Kent State Massacre Research Paper

On April 19th, 1995 a homemade bomb made of a concoction of agricultural fertilizer, fuel, and other dangerous chemicals was left in a truck parked outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City. At 9:02 in the morning, it’s blast damaged over 300 buildings surrounding the vehicle and even flattened a third of the federal building. (Strom, 2015) The bomb took the lives of 168 people, including 19 children. It was found that two men, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Lynn Nichols were the ones who planted the device. Both men were found to be associated with a radical militia movement that sought revenge for a siege in Waco, Texas two years prior. The siege killed 82 Branch Davidians, of whom, multiple were related to the militia movement.

According to Jeff Hay, Nixon “like the protestors, he wanted to stop the war, end the draft, and stop the killing.” When Nixon changed his mind and realized we had to be involved many people around the country got very upset that he did something he said he was going to do the opposite of. When Nixon declared that the U.S. would be staying in Vietnam to fight in the War these students go very upset. This action caused a lot of protesting in Washington D.C., Kent State and many other places (Hay). The anger of the students led to protesting, which led to violence, which ultimately lead to the national guard firing on a group of about 1,000 young students (Kifner). In “The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy” “The decision to bring the Ohio National Guard onto the Kent State University campus was directly related to decisions regarding American involvement in the Vietnam War” (Lewis). Without the announcement from President Nixon, of the involvement in the Vietnam war, the Shooting at Kent State would have not taken place. The shooting was not Nixon’s fault, but I think that it made students really mad that they had been told something different than what he was really going to do. It sparked a lot of fire in these people and led to a violent

I wrote this paper on the Ludlow Massacre. This paper explores the unsafe work situations that the Ludlow Natives had to deal with. They went on strike to protect their lives. Guards planned to attack protesters and began the massacre. A foxhole was dug to protect women and children from flying bullets as the massacre embarked, embracing one another and praying for life fifteen were killed at the bottom of the fox hole by kerosene which was distributed by the guards . Overall 19 innocent lives were lost after the Colorado National Guard attacked their camp for fighting for what they believe in.

Before this incident occurred President Richard Nixon announced on April 30, 1970 that the United States had invaded Cambodia and needed to draft 150,000 soldiers. This provoked countless protest on many campuses around the country. One of the most eventful protest during this time was at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. At the time of the protest twenty-eight guardsmen fired at a crowd wounding nine students and killing four (“Kent State Incident,” n.d.). But the Justice Department declined an investigation on the incident. Instead the President Commision on Campus unrest did state that the action of the guardsmen was uncalled for and unwarranted. No charges were given to the guardsmen who fired at the crowd because there was not enough evidence provided (“Kent State Incident,” n.d.). Protest can become dangerous depending on the

The Kent state shooting occurred in Ohio, at Kentucky State University in 1970. It involved the shooting of four unarmed students by Ohio National guard. Shortly after Richard Nixon attempted to gain the support of the American People to invade Cambodia's borders, numerous students across all the states started to protest against his quick expansion. Once threatened, the Federal government felt the need to use military force to oppose the students, minimize violence and vandalism. Nevertheless, several Americans felt that their constitutional rights were violated since the government was attempting to dismiss their perspectives on the aftermaths from the war in Vietnam. During one of the protests, particularly in Kent State a shooting occurred

Emeka Odukwu Mrs. Patterson Honors English The contributions of Mental health in the Columbine shooting On April 20, 1999, two teenage boys killed twelve students, and one faculty member, and then proceeded to commit suicide at the high school they attended. At the time, this event would be recognized as the largest mass shooting in American History. The media portrayed the perpetrators as horrible, sick people because of their atrocious crime. However, a closer look behind the reasons that drove them to such violence shows that a psychiatrist may have even diagnosed them with an mental illness.

The Kent State shootings were a true American tragedy. The situation appeared to be taken somewhat lightly due to the ideology that the students were the “bad” people. I was baffled by the general public’s belief that these students deserved their fate. The women’s awareness that two of the students who had no inkling that the situation would escalate to that magnitude somehow deserved to die seems incomprehensible, moreover she then comments on the appearance of these students and the beliefs of her likeminded counterparts as contributing factors to their deaths.

Today marks an important reminder to our lives; On the day of April 16, 2007 a mass murder read. April 16, 2007 was a very terrifying day for all staff and students of Virginia Tech University, on this particular day a 23 year old student commits a serious crime that led to a large amount of deaths. This student identity was not revealed until further notifications were taken on regards of this issue. The incident is described as a student who enters Virginia Tech campus and is known to own two semi-automatic pistols which are a glock 9 and a walther P22 killing over 32 people and injuring many.Virginia Polytechnic University is located in BlacksBurg, Virginia. As not mentioned in the essay, the shooter was a senior who is majoring in english.

