Kent State Massacre Remembered: Online Memorial
By Michael Lithgow, May 3, 2008 Comments (1)
On May 4, 1970 four students of Kent State University were shot dead by National Guardsmen during a protest against the US government's invasion of Cambodia. It was a frightening acting out of violence by the state -- like the earlier and less well remembered murder of three black students by state troopers at South Carolina State College (February 8, 1968; another 28 injured), and at Jackson State University on May 14, 1970 where two black students were killed (another 12 injured) by local police. In all three tragedies the state turned against its citizens engaged only in the democratically legitimate activity of dissent.
Mike and Kendra's website – May 4, 1970 – is an online archival memorial about the Kent State event and about the subsequent struggle with University officials to have memorials constructed in the parking lot where the students were killed. The website documents in detail and with photographs what happened not only on May 4, but in the days leading up to the May 4 killings and the subsequent court trial.
The website also provides information about the lesser known Jackson State University tragedy.
In memoriam.
I was 11 when this tragic event happened, and to this day this is what I think:
"So this is what our government thinks of us and this is how it sees fit to treat it's citizens."
To this day I don't trust for a second any right wing-believing person. Evil has many forms, and this was breathtakingly evil. How anyone in government or military or police can sleep at night is beyond me.
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