Mapping the Kent State Massacre

Fifty years ago, on May 4, 1970, National Guard troops fired on unarmed students at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. They killed 4 and wounded 9. Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against America's bombing of the neutral Cambodia. Others had simply been walking by at the wrong moment or observing the protest.

Mapping May 4 is a story map which explores the events leading up to the Kent State shootings using the accounts of eye witnesses to the unfolding events. The map uses oral histories from the May 4 Collection, Kent State Special Collections & Archives. It maps these oral accounts that describe memories of events at a particular place in Kent between May 1st and May 5th, 1970.

If you click on a marker on the map you can listen to the oral histories associated with that location. The map also includes a number of featured walking tours of the campus. These walking tours feature a number of important locations to the events of May 1970. As you walk through the campus you can listen to the oral histories recorded about these locations and the events leading up to the shootings. The tours are dated May 1, May 2, May 3, May 4. Listening to the recordings in each tour in order provides an illuminating insight into the events which occurred leading up to the May 4 shootings.