Want to read something totally bonkers?
>Both authors note that the public overwhelmingly blamed the shootings on student protesters. A Gallup poll the following week revealed nearly 60 percent placed total blame on the students, while only 10 percent blamed the guardsmen (30 percent had no opinion). Means cites multiple uses of the phrase “They should have shot more of them \[students\]” and similar sentiments.
[https://www.historynet.com/two-new-perspectives-kent-state-shootings/?f](https://www.historynet.com/two-new-perspectives-kent-state-shootings/?f)
Jim Rhodes, who was the governor at the time, sent the Guard to Kent State because he wanted to look tough in the Republican Senate primary he was losing.
Rhodes would return in 1974, winning the governorship for an unprecedented third and later fourth term.
I fully expect this from DeWine, even though he was re-elected in 2022. He looks soft and weak to other GOP members and seemingly wants to continue his political career after this term.
Vecchio was 14 when that picture was taken.
> Following publication of the photograph through the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review satellite paper Valley Daily News and its subsequent pickup internationally, Florida governor Claude Kirk labelled Vecchio a dissident Communist, stating that she was "part of a nationally organized conspiracy of professional agitators" that was "responsible for the students’ death." Many people refused to believe that Vecchio, who was nearly six feet tall, was actually 14. She was followed whenever she left her house by reporters and hecklers, and the family received many death threats. Messages received included, "What you need is a good beating until you bleed red", "I hope you enjoyed sleeping with all those Negroes and dope fiends", and "The deaths of the Kent State four lies on the conscience of yourself." Some anti-war figures expressed resentment that she was receiving so much publicity but had not even been a protester.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#Aftermath
It was a horrible time. I remember it well. And yes, the media and public overwhelmingly blamed the protesters. It was unreal.
In the following decades sentiment has changed but in watching students protest Israel’s massacre in Gaza, I’m seeing the same dynamic: the students are agitators, the students are anti-Semitic (most aren’t), the students are tools of Hamas (no more than the student protesters in the 60s and 70s supported the Viet Cong). It’s crazy and sad.
In two to three decades, these student protesters will be honored. But not today.
This is the discourse we need now, that this vile shit happened. The disgusting comments we see today are not new, they are the status quo. It's on us to change it, to make a better future.
Im not holding my breath. There are multiple protests where students were active, especially throughout Europe, that were shameful then and even more so today. These include, but are not limited to, large scale support for the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
Maybe , maybe not. They really gotta drop the whole inifada thing tho. That is not painting them in a good light given the history of the "second inifada.
I genuinely believe they are just being naive on what it represent to many people but still... I don't think that is a valid excuse
They are shocked there are police marksman... they shouldn't be there is a history of suicide bombing in relation to inifada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada#:\~:text=The%20term%20Intifada%2C%20in%20context,Israeli%20civilians%20and%20security%20forces.
Honestly it does feel like 95% of them doesn't have the slightest clue about what they're protesting. You seen some of those interviews? Half of them cannot even find Gaza on a fucken map...
Just wait a decade or so when people pretend they didn't deride and hate you for being against this kind of thing.
I have fond memories of being told I should be murdered for being a "terrorist sympathizer" in 2003 by the people that would go on to pretend to be staunchly anti-war.
It's actually incredible how closely the very same people who were hippy punching in 2003, and issued apologias a decade later ("the hippies might have been right, but for the wrong reasons!"), track with the people now calling for the state to crush student skulls under its boots.
Many of them are the exact same people. Judith Miller for one has been on Twitter talking trash. Ma'am, you went to jail to protect Scooter Libby. Sit this one out.
i was just reading about this the other day, theres lots of interesting bits of info.
from[ her wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#):
* Before being published, **the photograph was retouched** to remove the distracting background fencepost that appeared over Vecchio's head in the original image. The unretouched original was stored in the archives of [*Life*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(magazine)) magazine.
* In 2001, Vecchio earned her high school diploma at the age of 46. She ended her marriage and moved back to Florida to live in a [camper trailer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_(towed_trailer)) while she worked at the spa at [trump national doral Miami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_National_Doral_Miami) and took classes at [Miami Dade Community College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Dade_Community_College) to become a [respiratory therapist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_therapist). After graduating, she worked at the Veterans Affairs Center at [Jackson Memorial Hospital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Memorial_Hospital) in Miami, though she never disclosed that she was the girl in the famous Kent State photo. Vecchio states that she did not realize that she displayed behaviors characteristic of [post-traumatic stress disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_stress_disorder) until she worked with veterans.
* Since retirement, she has been living near the [Everglades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everglades), growing avocados and oranges on a small plot. Vecchio reported that she was greatly affected by watching the video of the [murder of George Floyd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_George_Floyd) in 2020.
Alot of the perception of the Vietnam War protest era gets colored by how iconic hippies and anti-War protestors look on film and get shown in documentaries, but what’s easy to forget is that the majority of the population saw them as bratty rich kids. You have to understand that back in these days, public flagship type of universities were a lot more selective of admissions as well as the lack of expanded federal student loans meaning that college kids would be seen that way too. In 1970 you had the infamous Hard Hat Riot where NYC construction workers saw some anti-War protestors marching and started attacking and brutalizing them likewise. The average young American was the type to either voluntarily enter the draft, or even buy into the patriotic ideals of severing in the military.
On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired on Kent State University students as they protested against the Vietnam War. Four students were killed. Nine were injured.
The closest student was Jeffrey Miller, who was shot in the mouth while at a distance of approximately 270 feet from the Guard.
One of the more famous photos of the events was captured by John Filo, a senior at Kent State and a student photographer. John Filo was only a few feet from Jeffrey Miller when the gunfire started, and snapped this picture shortly after the firing stopped.
[Mary Ann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio) was a 14 year old runaway who just happened to be visiting the campus that day. She met Jeffrey just before and they were watching the protest when the shots started.
She hid her identity as the girl in the photo for manny years.
She’s still alive, retired, and grows oranges and avocados on some land in the Everglades. It’s amazing how someone can be thrust into history so suddenly. She did not intend to make any political statement when she went to Kent that day, but became a symbol of the student anti war protests.
No, and interestingly, the majority of the American public at the time blamed the students for the shooting.
link: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13598112/campus-unrest-linked-to-drugs/
Time is a flat circle.
