In the summer of 2021, with help from writing coach Karmen Ross, I recorded stories of my life related to the Kent State massacre. These chapters document growing up with Allison and our family’s views related to Allison’s slaughter at 19 years old in the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre. – Laurel Krause
From Barry Levine’s account of May 4, 1970:
“The sun was shining bright this spring morning as Allison left a friend’s room in a nearby dorm where she had been stranded the previous night. As we walked across the campus, back to our own dorms to eat lunch, I noticed an enormous amount of joy in her eyes, despite the anger and terror from the previous night. We had resolved a personal problem earlier in the morning, and ironically on this morning Allison was happier than I had ever seen her.
“We continued laughing and joking as we walked, unaware that the exact path we were walking would minutes later be traveled by marching soldiers. As we climbed the hill towards the pagoda, we agreed to meet after lunch on Blanket Hill to participate in the scheduled rally. Upon reaching the pagoda, we stopped and spoke awhile before parting and going our separate ways to eat lunch.
“After lunch I walked to where we agreed to meet and waited. Standing at the top of Blanket Hill I watched angered students gather, and one hundred yards from them I saw men armed with rifles standing and waiting. Across the Commons, Allison left the dormitory and crossed the field to the gathering students. She walked in front of the crowd, her eyes searching the top of the hill to see if I had arrived. She stopped for a minute to say to a friend of ours – Jeff Miller.
“They exchanged a few words, but what was said will never be known. How ironic that the only person she stopped to speak to that morning was a friend who hours later would be lying lifeless at her side as we rushed to save her life.
“As we stood on the hill watching and waiting for the soldiers to make their move, Allison ripped in half the moistened cloth she had brought for protection against the tear gas. Another dispersal order was given, yet no advance was made, so Allison felt safe in running a few yards to give a friend part of her already compromised cloth. She tore hers again and gave him half. It was a small gesture, but one that so clearly demonstrated her consideration and willingness to share. Tear gas was already being fired as she scrambled back to where I was waiting. We stood for a few seconds watching the soldiers move out behind a screen of gas, before deciding to retreat with the crowd of students.
“As we began to retreat over the hill, I could see Allison almost beginning to cry. A few steps further, she turned to me with tears rolling down her cheeks and asked, “Why are they doing this to us? Why don’t they let us be?”
“A peaceful assembly was being violently disrupted, breeding anger in most of those being dispersed. However Allison did not feel anger, but rather disappointment and sorrow. Disappointment because the students were not given the chance to gather peacefully and sorrow because of the violence she felt would ensue. Unfortunately, these passive emotions were soon transformed into aggression, for as we retreated, a gas canister landed at our feet, exploding in our faces. It was at this point that Allison’s sorrow changed to anger and her strained tolerance turned to resistance.”
MOTHERFUCKEEEERRRS GOD DAMN FUCKEEERRRS GET THE HELL OFF MY CAMPUS YA MOTHERFUCKEEERRRS BAM BAM BAM BAM-BAM-BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM UHHH! BAM – BAM BAM UUUHHHH!
The Parking Lot by Barry Levine
on my knees my life in my arms the blood flows past my feet the tears slide off my trembling lips falling onto her pale pale face
like water thru my fingers her life slips away.
Allison is shot as she stands screaming in the Kent State campus parking lot with Barry. She does not make it alive to the hospital in Ravenna. Students Jeffrey Miller, Sandy Scheuer and William Schroeder are also killed that day. Nine others are wounded.
~~~
Right after the Kent State massacre, Neil Young wrote Ohio for the students, and as a tribute to the courage of the Vietnam anti-war efforts. It was recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The song would become a national anthem for peace.
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it Soldiers are cutting us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know?
In the summer of 2021, with help from writing coach Karmen Ross, I recorded stories of my life related to the Kent State massacre. These chapters document growing up with Allison and our family’s views related to Allison’s slaughter at 19 years old in the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre. – Laurel Krause
Over the years from her friends’ accounts, I learned what Allison was doing on that Sunday before she died. But no one tells it better than Barry Levine, Allison’s boyfriend who was with her that day.
“Sunday was a peaceful day, the sun was warm and the breeze gentle. Allison spent the day quietly strolling the campus, sometimes laughing and joking, sometimes seriously discussing the past two days of disturbances on the campus. It was late afternoon when we decided to walk to the front campus and fraternize with some guardsmen.
