WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: What Happened at Kent State? 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:03.600 Hey everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's s 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:06.520 Y s K Select, I've chosen this episode on the 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:11.760 history of the Kent State Massacre, somewhat unknown, surprisingly and 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:16.439 definitely largely misunderstood moment in American history and kind of 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:24.120 a bummer, so prepare, but it's a good one. Enjoy, Enjoy. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.080 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:35.919 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.360 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.320 there's Jerry. And it's snowing outside, which means it's Stuff 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.400 You Should Know Snow Edition. Snow Edition. Yeah, I know 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.400 when we're like, we gotta record and get out of 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.400 here because this is Atlanta and snow kills us. I 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.160 just mainly don't want to be locked away from the snow. 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:56.360 I want to be able to like look out the 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:58.639 window and see it. I can now, but not as 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.080 well as I'd like to me. It's just a traffic thing. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:05.360 Like people are probably leaving work right now. People have 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:07.880 already left the office here. Well, maybe everyone will be 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.440 gone by the time I get out there. Okay, you'll 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.479 just be the lone guy trudging through the snow. That's right, 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.120 like Vigo Mortenson in the road. Yes, although he was 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.039 not alone and there wasn't any snow. It was just 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:25.120 nuclear ash. Although there was snow because Charlie's there and 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.840 kills herself by going out into the snow. But that's 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:34.880 before everything really takes a downward. Spoiler alert retroactive spoiler alert, 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.280 Chuck Yep, are you familiar with Kent State? Yeah? Man, 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.200 I've been singing that Neil Young song all day. How 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.480 can you not? You cannot by having never heard it? 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:47.960 Like me, shut up? You know that song? Never heard it? 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.720 I've never listened to Neil Young. You've never heard the 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.800 song Ohio? No? I know the Pretender song, but I 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:59.040 don't think that's about Kent State. I'm shocked, Okay, I 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:03.080 mean you don't have and Young without Like, how's it 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.600 go humed for him? No, I'm not gonna Maybe I 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:10.200 have heard it ten Soldiers and Nixon Okay, Yeah, yeah, 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.079 I've heard it. I didn't know that was about Ohio 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.120 four Dead in Ohio yeah, okay. And I had no idea, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.679 all right. I didn't know what that song was about. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.959 I was just like, oh, Neil young really Yeah, oh man, 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:24.639 get ready to hear it. I'm sure alright, I'm used 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.200 to it by now, your bulletproof. Uh. Well, so you're 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:34.799 familiar with the Kent State shootings May four, Um, four 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:40.960 students were killed. I believe another eleven were injured, Yeah, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:45.280 including one was paralyzed, like some pretty severe injuries. And uh, 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:47.600 this is a big deal. That would be a big 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.200 deal in and of itself if it was just some 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:51.519 sort of campus shooting or something like that, Like it 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.840 would be a very big deal these days. But what 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.320 made the Kent State shootings, for those of you who 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.880 aren't familiar with them, such an enormous deal was that 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.720 the shootings were carried out by National guardsmen. They were 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.800 Americans firing on Americans. Um, Americans on one side of 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.280 the equation firing on protesters on the other side. Uh. 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.600 And it was one of the darkest points in American history, 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.000 modern or otherwise. Yeah, it was. I think what's so 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.640 upsetting is it was random. It wasn't you know that 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.040 guy's coming at me with a bottle or a brick, 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:29.040 shoot him. It was random shooting into a crowd, Right, 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:30.960 That's the kind of thing that would happen in countries 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:35.560 under like dictatorships, not here in America. But it did 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.840 happen here in America, and not just at Kent State. 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.400 There was another similar incident just ten days later, um, 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.560 that we'll talk about as well. It gets overlooked, but yeah, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.200 it was a very dark moment in American history, and 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.880 it came out of the the tensions, um over the 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.000 Vietnam War initially, but I think it was more than that. 