She survived the 1970 Kent State shooting. Here's her message to student activists

[G_j]

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/04/1249023924/kent-state-shooting-activists-protests-survivor?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0pkEW-KxmZMmzYhGneP4XwY697VHPLTZAlJhJKs_8GFaOsoL1nMwWwiLY_aem_Ab4LuGjrTMdA5qwBxbr0jM9HPuCYg6FTaKlHbDxkQGungXYc3MR3wuvhSQmIKPTUljhx5rZveOmyM5vnoINk_1sD


When Roseann "Chic" Canfora arrived at Ohio's Kent State University in 1968, she says she was constantly being given leaflets by anti-war activists on campus — and throwing them away.

U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was dragging on and deeply unpopular with a growing number of Americans. Over time, Canfora became one of them.

"It wasn't until I was personally touched, losing friends in that war and seeing the draft that would now take my brothers to that war, that I stopped throwing the anti-war leaflets away and I paid attention," she recalls in an interview with NPR.

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Canfora says she can't talk about the use of excessive force — then and now — without "tying it to the inflammatory rhetoric that inspired that force."

Nixon referred to student protesters as "bums," while then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan said "if it takes bloodbath" to deal with campus demonstrators "let's get it over with." On May 3, Ohio Gov. Jim Rhodes described campus demonstrators as "the worst type of people that we harbor in America."

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"If not a college campus, where else in our society, in this democracy, can we count on large groups of people to do exactly what these college students are doing: paying attention to the world, looking at what is being done in the world ... and coming up with strategies for opposing it if they don't agree with it?" she asks. "That's healthy. That shouldn't be something that is feared."

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[Ping Tung]

1. Bravo! for her. Some of my friends have their names on that wall.

Some said that the protesters at Kent State and all of the other colleges were "outside agitators" being trained and paid off by leftist dark forces.

I was in college in California when Ronald Reagan threatened us with "blood in the streets". Now we're seeing the threats again by governors and politicians who are busily waving flags while ignoring, or cheering, the slaughter in Gaza.

[Evolve Dammit]

2. I want to take a moment to express my mourning today. I was in the community and heard the volley. It changed me 4ever.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. I Worked With A Guy Who Was There

I worked with him (a fellow chemist) back in the late 70s. He got he BS in chemistry at Kent. I think he was a sophomore the year of the shooting.
When he saw nervous, young Guardsmen fully armed, he decided it was best to just go the lab.
He was entering the science building when he heard the shots.
He considered himself very lucky that he was close enough to see what he called "nervous eyes & tight jaws". That's what made him leave.

[Evolve Dammit]

7. National Guard had just come from Teamster's altercations in Cleveland. Rhodes ordered them to KSU.

They were already fatigued and when ordered to fire (CO Canterbury), they did.

[Wild blueberry]

3. I will never forget the Kent State killings

As a young student in her first year at college, I learned so much. About the world, about the war in Vietnam, about civil rights, about protest. We were absorbing it all and trying to end the war.
Learning that people in power had killed students--just like us--was terrifying. I have never forgotten.

[japple]

4. Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin' We're finally on our own This summer I hear the drummin' Four dead in Ohio

?si=SQtol0vVCp_QFIDF

[flashman13]

6. It scares the shit out of the patriarchy when it is challenged in mass.

Young people scare them the most.

[G_j]

8. a sure sign

that the truth is too close for comfort.