CINCINNATI, Ohio (Achieve3000, January 31, 2011). More than 40 years ago, four students were killed by the Ohio National Guard on the campus of Kent State University during a protest against the Vietnam War. The shootings sent shockwaves across the U. S. , further polarizing a nation already divided over the conflict. The U. S. in Vietnam By the time of the Kent State shootings, the U. S. was deeply involved in the war in Vietnam. In 1954, Vietnam had split into two countries: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnamese leaders wanted to unite North and South Vietnam under a Communist government.
South Vietnamese leaders refused, citing an opposition to Communism. In 1958, North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam, intent on uniting under Communist rule. The fighting in Vietnam began during a time when the U. S. was entangled in the Cold War. American leaders feared that if South Vietnam fell to Communism, the same might happen in other countries in Southeast Asia. In an effort to support democracy and stop the spread of Communism, the U. S. sent military and economic aid to back the anti-Communist government in South Vietnam.
But American support in South Vietnam did little to discourage Communists in North Vietnam. By the early 1960s, a full-fledged war was underway. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the American military campaign. He committed ground combat troops to defend South Vietnam and ordered airstrikes in North Vietnam. The War Comes Home Meanwhile, in the U. S. , Americans were becoming increasingly polarized in their opinions on the war. Many Americans believed it was important to prevent South Vietnam from falling to Communism.
Others believed the country should not get involved in the region’s affairs. In addition, many Americans were opposed to the government’s authorization of required enlistment as a way to mobilize troops for the war. By the mid 1960s, public protests against American involvement in Vietnam were becoming more common. Perhaps nowhere was this objection more evident than on U. S. college campuses. Students staged rallies and marches. They penned essays and songs to express their opinions. Many of these protestors expressed their opposition to the war by practicing a strategy of passive resistance.
By the late 1960s, many Americans were hopeful that an end to the war was in sight. In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president, due in part to his promise to end American involvement in Vietnam. In 1969, Nixon did start to remove U. S. troops from Vietnam. However, he also authorized new airstrikes on North Vietnamese military bases in neighboring Cambodia. Many people were outraged by the bombings, seeing them as an extension of the war—the opposite of what Nixon had promised. Many antiwar protestors became yet more frustrated and adopted more forceful strategies to convey their message.
Kent State News of the airstrikes in Cambodia sparked a wave of angry protests across college campuses. One of those protests took place on the afternoon of Friday, May 1, 1970, at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. By that evening, the protest had spread to the streets of downtown Kent. There, some students threw bottles at police cars and broke storefront windows with rocks. Fearing a riot, Kent police fired tear gas at the students, forcing them to retreat to campus. In the wake of these violent confrontations, the university banned any further student rallies.
Members of the Ohio National Guard were called in to prevent any uprisings on campus. Defying these measures, students at Kent State organized another demonstration for Monday, May 4. That morning, hundreds of people gathered on campus for the protest. The National Guard ordered the crowd to break up, but some protestors refused. Frustrated students pelted the armed soldiers with rocks. In response, the National Guard fired tear gas into the crowds. With tensions running high, some students continued to taunt and throw rocks at the soldiers.
In the midst of the violence, someone—it’s not clear who-ordered National Guardsmen to fire their weapons. Some Guardsmen fired into the air, but others fired directly into the crowd of protestors. Later, these soldiers claimed they were in fear for their lives, and had fired in self defense. When the shooting stopped, four students lay dead. Nine more had been wounded. Word of the shootings spread quickly through the country. Some Americans blamed the students for provoking the conflict, claiming that the protestors were wrong to have confronted the National Guard. Others were outraged by what had happened.
In the days that followed the shootings, college campuses across the country erupted with more rallies, protests, and student strikes. In an effort to ease tensions, some colleges closed, and students were ordered to leave. Many universities were forced to cancel graduation ceremonies in 1970. Later, a presidential commission on campus unrest would describe the period as a time of the deepest U. S. social divisions since the Civil War. Five years after the Kent State shootings, North Vietnamese forces took control of South Vietnam, effectively ending the Vietnam War.
Although the longest war in U. S. history was finally over, the outcome was bittersweet for many Americans. An estimated 58,000 U. S. soldiers had lost their lives in the conflict. Another 300,000 had been wounded. In the decades that followed, many soldiers and civilians would work to overcome painful memories and bridge the deep national divide caused by the Vietnam War. Today, the tragedy at Kent State serves as a reminder of the political and social unrest during a difficult period in U. S. history.
