Shortly before noon on May 4, 1970, several hundred students at Kent State University protesting the escalation of the Vietnam War into Cambodia were ordered to disperse by the Ohio National Guard. When the order was ignored, the guardsmen fired tear gas and then advanced across a field to a hill where the students had gathered.
At 12:34 p.m., two dozen guardsmen clustered atop the hill fired their M-1 rifles in the direction of a crowd of students. Sixty-seven shots rang out during 14 terrifying seconds. When the shooting stopped, four students lay dead, and nine others were seriously wounded. A photo captured the moment a teenage girl realized student Jeffrey Miller was dead from a soldier’s bullet.
In the days that followed, nearly a million students at 700 colleges walked out of classes and marched in solidarity with Kent State. Nationwide, the protests swelled to 4 million. That weekend, 100,000 brought the protests to Washington, where buses parked end-to-end blocked off the White House and elements of the 82nd Airborne Division were mobilized.
It’s become a cliché to say that at the time of Kent State, America was more divided than today. But as an activist during the 1960s, I’ve come to believe today’s divide is deeper and more enduring.
Yes, there was political violence in the ’60s, and, luckily, there’s been little since. Yesterday’s divide centered on two principal issues: the war in Vietnam and civil rights. Progress on each ameliorated tension and diminished protests.
At the core, the anti-war movement was about young men being unwilling to fight and die in a war they opposed. In the late 1960s, 300,000 young U.S. citizens were being drafted each year into the military. By the time the war ended, 58,000 Americans had died in southeast Asia.
Today is different. The country is polarized over basics — our history and who we are. Joan Williams, a savvy liberal Democrat in San Francisco, wrote that Donald Trump won in 2016 by leading a working-class rebellion against the privileged, entitled elites running the country. That new establishment is politically correct, favors abortion on-demand, same-sex marriage, relatively open borders, and globalization.
On the other side are populists, nationalists, conservatives, call them what you will, who say not so fast. They blame free trade for the loss of factories and good jobs, income inequality, and the hollowing out of cities. They oppose illegal migration because non-English speakers push down wages. They’ve had enough of multiculturalism and identity politics emphasizing the bad instead of the good about America. They lament the decline of patriotism, religion, basic education, and the nuclear family.
America was resilient following the divisive ’60s, as beliefs that were the preserve of the Left were integrated into the broader culture. For example, gay rights and gender equality are enshrined in law, alternative lifestyles are accepted, environmental protection is unchallenged, natural foods and organic farming are mainstream, free expression is encouraged.
The new divide is encapsulated by the chasm between coastal elites and a populist hinterland. The elites, displaying 1960s arrogance, view themselves as smarter and wiser.
Today’s combatants retreat into comfortable silos reinforcing their prejudices — one side watching CNN and MSNBC, the other Fox News. There’s no Walter Cronkite. The news media is no longer a unifying element. Mutual respect and civility are in short supply.
While pessimistic about early reconciliation, I suspect the deep rift in society will eventually be healed. Core institutions are intact. Both sides grudgingly respect democratic principles and invoke the Constitution as arbiter.
Not long ago, I visited Kent State, a typical mid-level university between Cleveland and Akron. The May 4 Visitors Center is situated in Taylor Hall, adjacent to where the shootings occurred. The photographs and documents are riveting and somber. Outside, the landmarks and flashpoints are as they were.
There’s a poignancy about Kent State. Then and now, U.S. citizens are shocked and ashamed at the magnitude of the tragedy. Sadly, you go away realizing that what happened at Kent State could have happened at any number of campuses across the country.
Barry D. Wood, an anti-war activist in 1970, is a Washington-based columnist and writer on the global economy.
