Belated We Remember … But It Won’t Let Us Forget
In a call with some central Ohio activists a few minutes ago, someone mentioned ‘and Kent State, just a couple of days ago.’ What? I missed it?
Oh. Well, I miss it every year till someone reminds me, and then I go back and it’s like yesterday. It was a small punctuation mark in the major paragraph, Vietnam, that was changing the future for our generation.
Ohio was shaken, both by the news of students killed and by the reactions of some local residents. Like the woman quoted on NE Ohio TV: “Well, if my kids went out and rioted on campus, they should have been shot, too.” (not a direct quote, just a best-remembered one)
Mid-summer that year, we moved to Reno, NV. We’d spent the day with some friends, poolside at their apt building. I got a call to immediately appear for a job interview on one of the apps I’d turned in. We rushed to the local Sears store, found a wig and went to the check-out.
I gave the girl my Sears credit card. She looked at it and said, “This isn’t a Nevada card. Where are you from?”
“Ohio.”
“Oh. I’m sorry!”
All across the country, Kent State had resonated. When Neil Young’s song was published, everyone knew. They didn’t need to ask, ‘Where’s that?”
It’s 2026. Two have died in Minnesota. More have been killed in other states. Thousands have been 'disappeared' off to Alligator Alcatraz and other US government detention hell-holes, or worse.
The best that can be said for ‘The Time of Kent State’ is, at least, Vietnam had not, by anyone’s calculations, contributed to the end of a livable climate. Today’s wars … well, funny how the corporate media isn’t talking about the enviro impact of blowing some apartment block to smithereens every few hours. Maybe all that smoke will just drift away.
Do our kids know? Our grandkids? Here’s the short history to share:
Cleveland Com (once known as The Cleveland Plain Dealer) covered the observances in the week leading up to the anniversary: Among events in Kent, the Neil Young cover band Harvest played, and The Design Innovation Hub Auditorium hosted a screening of “Fire in the Heartland,” chronicling the rise of student activism at Kent State, the growing anti-war movement and the tragic events of May 4, 1970.
For a pretty full and pretty accurate coverage of the whole thing, Wikipedia has a very decent entry.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot. The song to buy a wig or confront the guns by, Neil Young’s “Ohio”
Still fresh as wet blood.