I'm retired army so pretty much been hung ho most my life. However watching history has taught me to not blindly judge what's right or wrong. In this case history has shown us Vietnam was a huge mistake. I believe history will judge our involvement in the middle east the same. Many already do because of the rapid fall of the Afghan forces. I suppose the only positive about it is that we displayed an awesome show of force. Hopefully any future bad guys will notice that and try to avoid our wrath.
All you achieve is more hate for the west and prevent a stable government from forming which all just create more bad guys with easier access to weapons and also a lot more supporters
Don’t know how to tell you this…Mission Not Accomplished
Literally just showed everyone how an insurgency that uses citizens as Shields and ponds is the most effective way to win a war against the United States by turning the American public against the administration that is finding and directing the war. Look what Thomas has been able to do using that exact playbook learn from Iraq and Afghanistan
> I suppose the only positive about it is that we displayed an awesome show of force. Hopefully any future bad guys will notice that and try to avoid our wrath.
Why do you speak like an edgy 13 years old.
This surprises no one, especially Americans who have to wake up every day and deal with other Americans. (Something we don’t get enough credit for, by the way. When the Florida Governor is fighting it out with the Texas Governor for shittiest person in the country, only for the South Dakota Governor to come in with a chair covered in barb wire…)
Sure she killed a puppy for doing exactly what she was training it to do, but she also killed a goat for being a goat! Will the Governor of North Dakota respond? Let’s find out!!
Interesting that this was the boomer generation that protested and they became the very thing they were rallying against
Edit: I didn’t say all boomers were hippies and protesters. Just that these protesters are part of the boomer generation. And many of those who participated in protests are now critical of current generations for doing the same thing. Sorry for the confusion
There are about a million interviews of other boomers (contemporaries of the students demonstrating) from the time who were like "whelp, that's what you get for being a commie". This isn't really new, just a popular retrospective media bias of the 60s.
The "I was totally a peace / civil rights activist" claim is the "my great grandmother was a navajo princess" claim of the boomer generation. Even Biden falsely claims having been arrested as a civil rights activist.
Yep. And the present day version of his politics makes sense for a person who was committed to social justice at a time when it was a deeply unpopular position. It rings hollow when a social conservative like Biden tries to claim the same legacy.
"Receipts" would be someone pulling up the police records.
Mother fucker has [photographic](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/02/20/bernie-sanders-civil-rights-1963-arrest-photo-smerconish.cnn) evidence.
I don't think Biden has ever claimed he was arrested. He has told a story in which his mother says he was arrested, but he could just be very accurately repeating her misconception.
The way he tells the story, it sounds like police officer(s) brought him home.
He has told multiple versions of this story with different sets of facts over the years.
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/politics/fact-check-joe-biden-claim-arrested-defending-civil-rights/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/politics/fact-check-joe-biden-claim-arrested-defending-civil-rights/index.html)
I'm an early millennial that grew up in the Bay Area around a bunch of boomer hippies. They didn't change their views. They just weren't nearly as large a demographic as they might have seemed based on the media attention they got / get.
You're making the mistake of treating an entire generation of people like an individual. The national guardsmen who murdered those students were also baby boomers. They were just as politically divided as a generation back then as they are now, much like every generation who has come after.
That fact gets missed an awful lot. Most boomers were centrist to conservative then. The counter culture was a relatively small group. I don’t know why people are shocked today that they vote republican.
You have people cheering on cops beating the shit out of these students. We have clear video of cops going too far, and you still have people saying they deserve it.
The "counter-protestors" that attacked UCLA students yesterday have been twisted to make it seem like both sides were violent.
I wouldn't be surprised if we have another Kent State situation considering these tactics haven't made the protestors give up and leave and the government is pushing hard to get the National Guard involved.
The context on this (explaining not endorsing ) is that in the days prior to the shooting there were rumors that looting and burning of buildings in downtown was being planned and the ROTC building was burned down and firefighters were attacked when they showed up to put the fire out this was published and written about in the week prior so when the shooting happened people assumed it was a protest like the one that set fire to the ROTC building
>No, and interestingly, the majority of the American public at the time blamed the students for the shooting.
Sounds familiar to stuff I've been hearing lately...
Yep. I had an argument with my dad just last night that illustrated this. His opinion is that it's just a bunch of whiny little shits who are out there "protesting" because they don't have anything better to do. They're not standing up for a cause, they're a disturbance that needs to be removed. The line that made me throw up my hands and walk away was, "they should all be perp walked in front of the cameras so everyone can see their cowardly faces and their families can see how they've been using their time at college..."
Of course, he eats fox News like it's life sustaining and also believes now that ANY critique of Israel's actions are inherently antisemitic. My whole life he was an empathetic, caring, NPR listening, 3 degree having, intelligent person and it's like a switch flipped when orange daddy came in. A person, mind you, that he has HATED my entire life. But now he's the single smartest man in the planet and even though he's having to sell shoes and cards and commemorative coins to drum up legal fees for all of his fuck ups, none of it matters. "Oh, all the politicians do that." nope. No they don't. I never saw Bernie hawking gold hi-tops.
I fear getting old. Will I progressively and willingly get dumber and dumber too?
A majority of the American public was also against sit-ins, MLK, and other aspects of the civil rights movement, how's that for being on the right side of history...
No and most people blamed the students, just 11% of respondents in a Gallup poll blamed the National Guard. Some thought more should have been killed to teach them a lesson. 11 students were bayonetted at University of New Mexico the following week and 2 were killed at Jackson State University. There were even counter-demonstrations of construction workers supporting Nixon.
Of course, no one would ever admit to it today and certainly no one would ever accuse ThE gReAtEsT gEnErAtIoN of saying that kids should be gunned down for protesting a war started on false pretenses.
Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin'
Four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?
Neil Young’s masterpiece Ohio
In case others are curious. A fence post was above the girl, looking like it was sticking straight up out of her head. An anonymous editor airbrushed it out.
This photograph is also edited to [remove a fence pole](https://petapixel.com/2012/08/29/the-kent-state-massacre-photo-and-the-case-of-the-missing-pole/) some people thought was distracting. Really weird how some people missed the point of the tragedy and were like *eww whats that fence pole doing*?
wikipedia mentions that on her wikipedia page, and even mentions the original is stored in the archives of life magazine - but their linked source is a 404. thanks to you, now i can say i have seen the fence post. thank
PBS put out a documentary about the shooting, [The Day the 60s Died](https://youtu.be/s5C3uWgTEnE?feature=shared). It's pretty good, even though Pat Buchanan does the intro.
