Friday, May 6, 2005

OUTLOOK

The Maneater

15

Kent State massacre memorial held in Peace Park

Mid-Missouri Peaceworks organized the Wednesday afternoon
memorial.

ZACH HONIG, Staff Writer

On the 35th anniversary of the Kent State massacre, 35
people gathered in Peace Park to remember victims of the
shooting.
On May 4, 1970, about 800 Ohio National Guardsmen were on the Kent State campus as more than 1,000 students gathered to protest the Vietnam War. During the protest, the guardsmen fired on students, killing four and injuring nine.
After a candlelight vigil on Wednesday, Columbia residents Carolyn Mathews and Susan Woodbury sang songs about peace.
Several speakers followed before the group paused for a moment of silence.
Jeffrey Miller, a childhood friend of Mid-Missouri Peaceworks Director Mark Haim, was one of the students killed.
Haim, who attended high school with Miller in Plainview,
N.Y., said the two had not attended protests together.
"Most people of my graduating class got more active in
peace demonstrations once they got to college," Haim said.
Haim said protests during the 1970s were against the
Vietnam War, not the Kent State massacre.
"It wasn't the shooting of the students that sparked the protest," Haim said. "It was the protest that
sparked the shooting of the students."
Although Haim went to Washington, D.C., to protest the
war in 1970, he said protesters do not need to travel to voice their opinion.
"Most of the time what we need to do is in our own community," Haim said.
Former MU professor Bill Wickersham was one of the
speakers during Wednesday's memorial.
Wickersham spoke of protests on the MU campus shortly after the Kent State massacre.
"(In) May of 1970, we had about 4,000 students over on
the quadrangle," he said. "They met at various places, what is now Stankowski Field, then Rollins Field, on the quadrangle and here in Peace Park. And this was when Peace Park really took on that name."
Junior Cat Johnson, whose family friend was shot and injured at the Kent State massacre, was among the students
in attendance.
"He actually wasn't protesting," Johnson said of her family
friend. "He was walking through about the time that the
guard raised their guns and were pointing them at students."