Kent State at UK, part II
By Richard Becker
In Spring of 1970, the Richard Nixon Administration began to expand the war in Indochina beyond the borders of Vietnam into Laos and Cambodia. Antiwar sentiment had already been simmering for years in the United States, particularly among students. This was no less true right in the heart of the Midwest at Kent State University where, forty years ago on May 4, 1970, several dozen rifle shots changed the course of American history and galvanized opposition to the war in Vietnam.
That day, on May 4, students at Kent gathered on campus—as their compatriots at schools across America did—to demonstrate against the US incursion into Laos and Cambodia.
Around noon, nearly 2,000 students ignored university orders to disperse and began to demonstrate, lobbing rocks at a military official who attempted to read the university dispersal order. As the protest heated up and the students refused to disperse, the National Guard moved in with fixed bayonets, firing tear gas at the students. Students moved further away, up a hill and into a large grassy area where, for reasons largely unexplained to this day, approximately 29 of the 77 assembled guardsmen fired 67 rounds into the students. By the end of the brief, violent encounter, four students lay dead, another nine wounded. Two of the slain, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause had participated in the demonstration, while the other two, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer, were merely walking from one class to the next when they were shot dead.
In response, campuses nationwide erupted in anger over the unjust killings of fellow students at Kent.
UK Board of Trustees, May 5
At UK on the morning after the shootings, a flyer was distributed among students announcing a meeting at 1 PM near Fountain Plaza (now site of the Patterson statue) in front of the Patteson Office Tower. The meeting’s stated purpose was to petition the UK Board of Trustees for a condemnation of the shootings in Ohio.
As fate would have it, the UK Board of Trustees was scheduled to hold its quarterly meeting just one day after the shootings at Kent State rocked college campuses all over America. The students gathered at the fountain, and as 2 PM approached, made their way to the eighteenth floor of the tower in an effort to gain access to the board meeting. Between 35 and 40 students were allowed into the board room; nearly 200 students were not able to fit into the room and thus gathered in the hallway outside.
Claiming that the massive influx of students violated the fire code, the Board persued various tactics to reduce the number of students present. Foremost among these was the shutting down of all elevators leading to the 18th floor. Students either had to take the elevators up as far as they would go and take the stairs the rest of the way, or else remain on the first floor for the duration of the meeting.
It is unclear whether or not there was merit to the administration’s claims that the protesters were violating code. It was not long before the students in the hallway began to aggravate an already tense situation inside the room.
Student body president Steve Bright was signed in as a non-voting student member of the board at the beginning of the meeting. Governor Louie Nunn, who would ordinarily have been present for a regular board meeting, was not present on May 5th, claiming that because he was being considered for an honorary degree, he did not want his presence to influence the board’s vote on that matter. Based on the events to come in the meeting, one must wonder whether Nunn simply wished to avoid the conflict brewing on campus.
The minutes from the meeting record the frustration of board members at the behavior of the students assembled outside. During President Singletary’s customary presentation to the board, he complained of the difficulty of not being able to be heard over the commotion coming from the hallway. At this point, UK director of safety and security Joseph Burch quietly conferred with Steve Bright, presumably urging him to go speak with the students outside, as Bright then left the room to talk with the students.
Heckling Bright and the student code
Bright was met with heckling and cursing and a list of student demands. According to the Lexington Herald, their demands were as follows:
- Board condemnation of the Ohio incident.
- A day-long campus moratorium today—even though it was final exam week—to protest the Kent shootings.
- Board condemnation of the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.
- Removal of all firearms from campus, including those worn by UK police officers
- Revamp of the Student Code of Conduct.
This final demand was perhaps the most pressing. Bright was in the hallway with the students during the Board’s discussion of the student code revision, so a vote on the resolution was tabled until Bright was able to return. Upon his return, Bright, according to the minutes of the meeting, called the code revision “oppressive,” saying that it placed “the rights of the community…above those of the individual.” But perhaps most auspicious was Bright’s prediction that the “oppressive” student code revision could lead to a “Kent-type confrontation at the University of Kentucky.” In spite of this warning, the Board of Trustees voted to pass the motion, and thus threw down the gauntlet. Neither Bright nor anyone else on the board could have known how prescient Bright’s comments would come to be.
It is unclear what the students specifically found “oppressive” in the code. However, the code dictated specific areas of campus as “free speech” zones, specifically the student center patio area, which became a focal point of the demonstrations in 1970. (This “free speech” area remains in effect today, flying in the face of constitutional rights to freedom of expression). Free speech was furthermore guaranteed in the code only to “registered” student organizations that must follow all university rules and regulations. In the midst of the tense atmosphere at UK following Kent State, the code revisions felt like a slap in the face of the students and further ratcheted up the students.
UK English professor Pat White, who was later arrested for his involvement in the events of that week, called the scene on the 18th floor on May 5th a “mob scene,” with “lots of police” and lots of students compressed into a small space under stressful conditions.
