Located right beside taylor hall is a parking lot, the parking lot that four students unfortunately passed away during the may 4th shooting. And i have parked in that parking lot. I have walked across it. I have talked to my friends while walking across it. And i think theres something incredibly powerful about something that people encounter daily, having such a wound located there. I really am grateful that i have been able to attend kent state and been around may 4th and be able to exist in that space because it fires me up, honestly, every time i see it, to just keep fighting. Because some of the things they were fighting for back then were still fighting for now and we cant become complacent. Complacency is not that is a privilege. And one that we cannot afford. Hello. My name is todd dican. Its my honor and privilege to serve as the president of Kent State University. I have said many times you do not have to be an historian to understand the place of Kent State University in the history of modern america. But i am an historian. And i do appreciate our ongoing responsibility to share this history and the lessons of may 4, 1970. Its my great honor to announce four scholarships, each bearing the name of a student slain on may 4, 1970. Scholarships in the names of allison krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder will be awarded to students majoring in peace and conflict studies at Kent State University. My best wishes and deepest thanks go to the families of our slain students. I appreciate your spirit of unity and reconciliation as we work to create the events of may 4. Thanks to those who served on the may 4 task force over the years. Your work and dedication kept the memory and lessons of our tragedy alive and in front of everyone. I have been most gratified by and impressed by the work of the may 4 advisory committee. Together in a spirit of cooperation and friendship, we worked hard to create an inclusive and impactful may 4, 2020 observance. In addition, the efforts and wise council of each Committee Member proved invaluable as we generated an entire years worth of meaningful programs. The covid19 pandemic interrupted our plans but once again we came together to generate this may 4 event. Rashonda taylor, Vice President reed and trusty sullivan. Of course, i thank each and every one of you watching right now for your role in keeping the memory of may 4, 1970, alive and for helping us teach its lessons of the importance of free speech and the dangers of polarization and division. I will finish with an observation connecting 1970 to 2020. In the aftermath of the shootings, our faculty acted in ways, big and small, immediate and long term, to protect our students and to ensure that these students finish the academic quarter, even though campus was closed. In 2020, likewise, our faculty came together to swiftly move to online in the face of a pandemic to ensure that our students will finish this academic semester even though campus is closed. If one person personifies our great faculty then and now, it would be emeritus professor of sociology, dr. Jerry lewis. Thank you, dr. Lewis, for more than half of a century of dedication to kent state and thank you to all faculty, past and present. We should make no mistake about it. What happened here 40 years ago had very little to do with rocks and bottles and snipers. It had everything to do with the right of free speech and the right of Free Assembly. [ applause ] it is not our power but our will and character that is being tested tonight. They only have one thing in mind, to destroy Higher Education in ohio. On the morning of monday, may 4th, when i woke in my dorm, i was awaking with the realization that the soldiers that were outside and guarding the doors of my dorm were not there to protect me. I had a history examination monday morning. I remember the professor announcing to the students on monday morning that if any of them felt that the events of the preceding days had interfered with their ability to adequately prepare for this examination, that they would be able to take the examination at a later date. And my girlfriend at the time made me promise that i would not go to the demonstration that day. The rally was just going to happen. People were going to show up. What we ought to try to do is give it some more positive, more constructive direction, that we had the trashing downtown. We had the burning of the rotc building. We had confrontations the previous night where some people had been bayoneted by the guard and governor james rhodes compared us to the fascist brown coats or hitler youth. Worst type of people we harbor in america. We are going to eradicate the problem. Were not going to treat the symptom. I had two decent professors that were great about it. They both said at different times in that morning, make yourself a simple task. See if you can come up with something that says student protest in america. It wasnt just kent. I kept seeing that noon rally on monday as the moment when we wouldnt just be students at kent state. We would be students across the country, all at the same time, at noon with a concerted call to end the war in vietnam. I just made a commitment that i wasnt going to go to that. Then i also said to myself, this is too important for me to pass up. There was a string of guardsmen stretched out in formation. As i got past the last guardsman, he said to me, hey, boy, whats that youre carrying there . And i said just a couple of black protest flags. And he said, well, today, were going to make you eat those flags. I was still the Vice President of the student body and president of the student senate. I felt like it was my obligation to be out there, to make sure that nothing occurred that was going to harm any of those students. I actually stood up on that brick structure and tried to call for a student strike. He made a very brief speech, as if the feeling of the students on the kent state campus that we should join the National Student strike to oppose the invasion of cambodia. [ crowd chanting strike ] governor rhodes rhetoric and that betrayal