After the Kent State Shootings: Bowling Green State University's Reaction
Taxonomy
Dr. Hollis Andrew Moore (April 3, 1923 - April 1, 1981) was born in Pierce City, Missouri. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in history and political science in 1946 at Baylor University, and went on to receive his Ph.D. in education administration from the University of Texas. He also held honorary degrees from Hanyang University in Korea and from Central Michigan University.
Prior to becoming president of BGSU, Dr. Moore served as the Executive Secretary of the Committee for the Advancement of School Administration in Washington D.C. Before that, he was the Director of Education at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Dean of Education at the University of Arizona. He also served as a consultant for the US Office of Education and the Department of State’s Bureau for Cultural Affairs. In addition, he was a member of the White House Conference on Education in 1956.
Dr. Moore passed away in 1981. Moore Musical Arts Center was dedicated on May 8, 1981 in honor of Dr. Moore and his wife, Marian.
James Allen Rhodes (September 13, 1909 – March 4, 2001) was an American Republican politician from Ohio, who served as Ohio's governor for four terms. In 1970, Rhodes ordered the Ohio National Guard to Kent State University to quell protests against the Vietnam War. The guardsmen killed four people.
Before the shootings, Rhodes referred to the protestors as being "worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the nightriders and the vigilantes. They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America." Two days after the Kent State shootings, Rhodes lost the Republican primary election to the United States Senate.
William Travers Jerome III (July 29, 1919 - March 10, 2008) was a 1941 magna cum laude graduate of Colgate University. He earned his master's and doctorate degrees from Harvard University and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Middlebury College, Vermont.
His career as an educational administrator began at Middlebury, Vermont, where he was assistant to the President and instructor in economics (1946-1950). In 1953 he was appointed Associate Professor of Business Administration at Syracuse University, where, in 1958, he became Dean of the College of Business.
In 1963 Dr. Jerome became the sixth president of Bowling Green State University, guiding the University through a period of rapid physical growth, as evidenced by the addition of ten buildings, including the library, and by a major jump in enrollment. Library growth during this time included the establishment of the University Archives, the Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, and the Browne Popular Culture Library.
It fell to Dr. Jerome to guide the campus during the turbulent years of the Vietnam era. Thanks to his leadership, BGSU remained open during the days following the May 1970 Kent State shootings, the only Ohio state university to do so.
Dr. Jerome left BGSU in 1970 to accept a position as special consultant to the President of Florida International University. He later became Distinguished University Professor of Management at FIU.
In 1982, the Bowling Green State University Board of Trustees passed a resolution re-naming the University Library in honor of President-Emeritus Dr. William Travers Jerome, III. A rededication and naming ceremony was held at the William T. Jerome Library on September 23, 1983. Dr. Jerome passed away in March 2008.
B.A. Bowling Green State University, 1971.
Member of Pi Sigma Alpha, Omicron Delta Epsilon
Resident Assistant
Manager of Falcons soccer team
B.A. Bowling Green State University, 1971
PRSSA, President
Sigma Delta Chi, Vice President
Resident Assistant
Assistant Hall Director, Anderson
UAA, Dormitory Council; intramurals, Resident Assistant
Bowling Green State University, Alumni Service Award, 2000
Alpha Phi Alpha, Member
Artist, painter
Resident Assistant
Intramurals
Arnold Air Society
Assistant Hall Director
Delta Sigma Pi, Member
Special Forces
Delta Sigma Pi, Member
Marketing Club, Member
Stock Market Club, Member
B.S. Bowling Green State University, 1972
JD, Case Western Reserve University, 1978
Lambda Alpha, Member
Resident Assistant
ROTC
BA, Wright State University, 1975
MA, Bowling Green State University, Ohio University, 1976
PhD, University of Colorado, 1984
Resident Assistant
Criminal defense attorney
Resident Assistant
Afrasia-Euricana newspaper
Anderson Hall, Director
The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre) were the shootings on May 4, 1970, of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, during a mass protest against the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces. Twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.
Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30 of that year. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.
There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of 4 million students, and the event further affected public opinion, at an already socially contentious time, over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.
The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies.
The majority of Americans believe the war was unjustified. The war would last roughly 19 years and would also form the Laotian Civil War as well as the Cambodian Civil War, which also saw all three countries become communist regimes by the end of it. Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973.
CambodiaPresident Richard Nixon announced on television on May 1st, 1970 that U.S. forces would be entering Cambodia with the purported aim of destroying the bases of commanding communist forces. The decision, and subsequent reports of bombings, galvanised anti-war protestors into further action as a response to the perceived escalation of an already unpopular war expanding into another country.
I-75On May 5th 1970, the day after the Kent State Shootings, BGSU students keen to express their outrage at the events held meeting at various points on campus. Among the suggestions put forward in Anderson and Rodgers halls meetings was the idea of protesting on Interstate 75, with the intention of stopping traffic and drawing dramatic attention to the anti-war cause. According to the interviews in this collection, although the proposal was met enthusiastically in the heat of the moment, the following day it was generally perceived to be a bad idea as it would risk aggravating road users and generating negative press for the demonstrators, as well as giving license for then Governor James A. Rhodes to call in the National Guard.
May 6th VigilOn the evening of May 8th 1970, more than 7,000 BGSU students marched through the streets of Bowling Green carrying candles and protest signs in a show of solidarity for the anti-war movement and a memorial for the lives lost in the violence at Kent State. Approximately 200 police officers were positioned along the route, along with 200 students acting as marshalls and medics, but the protest passed without reported incident.
May 8th protest in ColumbusOn May 8th, 1970, an estimated 600 BGSU students travelled en masse to join with other students from neighbouring colleges at a rally in Columbus. In total, 6,000 students from 18 Ohio Universities were present, with a speaker chosen from each.
BGSU student Johnathan Wierwill addressed the crowd with six points condemning the actions of President Nixon’s government, and Governor Rhodes. A copy of the statement was given to John McElroy, executive assistant to Governor Rhodes.
May 9th protest in WashingtonAn unknown number of BGSU students travelled to a widely publicised demonstration in Washington DC on May 9th, 1970. The specific aim of the protest was to march as close to the White House as possible in order to protest the war. An estimated 100,000 protestors were in attendence.
A flyer circulated by a coalition of antiwar activists under the name “The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam”, stated “We call for a nonviolent, disciplined demonstration on Saturday because to do otherwise would be suicide for the movement and delay the end of the war.” Though temperatures and emotions were high, and at one point attempts were made to overturn the busses encircling the White House grounds, there were no reports of violence.