Exhibit marks Kent State University massacre anniversary
http://media.www.thespartandaily.com/media/storage/paper852/news/2010/05/05/News/Exhibit.Marks.Kent.State.University.Massacre.Anniversary-3917160.shtml
Marlon Maloney
Issue date: 5/5/10
Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Kent State University massacre.
About 20 people attended an opening ceremony commemorating the
university massacre and "The Art of Protest" exhibit on display in
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.
The ceremony was to commemorate the massacre, which took place in
1970, said Dannelle Moon, associate librarian.
"The Art of Protest" has a pilot exhibit open until May 19. On May
20, the full exhibit will be on display in the special collections
section of the library.
"Kent State was one of the most high-profile campus anti-war
demonstrations," Moon said. "The students were protesting draft
cards, being forced to be drafted, and so the situation got out of hand."
Members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State
University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State
students, according to the Kent State University website.
"(The National Guard) is outnumbered and what happens is they retreat
across campus, they retreat across this big field and go to higher
ground," Mayfield said. "There are only 12 of them. They stop, they
turn, they go down to their knees and they fire."
About 25 years after the event, audio from a video of the massacre
was enhanced, to distinguish what the National Guardsmen said.
"And he says, 'Right here, sit, aim, fire!' They fire 67 shots in 12
seconds," Mayfield said.
Martin Corona, an undeclared freshman, was appalled by the events
that took place at Kent State.
"I mean, it's a little disturbing that people that are supposed to be
guarding us are the ones killing the students," he said.
Mayfield continued to describe other events of the time.
"Unfortunately, the governor of Ohio and the president of the
university called in the (Ohio National Guard) to quell the protest,
and the guards didn't really follow protocol, so several people were
killed, even though it was a peaceful protest," Moon said.
The event triggered a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds
of colleges and universities to close, Moon said.
"May 4th, the shootings at Kent State," said Dan Mayfield, a civil
rights and criminal defense lawyer. "May 5th, the school goes on
strike and, in fact, 400 universities around the country go on strike."
According to a national scientific study by the Urban Institute in
1970, the Kent State massacre was the single factor which triggered
the only national student strike in U.S. history. More than four
million students protested and more than 850 U.S. colleges and
universities shut down during the effective student strike.
"It was not the first time that students were shot on campus,"
Mayfield said. "They killed students at People's Park, they killed
students in Orangeburg, they killed students after burning the Bank
of America in Santa Barbara. It was not the first time the National
Guard was on campus. It was simply that it was so deliberate - so
deliberate, and they still got away with it."
Eleven days after the shootings at Kent State, on May 15, another
shooting took the lives of two students at another university, Mayfield said.
"We mostly conveniently forget, because it was in Mississippi and
they were black students," said Gil Villagran, an SJSU alumnus and
lecturer in the school of social work. "There were about 150 shots
fired into the dormitory, so we have to remember that."
Beyond the direct effects of the shootings on May 4, they have come
to symbolize the deep political and social divisions that so sharply
divided the country during the Vietnam War era, according to the
university website.
"They were protesting what was happening to Kent State, but also it
was a bigger issue of what could happen to all the college campuses
throughout the U.S.," Moon said. "The whole idea that the university
should be the bastion of intellectual freedom and they were being
sequestered from giving their free speech."
The posters at the exhibit portray student opposition to the Vietnam
War, the military draft, state repression, environmental pollution and racism.
Blacks were treated very unfairly at the time, said Oscar Battle, a
member of the African-American Faculty and Staff Association and a
Vietnam veteran.
"Before the war, the number of blacks in the military and the number
of blacks getting killed at war were very, very low," he said. "If
you look at the number of blacks being recruited, there was intensive
recruitment within the black community to get the necessary count of
the soldiers. The number of blacks being recruited was probably
double of the amount of whites and other races."
There are also posters that question the Nixon administration and its
political surveillance, some that describe a unified peace, and
others that call to attend anti-war events and a memorial for the
students killed at Kent State.
"There was no Internet," said Terry Christensen, a political science
professor. "People didn't have computers. There was no Facebook, so
it was a very different time."
Villagran, who attended SJSU at the time of these national protests,
talked about what the university was like.
"It was very exciting, because something was always happening at
Seventh Street," he said. "Any time you walked through there, any day
of the week, there was something happening."
There were demonstrations, protests, a teach-in, people selling books
and newspapers, Villagran said.
Teach-ins were lectures, debates, films, etc. put on by students who
were usually protesting the war, he said.
"And there was always a guy with a Bible calling everyone a sinner,
which we were, because we were all into the sex, drugs and rock 'n'
roll," Villagran said.
Villagran said students were impassioned because of the draft and how
much it affected men.
"You graduate, you lose your deferment," Villagran said. "You drop
out, you lose your deferment. You flunk out or get tired of classes
and want to do something else, you get drafted, and that was very
important and always on the mind of every guy, including me."
Michael Trang, a senior biochemistry major, said he is grateful the
U.S. doesn't have a military draft anymore.
"I'm personally glad (there's no military draft), because I don't
want to get drafted," he said. "But it seems like we might need more
soldiers, since the wars in the Middle East are still going on. It
might be necessary in the future, but we don't need it right now."
"The Art of Protest: 1960s-1970s" is an art display of 26 original
silk-screen posters that document campus social-protest movements of
the time period, Moon said.
Sharat Lin, president of the San Jose Peace and Justice Center, said
he collected many of the posters for the display between 1967 and
'79, during his time as a student at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley.
"They are really unique," he said. "Each one is so artistic, and they
were not printed. They were all silk screens at a time when we didn't
have desktop printing."
Silk-screen printing was done by hand, mostly by Berkeley and Santa
Cruz students, usually on the back of long, fan-folding computer
printout paper, Lin said.
It provided a cheap way to make copies of the artwork that was drawn
on them, Lin said.
The posters date from 1969 to 1972, Lin said.
There are also several dozen buttons with protest propaganda and
newspapers designed by SJSU students.
The display is now a permanent collection of the San Jose Peace and
Justice Center. They are available for loan to museums, libraries,
colleges and organizations to display to the public on rotating
exhibitions, according to the San Jose Peace and Justice Center website.
"I wish there were more students here - we're kind of preaching to
ourselves," Moon said.
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Sixties-L" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
