On May 4, 1975, the National Guard shot into a group of Kent State University students who were protesting American involvement in the war in Vietnam. Four students were killed, and nine others were wounded.
Today marks the 30th anniversary of that day, and it has not gone unnoticed.
Senior video production major Brian Hindenberger is editing a documentary about the event entitled “Kent State and the Transformation of a Nation: A People’s History of Kent.” Wednesday night, he previewed the film thus far to a group of about 25 people in Allen Hall.
Through the use of interviews, photographs and front-page newspaper headlines, the documentary, which is an ongoing process, chronicled the essence of both the event and how it came to occur.
From the accounts of eight former KSU students, the shooting stemmed from an escalating movement on the KSU campus against the war. Out of a mid-western farm school that had a notable art, music and film-making reputation, came an anti-war force in the form of Students for a Democratic Society.
As the war continued, SDS investigated KSU’s part in complying with the war effort. Based on its discovery of KSU defense contracts, the SDS demanded the university end its compliance.
By May 4, the school had become almost like a prisoner-of-war camp, one of the former students said. The National Guard and tanks were roaming the campus, while machine guns were set up on towers.
On that day, several students began chanting for the war to stop. After tear gas was flung into the crowd, the students found themselves in a face-off with the National Guard.
Rocks were hurled from both sides, until the guard turned away to walk up a hill.
Before reaching the top, however, it turned around and fired.
“I was 13 when this happened,” said Jane Marcellus, a journalism Ph.D. student. “This really gave me a lot of context for something that I remember as history.”
In pursuit of the cause to end war, the lives of four student activists were cut short. Their legacy has caused many, including Hindenberger, to look at the importance of students’ speaking out for what they see is right.
“This project really contributed to my awareness that student activism is essential for the American social structure. If conflicting ideas don’t come from the universities, then where do things change?” he said. “It has to start here.”
Other audience members noted how much those protesting care about what they are fighting for.
“Maybe the ‘I agree with Phil’ people should watch this movie,” graduate journalism student Christine Quail said.
The film is the compilation of work by several different people, including the director, Daniel Thompson Miller, a professor at Hofstra University. It was Miller who contacted Hindenberger and asked him to be the editor for the documentary. Hindenberger is flying out to Ohio Friday to work with Miller further on the documentary, which is prospected to be a two-hour film.
Even though it is not yet finished, the film has already had an effect.
“It was really meaningful,” Marcellus said. “I was sitting here crying and hoping they wouldn’t turn the lights on.”