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.600 It was also we should say that's the um, kind 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.400 of obvious thing that led to it, but also there 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:07.640 was a real tension also between the establishment and the 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.120 anti establishment. Yeah, and um, the people in control and 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.320 the people who weren't in control, students, elders, there's just 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:19.400 a lot of tension between two sides, and the dividing line, 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:24.520 the obvious dividing line, was the Vietnam War. Yeah, and UM, 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.400 I think if you are not of that generation, you 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.279 may not know the full story. Um. You might know 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.640 that four people were shot in a protest, and that's 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.120 about it. Maybe even if you're from that generation, you 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.200 may not know the full story. But we're about to 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.039 tell you. Okay, let's take it back a little further 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:44.360 than all right, Vietnam country which had when it's independence 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.440 from France and the fifties. Have you ever seen We 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:52.279 Were Soldiers. Yes, it's almost like a snuff film. It's 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.160 one of the most graphically violent movies I've ever seen 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.320 in my life. But it's about that transition from France 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:05.960 leaving Vietnam and America coming in. Yeah, go ahead. Well 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.120 it's just initially serving as advisors and then becoming embroiled 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.599 in the war. I forgot all about that movie, yeah, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.159 you know, and Apocalypse Now there are some deleted scenes 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.320 of the meeting up with a French family in Vietnam 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.080 and like having dinner. Really yeah, and I remember when 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.160 I heard about that, I was like, what why were 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:25.960 they French? And then I did a little more homework 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.119 on it. Oh oh yeah, if you eat Vietnamese food, 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.920 like it's very clearly like, yeah, French influenced, well, all 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.599 most food is. But yeah sure, um so anyway, uh, 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:41.360 in the fifties they split between communists North and non 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:47.440 communist South. Vietnam and America didn't want communism spreading throughout Asia. 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.680 We had a policy of containment. Yeah, and so Richard Nixon, 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.440 um when he won the sixty eight election. Um. Part 0:05:55.480 --> 0:06:00.360 of his promise was something called Vietnamization. It's kind of 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.560 an awkward word, and that meant to transfer the combat 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.560 duties from our soldiers to the South Vietnamese. That sounds familiar, 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.280 isn't it? It does? But um, what what happened was 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.840 at some point he said, you know what in nineteen 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.040 seventy in April, he said, I want to send our 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.479 soldiers in the Cambodia. And that caused sort of a 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.200 firestorm because it was a bit of a reversal of 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.039 what he said he was gonna do, and it, you know, 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.000 really embroiled us in the kind of the middle of things. Well, yeah, 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.960 he he escalated the war in Vietnam, which was already 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.680 a very um contentious issue, and that it was a war, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.840 but also as a war that Congress never openly declared war. 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.200 So that's why, historically speaking, it's referred to as the 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:46.680 Vietnam conflict. Um. And so Nixon gets elected partially because 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:48.960 he's saying, I'm gonna get our boys out of there. Yeah, 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.520 we're not gonna like let the communists when we're gonna 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:55.080 prop up the Vietnamese, but um, we're gonna get out 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.360 of there. Instead, he escalates things by invading Cambodia, where 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.920 the Vietcong we're stationed, and that led to immediate protests. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.200 That was April thirtieth, nineteen seventy, that he announced that 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.560 we had invaded Cambodia, and the next day is when 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.560 the first protest takes place at Kent State. Yeah, and 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.360 Kent the The article points out that it was not 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.280 the most likely place because it was a little more 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.320 blue collar than like say, Ohio State nearby, the Ohio 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:26.160 State University and um man, I'm sorry that is so stupid. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.280 Sorry os U alums and fans and students, but it 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.920 is stupid, and everyone outside of Ohio State thinks it's stupid. 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.480 They take a lot of pride in that. The I know, 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.280 which I think just kind of fans the flames of 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.960 um derision. Yeah, you know, I can just start saying 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.560 the University of Georgia. That makes a little more sense, 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:53.120 does it. Yeah, what's the difference the Ohio State University 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.120 the University of Georgia. It's just it was the University 0:07:58.160 --> 0:07:59.840 of Ohio State that would make more sense. Yeah, a 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.760 litt more to my ear, I got you my ear right, 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:08.280 there you see it. That's very nice, thank you. Um. 