May 4, 1970

54th Anniversary of Killings of Students by National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio

Students at Kent State University protest on the seventh anniversary of the killings of students at their school by the National Guard, and also those killed at Jackson State University.

On May 4, 1970, the National Guard shot dead four students at Kent State University in Ohio and injured eight others when it opened fire on a demonstration of students protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. That demonstration was one of thousands which took place across the United States, Canada and in other countries during those days in the wake of the April 29, 1970 invasion of Cambodia announced by the then chieftain of U.S. imperialism, Richard Nixon.[1]

Continuous anti-war protests by students at Kent State University in 1970 are met with violent state repression on May 4, 1970, in which Allison Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, William Knox Schroeder, 19 and Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20 were shot and killed by the National Guard.

In the days that followed, millions of people, especially the youth and students who were already seething with anger at the criminal war of aggression the U.S. imperialists were waging against the Vietnamese people, rose to their feet in powerful demonstrations.

In Canada also tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and other cities across the country. This included contingents of the newly-formed Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) which from the outset took a steadfast stand actively supporting the heroic anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of Indochina to defeat the U.S. aggressors.

Protests across the U.S. after the shooting at Kent State.

At Kent State University, the demonstrations denouncing U.S. imperialist aggression in Indochina had been continuing for four days. On May 2 the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) building at the university had been burned down in a protest. ROTC buildings, draft boards, military research facilities, amongst others were regular targets of attack of student protests against the U.S. criminal war in Indochina. The National Guard shootings at Kent State and the killing of two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi 10 days later unleashed still more powerful waves of protest against the criminal reactionary and aggressive policy of the U.S. imperialist assassins at home and abroad.

Two youth were killed at Jackson State University in Mississippi during a protest against racism.

On this occasion, CPC(M-L) once again joins the people of the United States to denounce the brutal murder of those student demonstrators, as well as all attempts to suppress the actions of students and faculty and their supporters today across university campuses against the criminal crimes of genocide and support for apartheid Israel. It is the same U.S. imperialist assassins who today finance and provide all-sided support to the Israeli Zionists who were responsible for the massacre at Kent State and carried out the criminal war of aggression in Indochina. Today they continue to feverishly militarize the economy and carry out their striving for world hegemony through coups d’état and wars of destruction while outlawing freedom of speech and assembly at home and abroad.

The assassinations at Kent State, together with the numerous assassinations of black revolutionaries and militants in the U.S. during that period carried out by the U.S. ruling class, clearly revealed the savage character of the U.S. democracy which does not tolerate the participation of the people in setting a path which upholds the rights of all. As is the case of the powerful protest demonstrations which are shaking the U.S. and other countries today, so too during the days of the U.S. wars of aggression against the peoples of Indochina, the powerful protests revealed the deep-seated opposition of the people to wars of aggression and destruction and their striving for peace, freedom and democracy.

It is entirely appropriate that in commemorating the 54th anniversary of the Kent State massacre, the student demonstrators today are steadfast in sticking to their demands for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories, and an end to investments in apartheid Israel and arming Israel amongst other things. Today, the encampments and demonstrations across the United States, in Canada and elsewhere once again confirm that it is resistance which gives rise to liberation, not the military might and laws and disinformation of the state. The militant stands taken by the students, youth, faculty and other sections of the people foil the criminal war plans of the U.S. imperialists and those countries which appease them, including Canada.

The student youth represent the best of the working people and their aim to avert the disasters which the ruling class has in store for the peoples of Palestine and the world.

Note

1. After taking office in January 1969, Nixon not only pursued and intensified the war in Vietnam, but also intensified political repression in the United States, prompting the U.S. historian Henry Steele Commager to write in Look in July 1970:

“Not since the days when Sen. Joseph McCarthy bestrode the political stage, have we experienced anything like the current offensive against the exercise of freedom in America. If repression is not yet as blatant or as flamboyant as it was during the McCarthy years, it is in many respects more pervasive and more formidable. The most notorious example of this repression was the killing of the four students at Kent State University who were protesting Nixon’s decision to expand the war in Southeast Asia by invading neutral Cambodia.”

“Millions of Americans took part in anti-war activities during the 1960s and early ’70s. Together with the civil rights movements, this activism changed the body politic in this country. It made it harder for U.S. administrations to wage full-on land wars until the Persian Gulf wars. Today as the U.S. wages simultaneous land and drone wars in several countries, the lessons of the Vietnam War are under attack as never before,” notes an article “40 Years After End of the Vietnam War,” by Merle Ratner and Azadeh Shahshahani, published in the Fall 2015 issue of The Veteran.