Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of Kent State and Jackson State!

On May 4, 1970, national guardsmen opened fire on hundreds of unarmed students at an anti-war rally at Kent State University in Ohio. The students were protesting the U.S. invasion of
Cambodia, which was announced by President Nixon on April 30th. The guardsmen fired off at
least 67 shots in roughly13 seconds. Four students were killed and nine others wounded. The four students shot dead were Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder, and Sandra Shoyer, all between the ages of 19 and 21. To this day no one’s been held accountable for what happened.

Ten days later, 2 students were killed by state police at Jackson State in Mississippi.

These murders occurred during a time of ferocious protest at these schools and across the country in response to the bombing of Cambodia -- a massive genocidal bombardment that extended the Vietnam War and unleashed a fury of anti-imperialist struggle the world over.

This was a time when students were not passive, complacent, complicit, but DARED -- at the
cost of great sacrifice, to stand up and resist the crimes of their government and the system that government serves and enforces.

On Tuesday we will not only commemorate that spirit and those lives, we will draw lessons from
that inspiring struggle for today.