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.480 At any rate, uh, I can't say it was a 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.600 little more blue collar and you wouldn't think there would 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.480 be like protesting, but there was protesting at schools all 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:17.360 over the country. There were and you can read between 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.280 the lines here. Kent State had a lower hippie population 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.640 than Ohio State. Can we just come up right out 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.440 and say it, right, But there were protests there. Um, 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:27.440 there's a protest on May one, and it was a 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:32.360 standard uh war protests three days before the shootings, and 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.400 it's kind of when things got kicked off, right, But 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.280 these kids were still pretty good. They were at school 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.400 holding a protest in the commons, I believe, um, which 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:42.680 was the a k a. The quad or like the 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:46.760 big grassy area between in the middle of campus. Um. 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.000 And they said, you know what, this went pretty well. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.320 Let's take the weekend off and we'll meet back here 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.080 one day and have another anti war protest because we're 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.679 really steamed about this. And everyone said, okay, let's do that, 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.760 and for tonight, let's go out and hit the bars 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.600 and it. Yeah, this is what they did. The first one. 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.840 They buried the constitution as a symbolic gesture. And the 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.840 second one they got drunk, right, not at the protest 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.160 but later that night. Right, so that Friday protests is 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.280 when they buried the constitution. Yes, this is like a 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.360 real protest, not just walking around. There's like stuff going 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.200 on and like you know, there's symbolic acts. It was 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.679 a real protest. Yeah. And if you combine alcohol and protesting, 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.080 things might get a little rowdy. So bonfires broke out, 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.640 they start throwing bottles at police cars, breaking windows. It's 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.880 more the little rowdy. I mean, that's pretty that's a riot. 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.360 When you said like bomb fires in the streets and 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.800 like throw bottles at at police cars, that you have 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.120 just basically said we've drawn a line in the sand. 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.160 Where are you gonna do, cops? That is one way 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.520 to look at it, for sure. Uh. The mayor, Leroy 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:56.319 Satram said, this is an emergency situation people. I need 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.520 to call the governor James Rhodes. We need some help. 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:02.280 I'm going to close the bar, which you know isn't 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.040 gonna make anyone very happy. No, And it had an 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.640 exacerbating effect apparently because that meant all the people who 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.599 weren't riding in the streets who were busy drinking in 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.199 the bars were now suddenly in the streets too and 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.160 joined the protests and the a k A. The riots, right, Uh, 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:21.199 that's right. And the police were called in. They used 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.760 tear gas and said go back to your dorm rooms, 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.240 basically get back on campus. And that was Friday. Now 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.320 we move on to Saturday. Yeah, and the Mayor's is 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.240 obviously a little jumpy. He's hearing rumors circulating that there's 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.880 gonna be another the scene from the night before is 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.440 going to happen all over again on Saturday. So he 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:46.640 calls the governor of Ohio and UM, here enters the 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:51.480 person who, in my opinion, is single handedly responsible for 0:10:51.679 --> 0:11:14.600 what happened at Kent State. So the National Guard arrives. Um, 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.960 there were about a thousand protesters. Um that actually burned 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.959 down an r OTC building on campus, which is pretty 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.480 bold move. And UM, they didn't find out who did 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.400 that exactly, but they did cut fire hoses so they 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.400 couldn't put out the fire and basically burned it to 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:32.840 the ground. Yeah, the protesters set it on fire and 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.240 then cut the fire hoses like they wanted that building burned. 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.880 And apparently, UM, that's when the National Guard shows up 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.760 a couple like an hour or so later, right, Yeah, 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.200 and they, you know, broke everything up obviously. And then 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:53.080 Uh comes Sunday. You've got about a thousand National guardsman 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.000 and you've got Governor Rhodes arriving, uh and holding a 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.920 press conference and kind of flaming the fire again by 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.200 calling the protesters the worst type of people that we 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.240 harbor in America. Yeah, he compared to the brown Shirts, 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:15.160 Mussolini's brown Shirts, UM, the communists, UM, pretty much anybody 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.360 he could think of that was that would be disparaging. 