sunday evening, there was an extra edge of anger and frustration. One of the National Guard jeeps drove up to the front. They started leading an order for everybody to disperse. There wasnt anything out of control. We had a right to be there, and they could not stop us from speaking. We were not an unlawful assembly. Get the hell off our campus. Then, of course, its tear gas time again. Tear gas began to arc over the crowd. By then we had gotten fairly good at being able to pick up the cool end of the canister and toss it back. Returning the favor. National guard started marching towards us. They had on helmets, gas mask and carrying m1 rifles with the bayonets attached. We ran up over blanket hill. Guardsmen followed us up the hill, past the pagoda. We all ran down the other side of the hill toward the parking lot. We were at the bottom of the hill. It was not a good, strategic position. We didnt have steel helmets and gas masks to protect us. Tear gas exchange stopped and students started chanting, theyre out of gas. Then i see this oneqd studen with the black flag, once the guard had stopped, sort of slowly work his way and im saying, wow, theres my picture. I stood there. I waved my black flag. I knew my life was in danger. At that time i thought if i have to risk my life to make the most powerful statement i can make, im going to do it. I walked up behind my brother and said alan, theyre aiming right at you. This is getting really shaky. Just as i said that, troop g started to move way from a v formation and start their assent up the hill i asked him to come back to the parking lot and alan said, wait. I want to see where theyre going. As i looked and my sister watched, they started marching up the hill. When they got to the top of the hill they hit us. They didnt go anywhere. About a dozen men stopped, turned, raised their weapons. Pointing a rifle toward me, the gunsman with the baton in his hand was saying get set, get ready, fire. Cloud of dust. Tree, chunk of bark comes off. The student to my right gets hit. Smacked to the ground. Bullet hit my wrist. I thought this is like a bad dream. We could hear bullets zipping past our heads, and thumping into the ground. Jimmy riggs pulled me behind a car riddled with bullets. Tom grace is screaming. The boot was blown off of his foot. Hes yelling to me, stay down, stay down. When youre caught in the open, being fired on, with no opportunity to defend yourself, its the loneliest, sickest experience you can imagine. [ gunshots ] when the shooting stopped, the silence fell. I still feel and hear everything from that moment. One moan and one cry and one scream was joined by more and more and more. This collective cry of anguish. No, you did not do this. You did not do this. [ shutter clicks ] i could see at the foot of the hill, you know, a boy lying face down. The body of Jeffrey Miller laying on the street. Theres probably not a worse image in the minds of all of us. Someone tipped over a bucket of blood and people were just picking themselves up off the ground. You could see they were starting to sob. Mary vecchio in that pulitzerprize winning photo with an outstretched arm. She gestured a shot. First of four students to be killed was Jeffrey Miller, 20yearold Honors College student from long island. I had been with jeff miller the whole morning. Went back to where i thought he was, and its still unbelievable. If theres such a thing as a temporal nonsecular, this is it. This shouldnt be here. How do you process pure, naked violence . As the shock set in, that they had done this to us, a worse yet image was looking up at that hill and watching those men while 13 young kids lay bleeding and dying. They walked away. [ sirens wailing ] many of us then just ran around, aimlessly, looking for the people that we loved, trying to make sense of it all. I didnt even know i was running past where allisonkrause was dieing in the arms of barry levine. Allison krause was 30 feet away from the guardsmen when she was hit in the side. She was 19 in the Honors College. Sandy scheuer from youngstown was not involved in the protest. She was walking between classes with her Speech Therapy partner when she was hit in the neck. She was placed in an ambulance with tom grace as paramedics attempted to stop the bleeding. I remember the ambulance attendants trying to revive her, and she had a neck wound. And i remember them saying, you know, its no use. And i remember them pulling the sheet up over her head. Thats probably one of the moments that will never leave me. Bill schroeder, like sandy, had nothing to do with the protest. He was an eagle scout, raised in lorain, an Industrial Town on the shores of lake erie. Bill was shot in the back from 382 feet away. He died in the hospital an hour later. By order of president white, the University Campus has been closed. Please return to your dormitories and leave the campus by the shortest route as soon as possible. We went into our rooms and just grabbed a few things and packed a bag kind of hastily. Before we left, i remember my father saying, show me where it happened. As i walked up the hill to the pagoda, i saw bullet shells and i just reached down and picked up a handful of them as i was holding those shells, i just looked down at those trigger men and just started skreechl i eed murderers, murderers and i had my fist out. I remember being so angry. I felt my father putting his arms around me and holding me very tight and begging me to stop screaming at them. My father, this world war ii veteran, realized this can happen in america. It just did. The next day, john filos photo made the front page of the new york times. Across the nation, kent became a rallying cry as nearly 3 million joined a National Student strike against the war. What is it in the make of the american psyche, what is it in our country that we would have come to that point, where we would shoot down innocent, young people on a College Campus . I think it changed america, changed the way we do things forever. I would never, ever forget what happened at kent state. Its currently 12 23, so were going to get ready to