Kent State officially marks 50th anniversary of shootings virtually

Kent State University honored the four students who were killed and nine wounded on May 4, 1970, during an online commemoration Monday to mark the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.

“We wanted to do something to show to the world that this is important to remember,” said the director of the video, Rod Flauhaus, who is overseeing the commemoration.

The 50-some-minute-long video was meant to be watched beginning at noon Monday and includes a moment of silence, which, if watched starting at noon, falls at about 12:24 p.m., the same time as the National Guardsmen began shooting at Kent State students who were protesting the Vietnam War on campus 50 years ago.

The video begins with the Kent State University Chorale, under the direction of Scott MacPherson, performing “Find the Cost of Freedom,” by Stephen Stills. The video then walks the viewer through the timeline of the Kent State shootings via interviews with eyewitnesses, videos of past commemorations and interviews with current students who are still thinking about the lessons from that day, even though they were not alive during the shootings.

It includes footage of the shootings that hasn’t been seen before, taken by some of the eyewitnesses of the event, and footage of David Crosby and the Sky Trails band performing “Ohio,” a song about the Kent State shootings, at the Kent Stage.

Flauhaus has been involved with the Kent State commemorations since the 1980s, when he worked with the college on the 15th commemoration. He was leading the university-wide planning efforts for the 50th anniversary of the shootings when the in-person commemoration was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Flauhaus said the video came together in about three weeks. The university announced it would cancel the in-person commemoration in late March. Right after that, Flauhaus said, he started working with Jon Jivan, the editor for the project and an employee with the university’s marketing and communications team.

Flauhaus said he and Jivan were able to do the editing and cuts for the film virtually. Much of the footage used in the video came from Kent State archives or from existing documentaries about the event, but some of it was newly shot.

John Cleary, who was wounded on May 4, 1970, recorded a new video for the commemoration. Cleary described the events as he remembered them before he was shot, after which he said he woke up in a hospital room awaiting treatment.

“Often I am asked, what is the significance of May 4th?” he said. “It was the first time that the U.S. military was sent onto an American college campus, where lives were taken and not protected.”

Joe Lewis, another of the nine people wounded on May 4, 1970, also recorded a video for the commemoration.

“It’s a crime that was never accounted for, and bigger than that it’s a crime in our society that the media was manipulated to make it seem that the victims were the criminals, like peaceful protest was a criminal act,” Lewis said.

He said people should be allowed to peacefully protest and dissent from government policy and police officers should have training, “so they don’t think they’re going to war when it comes to crowd control.”

Everything in the video — the music that bookends the interviews, the footage from past commemorations, interviews with current Kent State students on what the shootings mean to them, the interviews with the eyewitnesses and family members of the four students who died — is meant to help people remember, Flauhaus said.

“We hope that people are moved by this,” Flauhaus said.

The video can be viewed at https://www.kent.edu/may4kentstate50.

Contact reporter Eileen McClory at emcclory@recordpub.com or @Eileen_McClory.