I was in college during the Vietnam War protests. The country was angry, divided, unsure of who we were becoming. Then there were moments that stopped us cold. Kent State University was one of those moments.
In May 1970, students gathered to protest President Nixon’s decision to expand the war into Cambodia. After several days of unrest, including the burning of an ROTC building, the governor of Ohio deployed the National Guard. Tensions escalated. What happened next was unthinkable. Guardsmen fired dozens of rounds in a matter of seconds into a crowd of students.
Four unarmed students were killed: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Nine others were wounded. Some of those shot were not protesting at all; they were simply walking across campus, heading to class. The country was stunned. Even in a decade marked by protest and confrontation, Kent State crossed a line. It forced a question we were not ready to ask — but couldn’t avoid: Who are we?