“Upon arriving, one particular guardsman caught our eye, he stood quietly alone, a flower in his gun barrel. Taking me by my arm, Allison walked over to him. His name was Meyers, and unlike many of the soldiers we had met that day, Meyers wore a pleasant smile, and when he spoke, he did so with a gentle compassion. He said he did not want to be guarding the campus, but when asked why he didn’t leave, he looked at the ground and shyly said he couldn’t.
“Disturbed at the pleasant rapport one of his men was enjoying with us, an officer slowly strolled over and placed his arm around Meyers’ shoulder. As we watched inquisitively, Meyers’ face tightened up, his back straightened and his smile completely disappeared. The officer, yelling in Meyers’ ear, ordered him to identify himself and his division. Meyers did so, and as we watched the fear swell in the young guardsman’s eyes, the officer began –
O: Doesn’t your division have target practice next week, Meyers? M: Yes, sir. O: Are you going there with that silly flower? M: No, sir. O: Then what is it doing in your rifle barrel? M: It was a gift, sir. O: Do you always accept gifts Meyers? M: No, sir. O: Then why did you accept this one? M: No answer O: (Holding out his hand) What are you going to do with it Meyers? M: (Feebly begins to remove the flower.) O: That’s better Meyers, now straighten up and start acting like a soldier and forget all this peace stuff.
“Realizing the officer would merely throw the flower away, Allison grabbed it from his hand and gave him a look of disgust, but he only turned his back. As the officer walked away, Allison called after him, ‘What’s the matter with peace? Flowers are better than bullets!’”
Earlier that Sunday Governor Rhodes held his infamous press conference at the Kent fire station, setting a belligerent tone intended to generate disdain toward protesters on campus. Rhodes had been in a tight race running for the Senate with the primary just days away so he calculated his best shot was to show he supported law and order, and was willing to stand with Nixon against the student protesters. Kent State students would pay the price.
Governor Rhodes’ speech that day:
“We’ve seen here at the city of Kent especially, probably the most vicious form of campus-oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident groups… they make definite plans of burning, destroying, and throwing rocks at police and at the National Guard and the Highway Patrol. …this is when we’re going to use every part of the law enforcement agency of Ohio to drive them out of Kent. We are going to eradicate the problem. We’re not going to treat the symptoms. …and these people just move from one campus to the other and terrorize the community. They’re worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes. They’re the worst type of people that we harbor in America. Now I want to say this. They are not going to take over [the] campus. I think that we’re up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America.”
By Sunday there is a large, imposing and angry military presence on campus and in town. Helicopters circle overhead, townspeople deputized as proxy police harass students, and state troopers and the Ohio National Guard deploy in large numbers.
Kent State University does nothing to inform the students of what is taking place and University President Robert I. White is out of town, offering no leadership. It seems that Kent State University has handed over control to the National Guard and other military forces and has gone belly up in a quickly escalating situation.
The guardsmen had just come from a protracted wildcat strike with the Akron Teamsters over long hours and the story was promulgated that the guardsmen were exhausted and agitated. We later learn that since the strike ended days before President Nixon’s Cambodia speech, troops of guardsmen were sequestered in neighboring school yards not far from Kent State, bivouacking over a number of nights.
The son of a high-ranking guardsman explained to me years later that in the midst of the Akron wildcat strike, the Ohio National Guardsmen had been “federalized” and placed under the command of President Nixon. In order to maintain the guardsmen in their federalized role, senior command was required to keep this entire Ohio National Guard troop on duty. They are kept active near and around Kent.
The events on the night of May 3rd begin with a rally at President White’s home on campus. Within minutes the mayor announces a curfew, followed by Governor Rhodes declaring martial law and creating the pretense for mass arrests. Many students later describe the next few hours as an invasion of their campus, with a feeling that the war had come home. A deep anxiety sets over the university and surrounding communities. The helicopters beat overhead with their searchlights scanning and tank-like people carriers rolling onto campus. There are thousands of guardsmen and state police. The military presence completely overwhelms the number of students. Those returning to campus from the weekend away arrive home to a military-occupied war zone.
Many living in town are blocked from getting home. There are guns everywhere, the National Guard are armed with M1’s that had been used to fight in the Korean War. Some of the guardsmen had actually fought in Korea and were not just the young Ohio National Guard described in the newspapers.
The guardsmen were a mixed group but it is important to note that it was only in 2021 when a few guardsmen finally came forward to tell their truth about what happened at Kent State. ONG Captain Ron Snyder shared his Kent State story more than 50 years later and his self-justifying views had not changed, “It was a riot; we had to contain the enemy.” Remarkably, Snyder still works as a security guard at Kent State University, a lifetime of employment rewarded for his suppression of students in 1970.