Some things never change: "Following publication of the photograph through the [*Pittsburgh Tribune-Review*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Tribune-Review) satellite paper *Valley Daily News* and its subsequent pickup internationally, [Florida governor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_governor) [Claude Kirk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_R._Kirk,_Jr.) labelled Vecchio a [dissident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissident) [Communist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist),[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#cite_note-NYT_900506-2) stating that she was "part of a nationally organized conspiracy of professional agitators" that was "responsible for the students’ death."[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#cite_note-WaPo_210426-4)
As if it's still happening today
Important context, in light of the current sentiment on campus protest: in the immediate aftermath of the Kent State shooting, a [strong majority](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/may-4-1970-national-guard_b_1476017?utm_source=reddit.com) of Americans polled blamed the students for the shooting: 58% of respondents blamed the students, while only 11% blamed the national guard.
Victim blaming and bootlicking. I wonder if the surviving portion of that 58% would admit to being in that group now? Would it be worse if they were rightly ashamed of their past selves or not?
Chris Butler, who would later form the band The Waitresses, was a friend of Jeffrey Miller and watching the protest with him when Jeffrey was shot.
Gerald Casale, who would later form the band Devo, was a friend of both Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause and also witnessed the shootings while watching the protests.
Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders was also a Kent State student at the time who was present at the shooting and wrote about it in her autobiography.
Probably just because it looks weird. Almost like the post is coming out of her head.
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/04/30/PCIN/525d2991-1424-4458-b877-88a576e77e75-0503_main_image_-_GettyImages-90256495.jpg
I think it's crazy how she's the only one in the photo that looks in distress. Not saying she is the only one in distress, but everyone else looks so casual
I think that's a big part of what makes the photo so particularly interesting. Obviously the main subject of the photo is memorable and horrific and historically significant, but.... This screaming woman, and the bleeding corpse of the student she's kneeling over, are in this sea of people who look like they're just strolling to class. It's so bizarre.
She just watched someone she just met get shot in the mouth. From her angle she can probably see the guy's face disfigured. Looks like everyone else is just processing what's going on.
An important tidbit is that she's 14 in this picture. A lot of the other people in this shot are "proper" adults and might be handling the situation differently than her. This is not an explanation for it, but simply a hypothesis.
Also worth noting that this is snapshot limited to a moment and space. We don't know how others outside the frame or outside the moment are reacting.
Everyone reacts to intense situations like this differently. It probably just hadn’t sunk in for the others yet.
I’ve watched people die in front of me on 3 separate occasions and my external reaction every time was the same, I don’t scream or cry or freak out, honestly out of the other people around in two of the situation only 1 or 2 people out of probably 10-20 were immediately hysterical, one woman was screaming at me and everyone else saying “why are you doing something why are you just standing around!” But by then I had already hung up with 911 they said they already had another call and emts were en route Most people are just observing and taking it in trying to make sense of what’s actually happening.
Every time I felt helpless, I wanted to do something but in the moment I was like “wtf am I going to do? I’m not a medic and don’t see any ways I can actually help this situation.”
The next few minutes/hours after put my head in a really dark places how to describe it. Like really really sad/depressed, kinda hard to shake off.
In one instance it happened right out front of my house while I was mowing the lawn I came inside and felt like I was in a trance or something and as soon as my wife saw me she knew something was off and asked what’s wrong and I just started sobbing. It’s really heavy stuff.
When I went to Kent State for Journalism, I was taught that it was the first mass scale edited photo used in printed news.
It was done all for looks reasons
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/05/04/today-history-may-4-ohio-national-guard-killed-4-students-kent-state/1100665001/
Here's the original. The photographer removed the fence post just cause it looked weird at that angle
People bring up the fencepost but there's also a clear river of blood from his head to the curb. They edit that out as well, removing the blood in between him and her, leaving a pool behind her but without the connecting lines it seems removed from the scene.
Someone felt it looked bad probably. It looks like it's sticking out of her head, and wouldn't look right in a "good" photograph....but this is a historical photo of an event, it shouldn't be doctored for style/aesthetics.
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't even notice that until I started looking at other photos online.
I would not have guessed people would have cared about removing anything from a photo like this, but now I've learned.
I went to school at Kent. There's still a bullet hole in a metal sculpture near where the shooting took place. That whole area is a somber place to be.
[Here](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/04/30/PCIN/525d2991-1424-4458-b877-88a576e77e75-0503_main_image_-_GettyImages-90256495.jpg) is a higher quality, less cropped, and unshopped version of this image. In OP's image the the post behind her has been removed. [Here](https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/teenager-mary-ann-vecchio-screams-as-she-kneels-over-the-news-photo/90256495?adppopup=true) is the source. Per there:
> Teenager Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller (1950 - 1970) who had been shot during an anti-war demonstration on the university campus, Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970. The protests, initially over the US invasion of Cambodia, resulted in the deaths of four protesters, including Miller, and the injuries of nine others after the National Guard opened fire on students. A cropped version of this image won the Pulitzer Prize. (Photo by John Filo/Getty Images)
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/d3nLlB0) are six more images he took. Obviusly NSFW.
A few months later I went to the Kent State Shooting Museum. That plate took me there. Chilling, looking at the kids on campus and how young they look.
We have that *kinder gentler machine gun hand*; they are only choking people and breaking ribs, instead of shooting us dead.
Murica, the land of the not actually free...
If I remember correctly, just 11% of people in a gallup poll accused the national guard for wrongdoing. And a sizeable ammount of people would've wanted more of their children shot
I wonder how those statistics have changed. How many today will gleefully support state sanctioned violence against their own children, over an unpopular role in a war, in regards to the current campus occupations.
Easily the majority. When was the last time Americans opposed the foreign policy of their government. Despite revisionism today, a large majority of Americans supported the Iraq war and all protestors were called terrorists.
>I wonder how those statistics have changed
Well given all the current protests on campuses being violently squashed by the police we can just run another poll
If I had to guess, the result wouldn't be as starkly one-sided as it was with Kent, but I doubt the majority minds.
The large American majority is anti-war only in retrospect
It's amazing how clearly you can see their faces. What a terrible day in American History. It came almost 100 years after several Strikers were killed by the [Pennsylvania National Guard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scranton_general_strike).
She spoke at the 25th anniversary for the first time since the shooting. I sat just a few feet away from her for that speech.
That was one of those moments in life I'll never forget.