get started. When 12 24 strikes, we will be ringing the victory bell 15 times, four times for the four students slain at kent state on may 4th, 1970, nine times for the nine wounded and two times for the two murders at jackson state. [ bell tolls ] [ bell tolls ] [ bell tolls ] [ silence ] for 13 horrifying seconds, we wondered about all of those students out there in the open who didnt find a car or a tree to get behind. Thats what i remember thinking the entire time i crouched and waited for 13 horrifying seconds. When the gunfire stopped. I think every one of us who was there will recall the deafening silence. The silence of shock and disbelief and the horror just crescended in this unified cry of what have you done . What have you done . And then we saw all around us what they had done. A couple hundred students there that might get hurt. Can we try to move them out first . Will you give us a chance . How long will you give us . Youve got five. Please listen to me right now. Please be quiet. I am begging you right now, if you dont disperse right now, theyre going to move in and it can only be a slaughter. Jesus christ, i dont want to be part of this. Im begging you. Got into my apartment and i thought i better call jeff and tell him to get out of there, that he doesnt have to hang around during all that trouble. So i call and try to get through to ravenna hospital i couldnt. I got ahold of a telephone operator and she got me through and i identified myself and said im mrs. Krause and i want to know how my daughter is. I want to talk to the administrator. I called his number. It rang and rang. And then a young man, i said let me speak to jeff. And he said who is this . And i said its his mother. And he said, hes dead. He came on the phone. He said oh, she was doa. Thats how i found out my daughter was gone. Hi. My name is john cleary, and i was one of the wounded students 50 years ago. I was shot in the chest near the iron sculpture next to taylor hall. I was not a protester, but a student going to class, whose curiosity brought me to the commons to watch a noon rally. It wasnt long before the number of students swelled into the thousands. Mostly students like me, who wanted to see how events were going to unfold. I watched the National Guard proceed to the practice football field, kneel and aim their rifles at the students in the parking lot. Later near the metal skrupture hoping to get a picture of the guard at the crest of the hill that led to the commons. Suddenly they turned and fired directly in the parking lot without any warning. I was caught in their line of fire, falling immediately after being shot. My next recollection was in the hospital, awaiting treatment. I was roommates with joe lewis and dean kahler, witnessing their pain and agony as they struggled with their wounds. I was privileged to attend the book signing last fall, bound together by a picture of me on the ground which he took, which made the cover of life magazine. Another picture that had a big impact on me is a picture of me on the ground, surrounded by people, protecting me from the guard and several people tend ing to my wounds, including joe cullum and brother fargo. This is the picture im referring to right here. These people, in my mind, are heroes who saved my life. 50 years later, were called upon to remember that awful day and remember those who were slain and those who were wounded. This year is especially difficult, as we are unable to come together as a family on this milestone date. Often, i am asked, what is the significance of may 4th. It was the first time that the u. S. Military was sent on to an american College Campus, where lives were taken and not protected. It polarized campuses across the nation to express their outrage over the kent state killings and shut down many College Campuses in response to the killings. Why do i attend the commemorations now . Its an opportunity for me to show my respect and remember the other wounded students, those who were witnesses of that day, those that actively put on the may 4th commemorations and those whose lives were cut short. It is up to us who were there to keep the memory of may 4th alive and hopefully teach a new generation of students never forget the historical import of what occurred that day so that it will never happen again. Thank you. While its very important, especially at this date, you know, down through the years or through the decades, there were some antagonisms in the earlier years where the students had to kind of increase some pressures for the purpose of raising awareness with the public. The university really wasnt on board as much in the earlier decades, but now they are. In fact, the university especially the last two or three administrations, dr. Warren, dr. Lefton and dr. Cartwright, the three president s have stepped forward during the last 20 years so that the university has embraced the educational imperative. Its been their duty for a long time, and now to see the university administration, the faculty, the students, everybody is on the same page. And i think this is just a much better situation to see the administration and trustees embrace this issue. This university is where the tragedy happened and the university has a duty to the four students who lost their lives, to make sure this doesnt happen again. Hi. This is joe lewis, speaking to you from my home in oregon. Im very sorry were going to not be able to get together for the 50th commemoration ceremony or celebration. For me, it was always a bittersweet reunion. Im very glad to be able to get together and honor the memory of allison and sandy, jeff and bill. And im also happy when i can get together with my blood brothers, a group of very kind and wise men who share a unique experience in life. Im glad for the participation over the years of the may 4th task force, their various leaders and the students at Kent State University who join us each year for the commemoration. Im happy to say ive only missed a couple in the last 30 years, and would have been there this spring as well. Its important to underscore the importance of p