There were also guardsmen who were the same age as the students. Some worked other jobs in town, and many grew up and were friends with students. The guardsman named Meyers involving Allison and the flower attended college at nearby University of Akron. Many guardsmen enlisted as a way to get out of the draft, their own version of draft dodging. Certainly a critical mass of them did not want to be there. Others were scared. But there was not a uniform response among them, and many were aggressive and resentful throughout the weekend’s events. The state police were another matter; they genuinely despised the students and were described as nasty. Additionally, there were the undercovers and participants from COINTELPRO, the armed, covert division of the FBI and CIA operating in domestically. COINTELPRO had a well-documented central role in opposing the civil rights movement, most prominently in its suppression of the Black Panthers. Governor Rhodes’ brown shirt speech was part of this orchestrated campaign and threw a flame into the tinder box at just the “right” time. He deliberately echoed Nixon’s own incendiary words that the students were “bums” to stoke this fire.
Mass arrests take place that night, with accompanying police abuse. Sixty-eight people are penned in the local jail in crowded cells already filled with mentally unstable prisoners. A number of students are stabbed with police bayonets, and not provided medical care. Others are brutalized by police for simply attempting to enter their homes. Word trickles out about the violence on campus and parents begin to frantically call their children; local people hide away in their homes. Students are terrified as angry guardsmen with bayonets chase after them in the night.
Rumors circulate that KSU President Robert White will be addressing the school that night, so the students peacefully assemble at his house on campus. Anxious to hear from President White they wait and wait, but White refuses to meet with them. The Ohio National Guard stand ready to use tear gas against the crowd should it get unruly.
With White’s refusal to meet the students, they move their demands into the street in front of the president’s home, peacefully sitting down in a main intersection between the campus and town. The authorities do nothing to diffuse the tension in any way and merely escalate the blunt force of the military presence.
The military forces then engage. Two Sikorsky helicopters fly low above the students gathered in front of White’s house, buzzing them with search lights sweeping over the dark campus. On the ground national guardsmen carrying M1’s with fixed bayonets herd students from President White’s home all the way across campus to Tri Towers dormitory, a long distance away. Students are pushed the whole way by menacing guardsmen muttering violent, deadly threats. Panic mounts. They injure several students with bayonets in the process. The horror of it all sets in. The war has indeed come home.
The students arrive at the Tri Towers dormitory desperate to enter and get away from the guardsmen, and Allison is among them. The doors and windows to the dormitory are all locked. It seems no one can get to safety away from the guardsmen with their bayonets coming up from behind.
Lance Kinz is a fellow student and acquaintance of Allison’s; he shares what he sees that night.
“The guardsmen were getting closer and closer. And there were helicopters and it was very, you know, frightening for people and surreal and I remember going to the dormitory and the doors were locked, and there was a group of people, and, the RA whatever they’re called wouldn’t let this group come in. Even though a number of us lived in the dormitory, and the guardsmen were closing in close and the helicopters were above and only I was standing coincidentally next to Allison, and, only because she broke down. She was so frightened. She was screaming and crying that we were going to get hurt, that they were going to hurt us. And she pleaded and she was so upset. And only because of her pleas that this guy eventually – just opened it – opened the door and we just rushed in with the guardsmen right behind us. And then we were safe. And it was only because of her being so frightened and speaking up.”
Allison gets in but Barry does not. She cries and screams because Barry has been left outside the locked doors with the guard quickly approaching. Almost out of control, she yells for them to open the doors to let him in. The resident assistant acquiesces and Barry makes it in with others, escaping injury from the guardsmen.
That night dormitory RA’s tell the students to stay away from the windows and keep their drapes closed. Students remove mattresses from their beds and place them against windows for safety from rifle fire. They come together to sleep in numbers. RA’s command: don’t move around, stay in your room. Stay down.
Allison sleeps that night in a friend’s room in Tri Towers. It is her last night.
—
READ MORE EXCERPTS to understand our view of what happened to Allison Krause in the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre:
In the summer of 2021, with help from writing coach Karmen Ross, I recorded stories of my life related to the Kent State massacre. These chapters document growing up with Allison and our family’s views related to Allison’s slaughter at 19 years old in the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre. – Laurel Krause
On Friday, May 1, 1970, Kent State students organize a rally to respond to President Nixon’s speech from the night before. The demonstration is strategically held at the Victory Bell on the campus Commons so the organizers may ring the bell for others to gather. To this day I don’t know whether Allison was on the Commons for this action but I do know she was sympathetic.