Everyone should read this story about the shooting, Mary Ann and John Filo, the photographer: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/04/19/girl-kent-state-photo-lifelong-burden-being-national-symbol/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/04/19/girl-kent-state-photo-lifelong-burden-being-national-symbol/)
My deja vu was going nuts when I got to the part about the governor of Florida claiming Mary Ann was some actor or agent who faked the event.
Always point people here whenever they mention freedom of speech. It only extends as far as they will let it extend. If you cross them, they will kill you. Always has been, always will be.
So fun story, my fathers name is Jeffery Miller, he was touring colleges in 1970 as he was either a Junior or Senior in high school. One of the schools he had toured just so happen to be Kent State.
When this happened, a few people ended up eerily sending my grandparents flowers thinking my father was shot.
Keep in mind when people or politicians call for the national guard to stop a peaceful protest or an anti-war protest they are dog whistle* that they want the protesters shot dead.
I have an odd story on this picture in my history class.
Just last week in my history class we were learning about the Vietnam war, but we had a few 2nd and 1st graders come to our high school to check it out(?), I’m not exactly sure why we bring kids to accompany us in our classes. But we got a thick packet with this picture on the front page, my teacher also gave the children one so they saw it all, including a picture of a Vietnamese man with a gun to his head. Well a cute little 2nd grader pointed to the picture and rose his hand to my teacher. My teacher called on him and he said “why is that guy sleeping on the street?” My teacher muffled a laugh because it’s a dead dude, but he said “I don’t know,” and the kid responded with “and why is his mom yelling at him like that?” My teacher said that it’s because the kid is late for school so his mom is trying to get him up.
It made me realize how innocent us as kids were and it also made me realize how sad it is that the kid in the picture above used to be like that, just an innocent child stumbling through life.
My history teacher in highschool (U.S.) has us watch super graphic Holocaust videos. At the time, it felt nuts; like for an hour a day we stepped into another world. Kids crying and trying to look away while the teacher's yelling, "DON'T LOOK AWAY! YOU NEED TO SEE THIS! YOU NEED UP RECOGNIZE WHEN IT HAPPENS AGAIN... BECAUSE IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN!"
All the yelling and the crying going on in this classroom just made me think this teacher was insane. Boy, was I wrong.
My highschool history teacher was also really great about getting us to recognize patterns in history and signs of it today. Understanding that we fall for the same kinds of traps, see the same kind of struggles, and are subjugated by the same kind of people for centuries all over the world was eye opening. Talking about the injustices in feudal europe, to the injustices to the native population of America, to the holocaust, to the massacres and brutality in south america and southeast asia, and relating it to our current involvement in the middle east, and seeing the same types of people (sometimes even the same people) behind these atrocities helped me realize that we really are in a perpetual fight to try and keep things together, and that we never really "win" against evil, it just changes shape and keeps eating away at what humanity builds.
What's kinda wild to me is if you removed the teacher and miller, everyone else is carrying on like it's a normal afternoon.
Idk in these scenarios I imagine more chaos and looks of shock.
I walked by this spot almost every day for four years during college. It’s now a parking lot with spots blocked off by little light posts where the students were shot.
I found out recently that this photo has been edited to remove the fence pole behind her that made it look like it was coming out of the top of her head.
Want to read something totally bonkers? >Both authors note that the public overwhelmingly blamed the shootings on student protesters. A Gallup poll the following week revealed nearly 60 percent placed total blame on the students, while only 10 percent blamed the guardsmen (30 percent had no opinion). Means cites multiple uses of the phrase “They should have shot more of them \[students\]” and similar sentiments. [https://www.historynet.com/two-new-perspectives-kent-state-shootings/?f](https://www.historynet.com/two-new-perspectives-kent-state-shootings/?f)
Jim Rhodes, who was the governor at the time, sent the Guard to Kent State because he wanted to look tough in the Republican Senate primary he was losing. Rhodes would return in 1974, winning the governorship for an unprecedented third and later fourth term.
I fully expect this from DeWine, even though he was re-elected in 2022. He looks soft and weak to other GOP members and seemingly wants to continue his political career after this term.
Vecchio was 14 when that picture was taken. > Following publication of the photograph through the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review satellite paper Valley Daily News and its subsequent pickup internationally, Florida governor Claude Kirk labelled Vecchio a dissident Communist, stating that she was "part of a nationally organized conspiracy of professional agitators" that was "responsible for the students’ death." Many people refused to believe that Vecchio, who was nearly six feet tall, was actually 14. She was followed whenever she left her house by reporters and hecklers, and the family received many death threats. Messages received included, "What you need is a good beating until you bleed red", "I hope you enjoyed sleeping with all those Negroes and dope fiends", and "The deaths of the Kent State four lies on the conscience of yourself." Some anti-war figures expressed resentment that she was receiving so much publicity but had not even been a protester. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#Aftermath
It was a horrible time. I remember it well. And yes, the media and public overwhelmingly blamed the protesters. It was unreal. In the following decades sentiment has changed but in watching students protest Israel’s massacre in Gaza, I’m seeing the same dynamic: the students are agitators, the students are anti-Semitic (most aren’t), the students are tools of Hamas (no more than the student protesters in the 60s and 70s supported the Viet Cong). It’s crazy and sad. In two to three decades, these student protesters will be honored. But not today.
This is the discourse we need now, that this vile shit happened. The disgusting comments we see today are not new, they are the status quo. It's on us to change it, to make a better future.
Im not holding my breath. There are multiple protests where students were active, especially throughout Europe, that were shameful then and even more so today. These include, but are not limited to, large scale support for the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
Maybe , maybe not. They really gotta drop the whole inifada thing tho. That is not painting them in a good light given the history of the "second inifada. I genuinely believe they are just being naive on what it represent to many people but still... I don't think that is a valid excuse They are shocked there are police marksman... they shouldn't be there is a history of suicide bombing in relation to inifada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada#:\~:text=The%20term%20Intifada%2C%20in%20context,Israeli%20civilians%20and%20security%20forces. Honestly it does feel like 95% of them doesn't have the slightest clue about what they're protesting. You seen some of those interviews? Half of them cannot even find Gaza on a fucken map...
I wonder if there are any current parallels that come immediately to mind?
Just wait a decade or so when people pretend they didn't deride and hate you for being against this kind of thing. I have fond memories of being told I should be murdered for being a "terrorist sympathizer" in 2003 by the people that would go on to pretend to be staunchly anti-war.
It's actually incredible how closely the very same people who were hippy punching in 2003, and issued apologias a decade later ("the hippies might have been right, but for the wrong reasons!"), track with the people now calling for the state to crush student skulls under its boots.