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.280 That's who publicly at this press conference compared him to UM. 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.719 And you mentioned that the on Sunday morning, the UM 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.600 National Guard was on campus kind of keeping order and everything. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.800 But apparently like the relations between the guardsmen and the 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.560 students were pretty amicable, Like people were chatting friendly, Like 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.160 there was no tension. It was just kind of like, hey, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.360 I'm nineteen, Hey i'm nineteen, I'm a student at Kent State, 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.160 I'm in the National Guard. Let's hang out. And it 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.439 wasn't until the governor showed up and held this press 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:54.120 conference that things took a very sudden turn for the worse, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.120 and it wasn't just the brown shirts calling him the 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:00.440 brown Shirts of the worst element that America harbor, but 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.679 also saying I may also declare martial law. Yeah, and 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.560 that I may message never quite got through in those 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:14.520 confusion as to whether or not that actually happened. And basically, 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.040 the National Guard believed that that had happened, and they 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.599 took control of the campus and said we're running the 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.400 show now. And that's just the National Guard. But the 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.760 university officials to the people running the university said, oh, well, 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.600 martial laws declared. And they knew that there was a 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.319 protest scheduled for the following day, Monday, so they printed 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.760 a bunch of flyers and pamphlets saying, hey, your constitutional 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.160 rights have been suspended because the universities under martial law, 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:43.880 so all assemblies banned, so don't protest, And that kind 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.160 of fell on deaf ears. I guess you could say, 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:50.040 come Monday morning, because the students showed up to protest. Yeah, 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.000 that definitely didn't work. Um, by noon, there was about 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:58.080 three thousand people, about five hundred actively protesting, another thousand 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:02.360 just there to be supportive. And um, and it cuts 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.680 it's a college campus. About people just checking it out. Yeah, 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.520 stopping on their way to class or whatever, you like, 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:10.880 what's going on. I would have done the same thing probably, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.560 And we should say also are our buddy stuff they 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:19.720 don't want you to know? UM host and sometimes producer 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.640 Matt Frederick his parents were students at Kent stay and 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.600 they stay at home that day. They were like, there's 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.440 some bad stuff that's going to go down, and they 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.840 were right. Uh So, the article points out at was 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.440 less an anti war protest at this point and more 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.360 of a protest of the draconian occupation of their campus 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.680 martial law by the army and UM which is not 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.760 even real, which is just a misunderstanding. Yeah, pretty much. 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:51.360 So the general UM Canterbury says, you know what this 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.680 rally is over drive me around in a jeep, give 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:55.520 me that bullhorn, let me tell everyone to go home, 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:57.920 because that'll work. Yeah, I mean, let's go back to 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.200 this where these tensions came from. In the first it's 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.800 establishment versus anti establishment, and establishment is the type to 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.840 stand in a jeep and be driven around with the 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.480 bullhorn telling people to disperse. I don't know if there's 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.240 ever been a message relayed via bullhorn that doesn't fall 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:18.160 on deaf ears. Yeah, you know, it has the opposite effect, unless, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.720 like I guess, in like a female situations, if you're 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.880 trying to like organize people and stuff, that helps. But 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.360 I always think of bullhorns is stuff like this, the 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.920 general riding around the jeep yelling at people to go home, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.240 and people saying, no, you don understand why we're here 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.160 in the first place. So they started throwing rocks at 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:40.240 the jeep, not surprisingly and um not well think you 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.800 know tensions at this point this was day four. Yeah, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.000 I I think though, though I'm not justifying, I'm just no, no, 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:47.560 I know you're not at all. But I think it's 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.880 really easy to to um to to kind of choose 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.240 one side or the other, especially once you know the outcome. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.600 But I don't think it should be overlooked that, like 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.640 people are throwing rocks at this dude while he's driving 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.800 around in the jeep. People have burned down a building 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.600 full of rioted in the streets of the town, the 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.200 college town. I mean, like these are real huge events 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.360 that scared the pants off of the people who were 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.360 running the town, the state, the country. And I mean 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:20.160 to say that they were unprovoked as historically inaccurate. Yeah, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:22.720 I totally agree with not justifying. But I think a 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.600 lot of people might think the story is people got 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.440 together to protest and the army came in and shot him, right, 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.720 or yeah, and and it was either the protests of fault. 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:33.560 They shouldn't have been protest, they shouldn't have burned down 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.840 that building, or you know, it was entirely the National 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.160 Guards fault. And you whatever historical event you're looking at, 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:45.320 it's never just one side or the other. Usually there's 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.440 all it's always great, and you have blinders on. If 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:50.880 you think otherwise, you should write a history book called 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:56.360 It's Always Great Josh Clark's History of America. I'd buy that, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.960 thanks man. Um. Alright, so where are we? They were 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.320 throwing rocks at the General. He at this point ordered 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.120 his troops to load their weapons, get the tear gas going. 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.400 He said, they threw rocks, and you guys, load your weapons. 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.880 That's basically what happened. Um, not because his feelings were hurt. Yeah, 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:20.080 although imagine they were. I guess no matter who you are, 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.440 I'm sure if people throw rocks and you're like I 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.879 I take that personally. So the National Guard came in. 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.600 They pushed them back past the Commons, over a steep 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.840 called Blanket Hill and into the parking lot of Prentice 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:39.280 Hall in a practice football field. Then basically the guardsmen 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:44.160 found themselves cornered by a fence, retreated back up the hill. 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.840 When they got to the top, out of the seventy 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:53.359 turned and began firing their guns into the crowd. Yeah. So, well, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.360 not all of them into the crowd, we should point out, 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.760 most into the air or the ground. Actually, although some 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:00.800 fired directly in the crowd, they all would have fired 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:02.399 directly in the crowd. That would have been a much 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.639 higher blood count or body count. Oh yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Um. 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.320 And I mean the the protesters were about a football 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:12.280 field away from them, um. And the fact that they 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:14.359 started to walk up the hill and then turn and 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.400 shot made it not just an attack of Americans on Americans, 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.560 but a surprise attack of Americans on Americans. Yeah. I 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.720 would say the students were definitely did not expect bullet retaliation. 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:32.199 Took about thirteen seconds. Um. Four students were killed. Alison Krauss, 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:37.840 not the Allison Krause obviously, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Sure and 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:43.280 William Schroeder, and uh, it's all tragic, but even more 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.200 tragically Sure and Schroeder were just walking to class. Yeah, 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.879 they weren't even part of this protest. They were in 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.160 the wrong place at the wrong time, and like I said, 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:56.080 nine people were wounded in one Dean collar was paralyzed. 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.879 And yeah, so those shots they shot into the air 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:02.960 and into the ground, but also into the crowd, and 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:05.919 over about thirteen seconds, they fired between sixty one and 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.000 sixty seven shots. I think that could be categorized as 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.320 a hail of gunfire. Yeah, thirteen seconds, sixties shots, But 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.159 is that that's like a lot of shots a second, 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.920 you know, and just from twenty eight guns. And apparently 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.720 there was a professor named Glenn Frank who did a 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.840 lot to quell the crowd and did talk them into, uh, 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.040 not escalating this thing any further. Right, So this article 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.560 really kind of glances over this guy's role. And it 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.320 wasn't just him, but he was the head of the 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.920 