May 4, 1970: The Kent State Massacre
Four students dead. Nine more wounded. All unarmed. All shot by the National Guard on an American college campus.
They were protesting the Vietnam War, specifically Nixon’s expansion into Cambodia. Two thousand gathered.
Armed troops showed up in riot gear. They deployed tear gas. Students threw it back. Some yelled. Some ran. Some just watched.
The protesters were at least seventy feet away, unarmed, retreating, and posing no credible threat.
But the National Guard claimed they “feared for their lives.”
So they raised their rifles…
…and fired 67 rounds into a college campus in just 13 seconds.
Mary Ann Vecchio was 14 years old, had run away from home, and was hitchhiking to a better life when she stumbled into the area of the protest and eventual bloodbath. This Pulitzer-winning photo of her screaming over a stranger’s lifeless body made front pages around the world, and it destroyed her life. She was branded a communist, harassed by her community, and exiled from normalcy. A child caught in the crosshairs of empire, punished for witnessing too loudly.
It’s easy to remember the photo. Harder to remember what came next:
- No accountability.
- No justice.
- No structural change.
Just another footnote in a textbook, if it gets mentioned at all.
This is how state violence gets normalized: by burying the stories, blaming the victims, and convincing us it was all a tragic misunderstanding.
But it wasn’t. It was a warning.
And that warning is echoing louder than ever today.
Under Trump’s second term, we are already watching the escalation begin:
- Protesters labeled as “insurrectionists” and “terrorists”
- Universities cracking down on student dissent
- Governors calling for National Guard deployment
- Police arresting students for screening documentaries
- Federal agents claiming broad power in “border zones” that now include major cities
Historically, the spark of resistance has always caught fire at universities.
Young people are often the moral engine of justice movements, and the first to face the wrath of power.
If you plan to protest, be aware:
The same playbook is back.
The government will justify violence in the name of “order.”
Just like we saw during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests across the country, they will smear you, gas you, shoot you with rubber bullets, beanbags, or worse, and say it was for your own safety. They’ll brand you a traitor for daring to dissent.
But history is watching. And it always starts with the young.
Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t happen here.
It already did.
And it’s happening again.