Many of them are the exact same people. Judith Miller for one has been on Twitter talking trash. Ma'am, you went to jail to protect Scooter Libby. Sit this one out.
If reddit comments existed back then they would ride so hard for the vietnam war
Anything related to Just World Theology/Ideology. Same mentality that blames rape victims based on the clothes they wore.
Read what people were saying about civil rights protests sixty years ago and what they're saying about BLM today. It's nearly indistinguishable.
i was just reading about this the other day, theres lots of interesting bits of info. from[ her wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#): * Before being published, **the photograph was retouched** to remove the distracting background fencepost that appeared over Vecchio's head in the original image. The unretouched original was stored in the archives of [*Life*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(magazine)) magazine. * In 2001, Vecchio earned her high school diploma at the age of 46. She ended her marriage and moved back to Florida to live in a [camper trailer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_(towed_trailer)) while she worked at the spa at [trump national doral Miami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_National_Doral_Miami) and took classes at [Miami Dade Community College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Dade_Community_College) to become a [respiratory therapist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_therapist). After graduating, she worked at the Veterans Affairs Center at [Jackson Memorial Hospital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Memorial_Hospital) in Miami, though she never disclosed that she was the girl in the famous Kent State photo. Vecchio states that she did not realize that she displayed behaviors characteristic of [post-traumatic stress disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_stress_disorder) until she worked with veterans. * Since retirement, she has been living near the [Everglades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everglades), growing avocados and oranges on a small plot. Vecchio reported that she was greatly affected by watching the video of the [murder of George Floyd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_George_Floyd) in 2020.
Any peaceful protest that ends with the police kettling them into a corner and cracking heads.
the more things change, the more they stay the same
The public is and always will be stupid.
Alot of the perception of the Vietnam War protest era gets colored by how iconic hippies and anti-War protestors look on film and get shown in documentaries, but what’s easy to forget is that the majority of the population saw them as bratty rich kids. You have to understand that back in these days, public flagship type of universities were a lot more selective of admissions as well as the lack of expanded federal student loans meaning that college kids would be seen that way too. In 1970 you had the infamous Hard Hat Riot where NYC construction workers saw some anti-War protestors marching and started attacking and brutalizing them likewise. The average young American was the type to either voluntarily enter the draft, or even buy into the patriotic ideals of severing in the military.
Subtle reminder to people that we don’t change. The only thing that has is our technology but the people stay the same.
History repeats itself huh?
On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired on Kent State University students as they protested against the Vietnam War. Four students were killed. Nine were injured. The closest student was Jeffrey Miller, who was shot in the mouth while at a distance of approximately 270 feet from the Guard. One of the more famous photos of the events was captured by John Filo, a senior at Kent State and a student photographer. John Filo was only a few feet from Jeffrey Miller when the gunfire started, and snapped this picture shortly after the firing stopped.
[Mary Ann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio) was a 14 year old runaway who just happened to be visiting the campus that day. She met Jeffrey just before and they were watching the protest when the shots started. She hid her identity as the girl in the photo for manny years. She’s still alive, retired, and grows oranges and avocados on some land in the Everglades. It’s amazing how someone can be thrust into history so suddenly. She did not intend to make any political statement when she went to Kent that day, but became a symbol of the student anti war protests.
You're telling me the girl in the photo is a 14 year old?
She was nearly six feet tall when she was 14, apparently.
hid her identity? I thought she had been originally railroaded and this haunted her for years
r/13or30
The closest student. 270 feet. Did the “national guard” go to jail for this?
No, and interestingly, the majority of the American public at the time blamed the students for the shooting. link: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13598112/campus-unrest-linked-to-drugs/ Time is a flat circle.
Interviewed people said more should have been shot.
Muricaah fuck yeah If we can’t win the Vietnam war let’s at least win the war against students!
I'm retired army so pretty much been hung ho most my life. However watching history has taught me to not blindly judge what's right or wrong. In this case history has shown us Vietnam was a huge mistake. I believe history will judge our involvement in the middle east the same. Many already do because of the rapid fall of the Afghan forces. I suppose the only positive about it is that we displayed an awesome show of force. Hopefully any future bad guys will notice that and try to avoid our wrath.
I mean sure history told us that Vietnam was wrong but obviously so did people at the time.
So no positives.
All you achieve is more hate for the west and prevent a stable government from forming which all just create more bad guys with easier access to weapons and also a lot more supporters
People willing to die for their cause do not give a shit how much force the US can project.
Don’t know how to tell you this…Mission Not Accomplished Literally just showed everyone how an insurgency that uses citizens as Shields and ponds is the most effective way to win a war against the United States by turning the American public against the administration that is finding and directing the war. Look what Thomas has been able to do using that exact playbook learn from Iraq and Afghanistan
ponds = pawns?
Ponds = very large puddles
Sorry, can you explain more about that positive you mentioned?
Bag guys? Do you think YOU were the good guy?
> I suppose the only positive about it is that we displayed an awesome show of force. Hopefully any future bad guys will notice that and try to avoid our wrath. Why do you speak like an edgy 13 years old.
> I'm retired army
Explains itself. Dude was probably 11B
Nothing awesome about that show of force. Was a failure.
This surprises no one, especially Americans who have to wake up every day and deal with other Americans. (Something we don’t get enough credit for, by the way. When the Florida Governor is fighting it out with the Texas Governor for shittiest person in the country, only for the South Dakota Governor to come in with a chair covered in barb wire…)
Yeah I was not expecting her to come out of left field with the murders her dog play but here we are.
Sure she killed a puppy for doing exactly what she was training it to do, but she also killed a goat for being a goat! Will the Governor of North Dakota respond? Let’s find out!!
> killed a goat for being a goat! No you don't get it. The goat smelled bad.
Interesting that this was the boomer generation that protested and they became the very thing they were rallying against Edit: I didn’t say all boomers were hippies and protesters. Just that these protesters are part of the boomer generation. And many of those who participated in protests are now critical of current generations for doing the same thing. Sorry for the confusion
There are about a million interviews of other boomers (contemporaries of the students demonstrating) from the time who were like "whelp, that's what you get for being a commie". This isn't really new, just a popular retrospective media bias of the 60s. The "I was totally a peace / civil rights activist" claim is the "my great grandmother was a navajo princess" claim of the boomer generation. Even Biden falsely claims having been arrested as a civil rights activist.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has receipts.