A group of about 50 protesters quickly grows to 200-300. Along with news of the protest, word is out about unfamiliar students taking part and provoking disharmony, believed then and now to be undercover agents. This was common practice at the time and a pillar of Nixon’s surveillance state.
The U.S. Constitution is ceremonially buried by the students. The ritual is meant to show that Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia is acting beyond the rule of law, as is the entirety of the Vietnam war. The president has failed to secure Congressional approval for either the war or the escalation to Cambodia. A message is sent to President Nixon: your actions are unconstitutional when you act above the law. The rally ends peacefully.
Later that evening in Kent, the weather is unusually warm after a long, cold winter. It feels like the first night of spring, and not far from the campus in downtown Kent, students pack the bars to watch college basketball championship games on the TV and discuss Nixon’s announcement.
Back then in Kent bars, 18-year-olds were permitted to drink only 3.2 beer, a beer with lower alcohol content, and at 21, regular beer and hard liquor. Not long into the night, a local motorcycle gang called the Disciples roars up and down the street, popping wheelies and entertaining the students waiting in line for the bars.
There is a cultural divide between the Kent State students and the local folks in Kent. While Kent State University had long been known as an affordable Ohio commuter school not far from Cleveland, the Kent State culture tended to be more progressive than the conservative town. Many locals were opposed to the war and some were politically active but on the whole, there was an undeniable tension between the “hippies” of Kent State, who were by no means the entirety of the student body, and the locals. Allison had told me about this and I had a taste of it when I heard about the heckling in line after we watched the Woodstock movie together. On this Friday night with the political temperature in the country rising, the tension in Kent mounts.
That night there are restless young people inside and outside the downtown bars. As agitation and worry build someone throws a chair in the street, which is promptly destroyed. It is at this point that those present begin to feel a shift in the course of events. While we will never know exactly what took place, many students later describe unfamiliar faces in the mix and a catalytic presence among them escalating events that night. In any case a trash barrel quickly appears along with newspapers thrown in to feed the fire. The barrel ignites and the chair and trash pile burn. The crowd roars but the fire is confined to the barrel – more entertainment for the waiting crowds. There is still a lightness in the streets as the young people attempt to make sense of what’s going down. But the confusion and anticipation start to increase.
At 11 p.m. Kent police force students watching basketball and hanging out with friends to vacate the bars as they shut them down hours before usual closing time. Confused and indignant students abruptly pour into the streets without their drinks and with lots of pushing and shoving.
As the young people begin to leave to return to campus or home, they are greeted by a line of 15 or so cops stretching from sidewalk to sidewalk, all marching toward them. The cops appear to be an angry, motley crew of Kent police. They march toward the stunned young people, pushing them toward campus, picking up more students along the way. The cops herd the kids like cattle, picking up speed, forcing them to move faster so the students have no choice but to disperse and go home.
As the police carry out their maneuvers downtown, a call comes out, “Someone broke a window,” followed by the sound of more windows shattering. Meanwhile the cops continue to push and the kids trip over each other as law enforcement corrals them toward campus. Around a dozen windows in the downtown area are broken and later blamed on the students.
This part of the story has long vexed those present as it was out of character for Kent State kids to break windows. The political temperature on campus had been high for months through some of the worst chapters of the Vietnam war and no one had resorted to violence or vandalism. Many of those present that day or waiting on campus doubted that the students had instigated the window breaking. Not a single eye witness has come forward over the years. What was not left to doubt, however, was the fact that the Kent townies felt deep hostility toward the students and never was this more evident than that first night in May.
What emerged later, to the shock of many, is that the Kent police force had actually deputized local townies that night, giving them permission to patrol the streets. Many students later described seeing ordinary citizens deploying police powers to act with violence and harass the students. They had been sworn in just prior to the police action at the bars. These types of activities, with law enforcement and covert groups manufacturing unrest, are echoed throughout these four days in May at Kent State.
In retelling what happened that night, those present would later say that the news reports covering these events overstated the extent of damage in town. Much is made of this night as a pivot point for the events that would follow. Those who were present downtown, and on campus where the students were herded, found the sequence of events conspicuous. There was little time between the bonfire in the street and the decision to close the bars early. It seemed these assignments of police duties were granted even before the “trouble” began. But the night’s events hit the press and word spread fast, casting the students as the instigators.
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READ MORE EXCERPTS to understand our view of what happened to Allison Krause in the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre:
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