From 1970, 55 years ago. Their offense was failing to obey a lawful order to disperse. For this the National Guard, totally untrained for the situation, fired on them, from a considerable distance.
Killed 4 and wounded 9 at Kent State in Ohio. Killed 2 and wounded 12 at Jackson State in Mississippi. All hell broke loose.
In the ensuing chaos at Ohio State, I managed not to get shot or bayoneted when I ended up at the end of a Guardsman’s rifle, by accident in charge of a group of students; we were just passing between classes. There is a saving grace in being right in the scared kid’s face, able to tell him levelly that if he backs off we will too. And then we went on to our classes. And I did not shit my pants. Though I did reek of anxiety sweat. (My teaching assistant got tear-gassed coming in from a different part of the campus, so he was weeping unhappily at the beginning of class.)
After that class, the university closed for a while — there were tanks on the street and helicopters with searchlights overhead — and I taught classes in my living room. I still have panic attacks from those days. But we survived.
People are dealing with much worse. Right now.
June 10, 2025 at 5:24 am |
In the summer of 1983 I was on a campus tour with other scholarship students enrolling at tOSU that fall. We were escorted to Mount Hall on West Campus, where the building’s namesake, John T. Mount, told us the story of being taken hostage during the campus unrest of 1970.
June 11, 2025 at 9:11 am |
Life is complicated. There were actual student protests going on, prompted by Kent State, but focused on a variety of things, some springing out of long-simmering complaints that finally got addressed by the university in the wake of the protests (we got a Black studies program, for one thing, and in my opinion, a good one), but also scattershot and sometimes over-zealous, as student protests will be. And, as with all public protests, malicious troublemakers joined in whose only purpose was to sow chaos and do damage.
Meanwhile, the governor and the president of the university appear to have been seeking an occasion for putting down any protest, of any sort. The governor installed the National Guard in a nearby armory, awaiting a trigger to call them into the university. This was provided when the main gates to the university were closed, the university maintained by student protestors, though there was credible evidence that it was by police acting as agents provocateurs.
The first Guardsmen arrived during the passing of classes, which produced the episode I reported on. But then there was plenty of student protesting, some definitely aggressive, for them to have to deal with. Some university offices were occupied by protestors; that’s presumably what John Mount remembered as being held hostage (a not unreasonable understanding of the event).
The governor and the university’s president acted in appalling bad faith throughout this sad story; they showed contempt for the faculty, staff, and students of the university, while treating the university as a vehicle for wielding their raw power. I piss on their memory. (I would assign them to eternity in hell, but I’m a non-believer, so I offer an earthier response.)
Now, John Mount was something different. He never yearned for power, but instead deeply loved the university, especially its excellent agricultural college. He devoted his life to doing good for these institutions. I have no beef with him, and I’m sorry the 1970 times of protest were bad times for him (he did considerable mediation between the administration and the protestors, and was no doubt badly used by some on both sides).
June 12, 2025 at 8:16 pm
As best I recall, Dr. Mount did say the students occupying his office were quite cordial under the circumstances, and mentioned his role in the negotiations.
June 13, 2025 at 4:53 am
To bigmacbear, re “Dr. Mount did say the students occupying his office were quite cordial under the circumstances, and mentioned his role in the negotiations”: ah, that sounds entirely in character.