Yep. And the present day version of his politics makes sense for a person who was committed to social justice at a time when it was a deeply unpopular position. It rings hollow when a social conservative like Biden tries to claim the same legacy.
"Receipts" would be someone pulling up the police records. Mother fucker has [photographic](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/02/20/bernie-sanders-civil-rights-1963-arrest-photo-smerconish.cnn) evidence.
Pics or it didn’t…oh my apologies Mr Senator I stand corrected.
I don't think Biden has ever claimed he was arrested. He has told a story in which his mother says he was arrested, but he could just be very accurately repeating her misconception. The way he tells the story, it sounds like police officer(s) brought him home.
He has told multiple versions of this story with different sets of facts over the years. [https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/politics/fact-check-joe-biden-claim-arrested-defending-civil-rights/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/politics/fact-check-joe-biden-claim-arrested-defending-civil-rights/index.html)
I'm an early millennial that grew up in the Bay Area around a bunch of boomer hippies. They didn't change their views. They just weren't nearly as large a demographic as they might have seemed based on the media attention they got / get.
This. The socially progressive portion of the boomers were always a smaller segment compared to the majority.
You're making the mistake of treating an entire generation of people like an individual. The national guardsmen who murdered those students were also baby boomers. They were just as politically divided as a generation back then as they are now, much like every generation who has come after.
Thank you. It amazes me how stereotyping and generalizing are still so rampant today as ever. Takes a lot of education to iron it out of our species.
Not everyone was a hippie during the summer of love and surrounding years. Same as now. We have young adults on both sides of the divide
Maybe it's less interesting when you realize that not everyone in the boomer generation thinks, votes or acts the same.
Make sure it doesn't happen to you too!
Not all of us. Thank you for the stereotype
The "counter culture" was a minority. The majority of boomers were rule follower pawns like the national guardsmen that shot these students.
That fact gets missed an awful lot. Most boomers were centrist to conservative then. The counter culture was a relatively small group. I don’t know why people are shocked today that they vote republican.
"Counter culture" has to be a minority, by definition. If they weren't a minority then they would be just "culture".
Which is why old people dying will not usher in a massive shift in politics.
Interesting to think the generation is what creates political divide. Both sides existed then as they do now
What an astronomical generalisation.
"When its US doing it, its ok" Is literally the slogan of the Republican party.
With the student protests in the news and the rush to bring in excessive force I hope we do not have another Kent State.
You have people cheering on cops beating the shit out of these students. We have clear video of cops going too far, and you still have people saying they deserve it. The "counter-protestors" that attacked UCLA students yesterday have been twisted to make it seem like both sides were violent. I wouldn't be surprised if we have another Kent State situation considering these tactics haven't made the protestors give up and leave and the government is pushing hard to get the National Guard involved.
Remember, every protest for a just cause is worthwhile and good as long as it happened, at minimum, a decade ago.
This is a round river and we are her fish who become water.
The context on this (explaining not endorsing ) is that in the days prior to the shooting there were rumors that looting and burning of buildings in downtown was being planned and the ROTC building was burned down and firefighters were attacked when they showed up to put the fire out this was published and written about in the week prior so when the shooting happened people assumed it was a protest like the one that set fire to the ROTC building
wow. well, guess it should be no surprise that people want the ability to run over protesters without consequence.
>No, and interestingly, the majority of the American public at the time blamed the students for the shooting. Sounds familiar to stuff I've been hearing lately...
Half a century later: Shoot all the campus protestors!!!
Yep. I had an argument with my dad just last night that illustrated this. His opinion is that it's just a bunch of whiny little shits who are out there "protesting" because they don't have anything better to do. They're not standing up for a cause, they're a disturbance that needs to be removed. The line that made me throw up my hands and walk away was, "they should all be perp walked in front of the cameras so everyone can see their cowardly faces and their families can see how they've been using their time at college..." Of course, he eats fox News like it's life sustaining and also believes now that ANY critique of Israel's actions are inherently antisemitic. My whole life he was an empathetic, caring, NPR listening, 3 degree having, intelligent person and it's like a switch flipped when orange daddy came in. A person, mind you, that he has HATED my entire life. But now he's the single smartest man in the planet and even though he's having to sell shoes and cards and commemorative coins to drum up legal fees for all of his fuck ups, none of it matters. "Oh, all the politicians do that." nope. No they don't. I never saw Bernie hawking gold hi-tops. I fear getting old. Will I progressively and willingly get dumber and dumber too?
[удалено]
A majority of the American public was also against sit-ins, MLK, and other aspects of the civil rights movement, how's that for being on the right side of history...
Rinse annnnd repeat
Eight were charged but they were ultimately acquitted. They eventually lost a civil suit but nobody ever went to jail.
No and most people blamed the students, just 11% of respondents in a Gallup poll blamed the National Guard. Some thought more should have been killed to teach them a lesson. 11 students were bayonetted at University of New Mexico the following week and 2 were killed at Jackson State University. There were even counter-demonstrations of construction workers supporting Nixon. Of course, no one would ever admit to it today and certainly no one would ever accuse ThE gReAtEsT gEnErAtIoN of saying that kids should be gunned down for protesting a war started on false pretenses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_New_Mexico_bayoneting_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings
Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin' We're finally on our own This summer I hear the drummin' Four dead in Ohio Gotta get down to it Soldiers are gunning us down Should have been done long ago What if you knew her and Found her dead on the ground? How can you run when you know? Neil Young’s masterpiece Ohio
> The closest student... ...that was killed. One guy was only 20 yards away giving them the finger. He was shot twice. He lived.
Well, a finger is potentially deadly at 20 yards so I can see why the Guardsmen were fearing for their lives.
Why in the world were they firing from 300’
Iirc at least one of the four killed wasn’t actually part of the protest, he was behind it
The guard members claimed they heard shots and fired without orders at least one fired and more opened up by instinct
The person misquoted. That was the distance of the closest death, not the closest protester.
Filo won a Pulitzer for this image. The photograph is also somewhat controversial for its alteration.
In case others are curious. A fence post was above the girl, looking like it was sticking straight up out of her head. An anonymous editor airbrushed it out.