Happy slugs a student
Upon the meeting’s adjournment, the tenseness only escalated. Former governor and board member A.B. “Happy” Chandler emerged from the room and, seeing the angry students gathered in the hallway, promptly made for a stairway. Chandler must not have moved quickly enough, because before he could get away, UK sophomore Judy Schroeder approached Chandler, stood in his path, and demanded that he and the board condemn the expansion of the Vietnam War into neighboring Cambodia.
Chandler, as unflappably and inappropriately gregarious as ever, patted the female student on the cheek, saying “Honey, I’d stop the war in Vietnam tomorrow if I could.” Mike Greenwell, a student standing nearby, mimicked Chandler’s gesture, touching the former governor on his cheek.
Never an exemplar of prudence, Chandler grabbed Greenwell by the hair and leveled the young student with a punch. Chandler later apologized for the incident, saying, however, that “some of those students shouldn’t be at this school—they’re filthy and dirty and have long hair.” Greenwell was later charged with and exonerated on charges of battery for his interaction with Chandler, while no punitive actions whatsoever were taken against the irascible former governor.
Chandler’s actions only served to further aggravate students already angry about the board not admitting all students into the meeting. Add to this that the board passed the student code revisions and did not even consider condemning the invasion of Cambodia and the shootings at Kent, and the stage was set for a volatile situation.
To Singletary’s credit, he agreed to meet with a small group of appointed student leaders following the board meeting. In the meeting, Singletary rebuffed demands both for a moratorium on classes for the final week of the semester and for a removal of firearms on campus, citing the disinterest of board members in any such actions. The UK president did however earn applause when he called the invasion of Cambodia “a great mistake,” about which he planned to personally write President Nixon.
Later that day, student leaders regrouped and conferred with one another to plot their next step. That night, shortly after 8:00, about five hundred students met for a memorial march around campus. They carried four coffins symbolizing the slain at Kent State. Pat White described the scene as “a memorial to the dead…quiet and subdued.” Some students briefly participated in a sit-in in the middle of Euclid Avenue before rejoining their peers for the completion of the march. They sang patriotic songs, lit memorial candles, and some shed tears in the memory of the fallen Kent students. The students peacefully made their way back to central campus near Buell Armory and prepared for a continuation of their vigil.
The AFROTC burns
That night, as students milled about in the area near the armory, the crisis at UK reached a dangerous new level. The scene grew steadily tenser as students, agitated by the presence of state and city police and administration disinterest in their concerns, became further frustrated by their apparently increasing inability to peacefully assemble on their campus. Witnesses describe students singing and quietly talking with one another while the police ominously stood guard on the steps at Buell Armory. At one point, a rock shattered a window in the Armory.
Then, just a short time later, across Euclid Avenue, a fireball shot into the dark spring sky.
Fire quickly engulfed a rickety wooden structure that was used in a limited capacity by the Air Force ROTC for additional office space. The building had long been decried as an eyesore by many in the campus community, but its torching was nonetheless a shock to those present that night. Students immediately either dispersed from the scene or pitched in to help firefighters extinguish the blaze.
The violence that emerged that night presented a problem to those demonstrators insistent that their intent was nonviolence. The rock throwing and the burning of the building appeared to lend credence to the suspicions of officials like Governor Nunn that outside agitators were present at UK, seeking to incite violence against the state.
A quick arrest
The police fingered Sue Anne Salmon, a quiet and demure student from Madisonville, KY, for the arson almost immediately. Salmon’s crimes were two-fold: she wrote for the radical independent campus newspaper blue tail fly, and she was spotted near campus the night of the burning carrying a bottle of ginger ale. Possession of ginger ale is, of course, not a crime. However, police were apparently so high-strung over recent unrest on college campuses nationwide that they were convinced Miss Salmon was carrying gasoline in the bottle. Rather than simply examine the bottle to see if its advertised contents were inside, the police opted instead to arrest Salmon and charge her with arson.
Later, in an article in the blue-tail fly entitled “Confessions of an Alleged Arsonist,” Salmon told her side of the story. She recounted how everyone she encountered, from the arresting officers to the booking officer at the police station, were all aware of blue-tail fly. They all read it, they claimed, to keep themselves in the loop on campus activities. After being held for several days, Salmon was released on bail and was later exonerated of all charges. A forthcoming article in this series may discuss her disciplinary hearings with the university.
In a speech delivered the week of May 4, 1970 to a group of students, Steve Bright said that “the dangerous people here are not the students,” but rather the armed officials, whose presence on campus inflamed an already volatile situation. Save President Singletary’s token listening sessions, no apparent attempt was made by university or state officials to ameliorate the situation; instead, officials opted to send men with guns and clubs to the campus to use, in the words of Gov. Nunn, “such force as is necessary to put down [the protestors and]…stop disruption.” Much to the dismay of officials, the demonstrations would not end with the burning of the building on Tuesday, but would continue for the duration of the week.
The next article in this series will complete the narrative of the events of the week of May 4th as well as further explore the strange saga of Sue Anne Salmon and her exoneration on charges of arson. A final article will look to the disciplining of participant actors: it will tell the story of English professor Pat White and look to the disciplinary hearings held at UK for those involved in the protests, including Steve Bright, Sue Anne Salmon, and others.
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