Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Monday, May 04, 2020

50th anniversary of Kent State University shootings: May 4th


Mary Ann Vecchio gestures and screams as she kneels by the body of a student lying face down on the campus of Kent State University on May 4, 1970.  The photo by student photojournalist John Filo won the Pulitzer Prize.

I can't remember when I first became cognizant of this, probably from the song "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills and Nash.

But it was many many years until I learned of similar killings by National Guardsmen at Jackson State University in Mississippi a couple weeks later.

There is a piece in the New Yorker ("Kent State and the War That Never Ended") and by Margaret Sullivan, the Post's media columnist ("How would Kent State tragedy be covered with today's resources").

Kent State University intended to commemorate the tragedy with a series of events, which have been cancelled because of the coronavirus.

KSU has an online exhibit.



A few years ago, I was reading an interview with one of the leaders of the band Devo.  He and a friend and future bandmate had been on the green at KSU that day ("Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale remember the Kent State Massacre," Nightflight; "How the Kent State massacre helped give birth to punk rock," Washington Post).

One of the KSU exhibits ties together civil rights and anti-war activism, and what I call "the coercive power of the state," "Civil Rights, Black Power, and Anti-War Actions: Orangeburg, Kent, and Jackson, 1960-1967."

Again, I hadn't known of the killings at Orangeburg State in South Carolina either, until a column by University of Maryland Professor and Washington Post sports columnist Kevin Blackistone, "Remembering the Orangeburg massacre, and the athlete-activists who took a stand."

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2 Comments:

At 6:48 PM, Blogger Scratchy said...

Also , future Pretender chrissy hynde was there.

 
At 1:15 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Gosh. Terrible day.

 

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