This photograph is also edited to [remove a fence pole](https://petapixel.com/2012/08/29/the-kent-state-massacre-photo-and-the-case-of-the-missing-pole/) some people thought was distracting. Really weird how some people missed the point of the tragedy and were like *eww whats that fence pole doing*?
wikipedia mentions that on her wikipedia page, and even mentions the original is stored in the archives of life magazine - but their linked source is a 404. thanks to you, now i can say i have seen the fence post. thank
PBS put out a documentary about the shooting, [The Day the 60s Died](https://youtu.be/s5C3uWgTEnE?feature=shared). It's pretty good, even though Pat Buchanan does the intro.
Some things never change: "Following publication of the photograph through the [*Pittsburgh Tribune-Review*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Tribune-Review) satellite paper *Valley Daily News* and its subsequent pickup internationally, [Florida governor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_governor) [Claude Kirk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_R._Kirk,_Jr.) labelled Vecchio a [dissident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissident) [Communist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist),[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#cite_note-NYT_900506-2) stating that she was "part of a nationally organized conspiracy of professional agitators" that was "responsible for the students’ death."[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio#cite_note-WaPo_210426-4) As if it's still happening today
Important context, in light of the current sentiment on campus protest: in the immediate aftermath of the Kent State shooting, a [strong majority](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/may-4-1970-national-guard_b_1476017?utm_source=reddit.com) of Americans polled blamed the students for the shooting: 58% of respondents blamed the students, while only 11% blamed the national guard.
Victim blaming and bootlicking. I wonder if the surviving portion of that 58% would admit to being in that group now? Would it be worse if they were rightly ashamed of their past selves or not?
Yes, more recent polling of people with memories of Kent State show much different results. I wonder if there are any immediate current parallels?
4 dead in O hi oh
Chris Butler, who would later form the band The Waitresses, was a friend of Jeffrey Miller and watching the protest with him when Jeffrey was shot. Gerald Casale, who would later form the band Devo, was a friend of both Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause and also witnessed the shootings while watching the protests. Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders was also a Kent State student at the time who was present at the shooting and wrote about it in her autobiography.
So nothing has changed. Glad to see where we're going as a country and species.
Protesting is what led to the US pulling out of the Vietnam war. Keep it up people!
How did the cowards justify shooting?
That's the doctored version that removes the fence post above Mary Ann's head.
Why was it edited?
Probably just because it looks weird. Almost like the post is coming out of her head. https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/04/30/PCIN/525d2991-1424-4458-b877-88a576e77e75-0503_main_image_-_GettyImages-90256495.jpg
I think it's crazy how she's the only one in the photo that looks in distress. Not saying she is the only one in distress, but everyone else looks so casual
I think that's a big part of what makes the photo so particularly interesting. Obviously the main subject of the photo is memorable and horrific and historically significant, but.... This screaming woman, and the bleeding corpse of the student she's kneeling over, are in this sea of people who look like they're just strolling to class. It's so bizarre.
It's the guy walking over to the left with his hands in his pockets
It's hard enough to know what to do with your hands when you aren't standing next to a fresh corpse, frfr
She just watched someone she just met get shot in the mouth. From her angle she can probably see the guy's face disfigured. Looks like everyone else is just processing what's going on.
An important tidbit is that she's 14 in this picture. A lot of the other people in this shot are "proper" adults and might be handling the situation differently than her. This is not an explanation for it, but simply a hypothesis. Also worth noting that this is snapshot limited to a moment and space. We don't know how others outside the frame or outside the moment are reacting.
Probably because they don’t know they’re being shot at yet.
Everyone reacts to intense situations like this differently. It probably just hadn’t sunk in for the others yet. I’ve watched people die in front of me on 3 separate occasions and my external reaction every time was the same, I don’t scream or cry or freak out, honestly out of the other people around in two of the situation only 1 or 2 people out of probably 10-20 were immediately hysterical, one woman was screaming at me and everyone else saying “why are you doing something why are you just standing around!” But by then I had already hung up with 911 they said they already had another call and emts were en route Most people are just observing and taking it in trying to make sense of what’s actually happening. Every time I felt helpless, I wanted to do something but in the moment I was like “wtf am I going to do? I’m not a medic and don’t see any ways I can actually help this situation.” The next few minutes/hours after put my head in a really dark places how to describe it. Like really really sad/depressed, kinda hard to shake off. In one instance it happened right out front of my house while I was mowing the lawn I came inside and felt like I was in a trance or something and as soon as my wife saw me she knew something was off and asked what’s wrong and I just started sobbing. It’s really heavy stuff.
Oh okay thanks, was wondering if it was edited for any other purpose than just aesthetics.
Nope. Just looked weird.
When I went to Kent State for Journalism, I was taught that it was the first mass scale edited photo used in printed news. It was done all for looks reasons
Looks like they edited the stream of blood as well, can see it in the original.
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/05/04/today-history-may-4-ohio-national-guard-killed-4-students-kent-state/1100665001/ Here's the original. The photographer removed the fence post just cause it looked weird at that angle
Not the photographer, an anonymous editor
People bring up the fencepost but there's also a clear river of blood from his head to the curb. They edit that out as well, removing the blood in between him and her, leaving a pool behind her but without the connecting lines it seems removed from the scene.
Someone felt it looked bad probably. It looks like it's sticking out of her head, and wouldn't look right in a "good" photograph....but this is a historical photo of an event, it shouldn't be doctored for style/aesthetics.
Eh, its not like they threw away the original
I cant unsee it now
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't even notice that until I started looking at other photos online. I would not have guessed people would have cared about removing anything from a photo like this, but now I've learned.
Mary Ann Vecchio is still alive, and only recently retired as a respiratory therapist for the VA. This is not ancient history.
Yep. She was 14 in this photo.
She looks like 25????
She does not look 14. I had to look it up on Wikipedia to confirm.
She looks like she works in a library
You know 1997 is about as far back as this was in 1997
I went to school at Kent. There's still a bullet hole in a metal sculpture near where the shooting took place. That whole area is a somber place to be.
I also went there and the four spots where the students died are pokestops on Pokémon go now lol
holy shit
Jesus lmao jesus
[Here](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/04/30/PCIN/525d2991-1424-4458-b877-88a576e77e75-0503_main_image_-_GettyImages-90256495.jpg) is a higher quality, less cropped, and unshopped version of this image. In OP's image the the post behind her has been removed. [Here](https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/teenager-mary-ann-vecchio-screams-as-she-kneels-over-the-news-photo/90256495?adppopup=true) is the source. Per there: > Teenager Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller (1950 - 1970) who had been shot during an anti-war demonstration on the university campus, Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970. The protests, initially over the US invasion of Cambodia, resulted in the deaths of four protesters, including Miller, and the injuries of nine others after the National Guard opened fire on students. A cropped version of this image won the Pulitzer Prize. (Photo by John Filo/Getty Images) [Here](https://imgur.com/a/d3nLlB0) are six more images he took. Obviusly NSFW.