faculty marshals, who whose job it was was to basically 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.280 keep an eye on the protests. They were like the 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:47.080 university's liaison between the university and the students the protesters, 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:53.680 and this guy and his crew basically single handedly prevented 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:58.280 like a massacre because they saw very quickly that if 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.560 they didn't insinuate themselves, but between the guardsmen and the students, 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:05.920 the students were gonna be like, Holy, Holy God, they 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:11.280 just fired live ammunition on us, and they're standing right there, 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.040 let's get them. They would have attacked. The consensus is 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.639 the students would have attacked out of anger, and that 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.800 the guardsmen most definitely would have fired again when being attacked. 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.879 UM and these this this faculty member and his team 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.439 saw what was about to happen and slid in and 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.440 was like wait. So they first they spoke to the 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.040 guardsman and said, stop firing, we have to go talk 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.159 to the students. Then they went and spoke to the 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.640 students for twenty minutes and got him to calm down 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.200 enough to to to stop provoking or did not provoker, 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:48.320 advance on the guardsman in retaliation, and saved a lot 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.960 of lives. Probably. I wonder if there's a Glenn Frank 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:56.159 statue on campus, there should be agree. Uh. So they 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.760 closed school not for the day or the weekend, but 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.600 for the rest of the semester, and UM a lot 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.760 of colleges did the same. As far as shutting down, well, 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:07.320 because a lot of students went on strike. Yeah, and 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:09.800 like they were forced to the universities were forced to 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.760 shut down. Uh. In the following weekend, UM a hundred 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:17.040 thousand people went to d c UM to protest. Neil 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:40.800 Young News to Josh wrote a song about it. M Okay, 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.200 so the the shooting has just happened, that the crowd 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.520 has been quelled, the dead and Moon would have been 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.199 taken away an ambulances and now we've reached the aftermath 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:54.560 that's immediate and otherwise. Yeah, Um, President Nixon wasn't super compassionate. 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:59.960 He had earlier been overheard calling them bums. This wasn't 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.359 in his press release, obviously, but it definitely got out 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.399 in the press. Did not bode well for his reputation. 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.800 And um, he said, when dissent turns to violence, it 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:13.600 invites tragedy. That was the official line. That was the 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.840 official line, which is pretty cold. That's the president like, yeah, 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.160 you get what you what you pay for. Yeah, very much. 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:26.520 His vice president, um Agnew said it was predictable. UM 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.400 also not super compassionate, considering this these were Americans were 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:33.280 shot and killed Uh, two of which were just walking 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.080 to class. Uh. He called them a bunch of scared 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.040 kids with guns. The National guardsman. That was very priced 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.439 the speechwriter for Nixon. Yeah, which is true. Yeah, but 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:45.199 so basically the whole the whole kids, it's gray, you know. 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.640 It is like they probably were scared for sure, and 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.560 uh and yeah, I think that's fair. I think also 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:54.879 though it's it's one sided too, like he's he's not 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.640 saying and then also the other side, we're a bunch 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.760 of scared, angry kids with rocks. Yeah, like the only 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:02.800 way and you can't even remove the gray, but you'd 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:06.119 have to find out each person who shot and what 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.040 their motive was, because some were probably scared out of 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:13.440 their mind and reacted. There has been some people later 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:17.760 on that said that they some got together and decided 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:20.320 to do this, some of the guardsmen, right, so, when 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.840 they had been pushing the crowd back onto the UM 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:27.760 practice football field, apparently while they were loitering there. There 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.080 have been allegations that a couple of the guardsmen said, Hey, 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:33.600 when we marched back up the hill, we're going to 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:36.800 turn and fire. It's never been proven, um, but a 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.919 few more than a couple of historians have leveled that accusation. Um. 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:46.040 There was also immediate word that the guardsman said that 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.919 they were acting in self defense because they there was 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:51.359