The chosen image shows the result of a shooting called the Kent State Massacre, which killed four, during a peaceful Vietnam War protest. The Ohio National Guard fired on student protesters at Kent University in 1970. One could gather, essentially from the facial expression and frozen body movement, that this young woman who kneels over the lifeless body of the young man on the ground, is beyond distressed from the sudden situation that just played out before her. When observing the bystanders who appear so vulnerable, their perplexed and questioned faces express that something awful has happened. Because of the unusual body arrangement of the boy is in a public setting, the issue reasonably aims at the body that lays facedown on the ground.

Whilst in 1965 the opposition was a minority, it was a growing minority. Yet Johnson also suffered pressure from `hawks' that criticised him for not escalating enough, stating America never used more than ½ its tactical air power in Vietnam. Karnow also notes that hard liners such as Senator John Stennis who believed America should mobilise its full military, reflected a significant element of public opinion . Nixon recognised the home front problem and used tactics to keep the opposition quiet. This included a withdrawal of 60,000 troops in 1969, Nixon believing he had little other choice. This demonstrates how public opposition to the war led foreign policy for the US and how public opinion was a strong influential factor for the eventual withdrawal. Examples of protest include Oct 1969, in which the largest anti war protest in American History took place. Protestors took to the streets in every major city. Radicals even waved VC flags. Nixon rightly claimed their `numbers were a minority, but their numbers were growing' . Another example of protests was on the 5th May 1970 in which 4 students at Kent State University, Ohio were shot dead by National Guard . As a result, Nixon backed down and declared he would get American troops out of Cambodia by June. This demonstrates again how govt. policy was made in the streets. Although Sanders points out the pro-Nixon public, which in response to Nixon's

As the death toll increased and Americans learned more about the Vietnam War through the media, starting around the mid-1960s and throughout the early 1970s there were many organized protests present around the United States universities. From the violent protest of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to the peaceful protests of the University of Iowa and Western Illinois University, to the tragedy in Kent State University, university students were trying to create change and end the bloody Vietnam War.

Americans both pro and anti war were outraged that our nations children were murdered in cold blood, simply exercising their constitutional right to protest. The massacre resulted in students across the country going on strike and forcing hundreds of colleges to close. “H. R. Haldeman, a top aide to President Richard Nixon, suggests the shootings had a direct impact on National polictics. In The Ends of Power, Haldeman (1978) states that the shootings at Kent State began the slide into Watergate, eventually destroying the Nixon administration. Beyond the direct effects of the May 4th [event], the shootings have certainly come to symbolize the deep political and social divisions that so sharply divided the country during the Vietnam War era.”

PETER WATKINS : Well I think that the shootings at Kent State was certainly the turning point for my decision to not only continue my stay in the U.S, but to try and make an independent film on what was happening there at that time. A first my idea was to make a dramatised reconstruction, just like Culloden, of the Chicago trial, an event that was quite a big at that time. But as soon as I began the casting for the movie and started to meet a number of people whom had already been arrested for protesting the Vietnam War. It became obvious to me that their stories and experiences were even more vivid and relevant than a word for word filming of the Chicago trial.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conflicts that caused the Wounded Knee Massacre. On December 29,1890, at Wounded Knee Creek located southwest South Dakota is where a tragic incident occurred. Nearly half the victims killed were women and children. About 250 to 300 people lost their lives to a battle due to a religious dance, miscommunicated traditional culture, and religious conflict.

Boom! Pow! Shots were fired! Screams could be heard from miles away. Tears could be seen from all over the town. Many things were lost that day, which include three beautiful lives. The Orangeburg massacre was a tragedy which transpired on the dreadful night of February 8th, 1968. A large group of African American students protested with riots by cause of the segregation of a bowling alley titled “All Star Bowling”. The students protested with a brawl/riot on the University of South Carolina (USC) campus. With the predicament from the protests, national guard was called in to ease the gargantuas situation. With the continuance of the riots, gunshots were fired by police, injuring over thirty students and fatally killing three. Due to the racial tensions in South Carolina, students compromised by protesting in the USC campus because of the segregation of a bowling alley presented as “All Star Bowling” and the conflict developed because of the deaths that proceeded at the protests.