Kent State 1970: Causes, Events, and Lessons Learned
This paper analyzes the 1970 Kent State shootings, in which Ohio National Guard soldiers opened fire on Vietnam War protesters at Kent State University, killing four students. Drawing on Howard Means's 67 Shots and the Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, the paper traces the political climate that fueled student activism—including Nixon's Cambodian Incursion, the draft, and the My Lai Massacre—before reconstructing the escalating sequence of events from the initial protests in Kent to the fatal volley of 61 shots on May 4, 1970. The paper concludes by identifying three lasting lessons concerning National Guard training, the responsibility of protest movements to police their own ranks, and the obligation of national leaders to maintain trust with the citizenry.
- Background: Student Unrest and the Vietnam War Era: Political climate fueling student anti-war activism
- Escalating Tensions in Kent, Ohio: Local protests, vandalism, curfews, and Guard arrival
- May 4, 1970: The Shootings on the Commons: The fatal volley and Commission's verdict
- Three Lessons from Kent State: Guard training, protest discipline, leadership accountability
- Conclusion: Foreign wars breed domestic conflict and protest
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its narrative in primary and near-primary sources—the Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest and Howard Means's historical account—lending credibility to its factual claims.
- It moves logically from broad political context to specific local events to the fatal moment, giving readers a clear causal chain rather than an isolated incident.
- The three-lesson framework in the penultimate section transforms a historical account into actionable analysis, demonstrating the ability to draw transferable conclusions from a case study.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper uses direct quotation strategically. Rather than paraphrasing the Commission's finding that "the 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified," the author quotes it verbatim with a page citation, allowing an authoritative source to carry the moral weight of the argument without overstating the author's own claims.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a five-part arc: (1) political and cultural context establishing why students were mobilized; (2) local escalation in Kent, Ohio, including vandalism, curfews, and the arrival of the Guard; (3) the events of May 4 and the Commission's verdict; (4) a numbered three-lesson analytical section; and (5) a brief conclusion linking the domestic cost of foreign policy decisions to the broader principle of responsive leadership. This structure suits a short analytical essay where historical narration leads directly to normative conclusions.
Background: Student Unrest and the Vietnam War Era
The killings at Kent State in 1970 were the outcome of a clash between the Ohio National Guard and Vietnam War protesters who had assembled at the university. Nixon had been elected to the White House in 1968 following the assassination of his opponent Robert Kennedy during the campaign. With the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, and MLK, Jr., still fresh in the public consciousness, students were very vocal and critical of the government. Students were also upset about the ongoing draft and the recent My Lai Massacre, which had outraged Americans at home. Many were especially suspicious of Nixon, who had pledged to end the Vietnam War but appeared to be breaking that pledge when the United States began bombing Cambodia in 1970. In response to Nixon's announcement of a Cambodian Incursion, students across the country engaged in walkouts, sit-ins, and protests on campuses. Kent State students had long been active in protesting the war. They were frustrated and restless.
Escalating Tensions in Kent, Ohio
The day following Nixon's televised announcement of the bombing of Cambodia, a rally was held at Kent State where hundreds of students demonstrated and protested his actions. The crowds grew and turmoil hit the streets when a troublesome group began vandalizing the town. The Mayor of Kent called a state of emergency as the crowd clashed with police late into the night. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd, which was pushed back onto the Kent State campus, where "most of the dissident groups" had formed, according to Governor Rhodes, who also reported that many business owners in town received threats of violence from protesters if they did not join the protest (Means 46). There was a great deal of tension between student dissident groups and the townspeople.
Rumors ran wild that Kent State students were plotting against the town (Means 48). A curfew was put in place by the Kent Police Department, and Rhodes declared, "We are going to eradicate the problem. We are not going to treat the symptoms" (Means 47). It was an ominous pronouncement that foreshadowed the deaths to come. By the time a fire broke out in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps building on the Kent State campus, the Ohio Army National Guard had already been called in.
May 4, 1970: The Shootings on the Commons
Two days later, on Monday, May 4, 1970, "two thousand people had gathered in the vicinity of the Commons," and "many knew that the rally had been banned" by university administrators who were anxious to disperse the growing crowds converging on the campus from points across the country (Kent State). The college had become a focal point for a variety of activists, protesters, spectators, and those with more destructive intentions. The Guard arrived to disperse the crowds, and when the crowds refused to leave, the Guard marched on them with rifles drawn. The crowd fled the Commons. The Guard then hesitated before retracing its steps. During its retreat, several members of the Guard stopped and opened fire on the crowds still remaining.
In total, it was estimated that the Guard fired 61 shots into the remaining crowd at 12:24 p.m., resulting in four deaths. The President's Commission on Campus Unrest concluded that "even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given" (Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest 280).
Conclusion
The killings at Kent State resulted from a conflation of circumstances and ratcheting tensions. Many students were protesting the Vietnam War, but they were not killed for it. In Kent, Ohio, nerves were frayed by a conflagration of rumors, demonstrations, acts of vandalism, suspected arson, criminal activity, crowds gathering without permission, and trigger-happy Guardsmen who should have exercised more discipline and restraint when facing a crowd that was already well-dispersed by the time the Guard began its retreat.
Kent State can teach many lessons, but the most important is that leaders who want to fight the war "over there" will inevitably end up fighting the war "at home" as well. When a population protests with the kind of vigor demonstrated by the nation's activists, leaders would do well to stop and listen.
Works Cited
Kent State. "Chronology of Events, May 1–4, 1970." Kent State University, 2018. https://www.library.kent.edu/special-collections-and-archives/may-4-chronology
Means, Howard. 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence. Da Capo Press, 2016.
Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. President's Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED083899.pdf
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