Kent State, May 4, 1970 Allison Krause et al

May 4, 1970, began like any other school day for me: A ride on the yellow Blue Bird bus driven my Mr. Stickel, “Reflections of My Life” by Marmalade playing on the bus radio set to WLS. Arrival at school and the day of classes. And then during lunch sometime around 1:15 PM I heard a news report on WCMR, which seemed to be the favored station of the kitchen folk, that four students had been killed in an anti-war protest at Kent State University. I was seriously disrupted in my sense of personal and national well-being.

Watching the national news later that day and grasping more of the total situation, I was even more disrupted.

May 4, 1970, Kent State, had the effect on me that Sepetember11, 2001 seems to have had on most people I know personally. While Sept. 11 seems to have made real and present the fact that the United States is no longer invulnerable to forces beyond our shores, May 4 shook my faith that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution was rigidly set in stone to be ferociously protected and defended by those in uniform who have taken an oath to do so.

At age fourteen I asked my history teacher the next day, Mr. Cassel, “Is this a serious oath they take or merely a formality?”

Yes, for me, May 4 was a national existential crisis. I was challenged in my conviction that the Constitution was the inviolable national contract. This contract, with its First Amendment, surely guaranteed protest, assembly, a speaking of the mind, especially on a public campus such as Kent State. And surely it was the job of all who take the oath to defend those actions. I argued with my teacher that they don’t take an oath to “maintain a convenient status-quo for those in power”.

Of course a youngster of fourteen would not have the fuller perspective of an adult who has lived the realities of life. I did not, at that time, know the more specific military oath of office which requires obedience to orders given. But surely, these college campus students could not be seen as “domestic threats” to the Constitution. The worst threat that they could have been was as an embarrassment to Kent State. My personal memoir here is not to discredit uniformed folk, I have always held those in uniform to be my protectors, having a respect and admiration from me. Because of that, all the more I was disturbed to see “protectors” firing guns on a campus.

I imagine there are other events which hold the same traumatic effect of national crisis to other people. I lived through the Detroit riots in 1967. I read about the earlier Watts Riots. Everyone has their personal experience of some event that traumatically challenged their sense of national well-being.

But this cognitive conflict I experienced on that day in 1970 formed and shaped my sense of ethics. I assert when one takes an oath, it is not a mere formality nor is it a dotting and crossing of organizational “i” sand “t”s; it is a deliberate and earnest action of personal identity and integrity.

But perhaps it is even more than recognizing a national contract. Perhaps it runs more deeply.

My son, Eric, in critique of this memoir said it well in conclusion…

“It is a problem larger than a legal document or an oath of adherence to it.  It is a loss of faith in the ability of human beings to remove themselves from the moment and to do what is right and be good to one another.”

 

Jeffrey Miller

Allison Krause

Every May 4 I remember the names of  Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder. Whether protesting or merely walking to class, the day, the month, and the following decades should have turned out differently for them and their families.

There is a phrase chiseled into the grave stone for Allison Krause. It was a phrase she spoke just the day before…

“Flowers are better than bullets”.

On May 4^th this year, in honor of Allison and the others, enjoy a flower, deliver one to a friend, wear one. Today let us practice “to do what is right and be good to one another.”

Sandra Scheuer

William Schroeder