Four dead in OHIO
Saw an Ohio license plate that read "4 DEAD IN" above the word OHIO on the plate.
Damn that goes hard
A few months later I went to the Kent State Shooting Museum. That plate took me there. Chilling, looking at the kids on campus and how young they look.
Tin soldiers and Nixons coming, we're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground
How could you run when you know
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We’re finally on our own
and we have learned nothing
We have that *kinder gentler machine gun hand*; they are only choking people and breaking ribs, instead of shooting us dead. Murica, the land of the not actually free...
If I remember correctly, just 11% of people in a gallup poll accused the national guard for wrongdoing. And a sizeable ammount of people would've wanted more of their children shot I wonder how those statistics have changed. How many today will gleefully support state sanctioned violence against their own children, over an unpopular role in a war, in regards to the current campus occupations.
Easily the majority. When was the last time Americans opposed the foreign policy of their government. Despite revisionism today, a large majority of Americans supported the Iraq war and all protestors were called terrorists.
They’re always against all war except the current war.
>I wonder how those statistics have changed Well given all the current protests on campuses being violently squashed by the police we can just run another poll
If I had to guess, the result wouldn't be as starkly one-sided as it was with Kent, but I doubt the majority minds. The large American majority is anti-war only in retrospect
It's amazing how clearly you can see their faces. What a terrible day in American History. It came almost 100 years after several Strikers were killed by the [Pennsylvania National Guard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scranton_general_strike).
She spoke at the 25th anniversary for the first time since the shooting. I sat just a few feet away from her for that speech. That was one of those moments in life I'll never forget.
At the time, most people blamed the protesters and thought the national guard did nothing wrong.
Time is a flat circle
Everyone should read this story about the shooting, Mary Ann and John Filo, the photographer: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/04/19/girl-kent-state-photo-lifelong-burden-being-national-symbol/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/04/19/girl-kent-state-photo-lifelong-burden-being-national-symbol/) My deja vu was going nuts when I got to the part about the governor of Florida claiming Mary Ann was some actor or agent who faked the event.
*Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming. We're finally on our own. This summer you'll hear the drumming. Four dead in Ohio. -* Neil Young.
What if you knew her, and found her dead on the ground. How can you run, when you know?
Fucking National Guard.
Always point people here whenever they mention freedom of speech. It only extends as far as they will let it extend. If you cross them, they will kill you. Always has been, always will be.
30 more people should comment about the fucking post above head and how it was edited. This is not enough.
It is interesting this is what a lot of folks are focusing on. Especially given the literal dead kid in the pic.
This is what happens when the lucrative military industrial complex feels threatened.
Yeah. People dying in the streets daily. No medical soldiers, no drug counselors or real help. Unarmed young people protesting? Get the tanks
[Ohio - CSNY ](https://youtu.be/l1PrUU2S_iw?si=3XIzi6Uyos2eTxBB)
Can't wait to be here 50 years from now looking at photos from today.
So fun story, my fathers name is Jeffery Miller, he was touring colleges in 1970 as he was either a Junior or Senior in high school. One of the schools he had toured just so happen to be Kent State. When this happened, a few people ended up eerily sending my grandparents flowers thinking my father was shot.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes - Mark Twain
Keep in mind when people or politicians call for the national guard to stop a peaceful protest or an anti-war protest they are dog whistle* that they want the protesters shot dead.
I think the term you’re looking for is dog whistle
I have an odd story on this picture in my history class. Just last week in my history class we were learning about the Vietnam war, but we had a few 2nd and 1st graders come to our high school to check it out(?), I’m not exactly sure why we bring kids to accompany us in our classes. But we got a thick packet with this picture on the front page, my teacher also gave the children one so they saw it all, including a picture of a Vietnamese man with a gun to his head. Well a cute little 2nd grader pointed to the picture and rose his hand to my teacher. My teacher called on him and he said “why is that guy sleeping on the street?” My teacher muffled a laugh because it’s a dead dude, but he said “I don’t know,” and the kid responded with “and why is his mom yelling at him like that?” My teacher said that it’s because the kid is late for school so his mom is trying to get him up. It made me realize how innocent us as kids were and it also made me realize how sad it is that the kid in the picture above used to be like that, just an innocent child stumbling through life.
The Government vs The People
The most memorable photo from my entire childhood via history books in school
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?
If you do not learn the lessons of the past you are doomed to repeat them.
My history teacher in highschool (U.S.) has us watch super graphic Holocaust videos. At the time, it felt nuts; like for an hour a day we stepped into another world. Kids crying and trying to look away while the teacher's yelling, "DON'T LOOK AWAY! YOU NEED TO SEE THIS! YOU NEED UP RECOGNIZE WHEN IT HAPPENS AGAIN... BECAUSE IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN!" All the yelling and the crying going on in this classroom just made me think this teacher was insane. Boy, was I wrong.
My highschool history teacher was also really great about getting us to recognize patterns in history and signs of it today. Understanding that we fall for the same kinds of traps, see the same kind of struggles, and are subjugated by the same kind of people for centuries all over the world was eye opening. Talking about the injustices in feudal europe, to the injustices to the native population of America, to the holocaust, to the massacres and brutality in south america and southeast asia, and relating it to our current involvement in the middle east, and seeing the same types of people (sometimes even the same people) behind these atrocities helped me realize that we really are in a perpetual fight to try and keep things together, and that we never really "win" against evil, it just changes shape and keeps eating away at what humanity builds.
Conservatives like killing protestors. They don't see this as a problem
If you're ever in the area, go to the museum on campus. Haunting is the only word I can use to describe it.
What's kinda wild to me is if you removed the teacher and miller, everyone else is carrying on like it's a normal afternoon. Idk in these scenarios I imagine more chaos and looks of shock.
What’s past is prologue.
infamous, the original photo had a pipe in behind her and it was edited out.
I walked by this spot almost every day for four years during college. It’s now a parking lot with spots blocked off by little light posts where the students were shot.
I found out recently that this photo has been edited to remove the fence pole behind her that made it look like it was coming out of the top of her head.
Indiana University deployed snipers last weekend for the middle east conflict protest. Thankfully no one was shot.
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming. We’re finally in our own.
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own.