Will Moore's
Site of Knowledge
Kent State Massacre
When President Nixon announced that the U.S. had invaded Cambodia and would need to draft over 150,000 soldiers into the war the impact was much more than he probably relized at the time. Across college campuses everywhere students were protesting and rioting against a war they saw as unjust. In late April and early May of 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio, thousands of students rioted and burnt down the campuses ROTC building in protest ("Kent State Shootings"). While there are no real leaders for this demonstration there is a group to blame, the baby boomers and hippies were against the war making them the prime leaders in the protest. The baby boomers grew up in a time where they could see current events on the television rather than hear about them days later in the paper(Cover Up at Kent State). They saw there President JFK shot before there eyes; as a result they became cynical and rebelled against there parents. The hippies similarly to the baby boomers wanted peace not war, hippies typically travelled in groups and just went with the flow. They often times led demostrations against ideas or wars they felt were unjust ("Kent State Incident"). The goals of the protest and riots were pretty simple I believe, they wanted the government to know what they thought about the Vietnam war. They clearly opposed the US getting into Vietnam and by burning the ROTC building they stated their desire to not go serve their country in this fight.
After burning the ROTC building on the campus of Kent State University, the Governor of Ohio sent 900 national guard service men to monitor the campus and keep the peace ("THE MAY 4 SHOOTINGS AT KENT STATE UNIVERSITY: THE SEARCH FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY."). On May 4, 1971, 28 national guard gunsmen opened fire on the protesters at Kent State killing 4 students and wounding nine ("Kent State Shootings"). This sent a shockwave through the country and lead to almost 500 colleges across the country being shut down due to protesters and riots. The Guardsmen who opened fire on the crowd where tried before a grand jury, 8 were indicted before the charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence ("Kent State Incident"). The media played a big part in the shooting as they filmed and had many pictures taken that influenced the opinion of the nation as a whole on the event.
While we did not draw out of Vietnam as a direct result of the Kent State shooting, I believe it played a role in the fact. As a nation unfortunatly most of the population didn´t support the war, I think the massacre brought to the attention of the Government that maybe Vietnam was not the place to fight communism, especially when you don´t have the backing of the nation. I would say the protest was succesful, while serveral thousand men were drafted into the army to fight America pulled out of Vietnam shortly after. That makes me believe that there protest was successful because they didn´ want a war to begin with and now it was over. This protest was significant because I believe for the first time in american history the people of our country did not back our government and soldiers well at all (Alan Brinkley). Marking a turning point in our history.
