amid the
police, who fired more than 140 shots at the dorm. Killed were
Phillip Gibbs, 21, a Jackson State junior, and James Green, 17, a
local high school senior who was walking through campus.
Some officers said a sniper or snipers fired first, but the FBI found
no evidence of that. The President's Commission on Campus Unrest
called the shootings an "unreasonable, unjustified overreaction."
No one was charged. A local grand jury blamed the students, saying
that "when people engage in civil disorder and riots, they must
expect to be injured or killed when law enforcement officers are
required to establish order."
The incident got much less attention than the Kent State shootings,
outraging those who saw it as evidence that black lives were
considered less valuable than white ones.
Gene Young, then a sophomore at what is now Jackson State University,
says he'll never forget the sight of the police advancing. Today, he
tells students they also must remember it: "Some people made the
supreme sacrifice so that you can have a voice. It was a hard-fought right."
.
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