On the way back from Philadelphia, I stopped in Kent, OH to visit Kent State, the site of the infamous Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970.


I eventually found the general location of the incident and memorial. I was very fortunate to arrive just as a local peace activist was giving a tour to a group from out-of-state. Our guide was very knowledgeable and gave us a detailed play-by-play tour. This was also good because I probably would have walked right pass the site and may have missed the memorial, which is a little ways away behind some buildings.


These metal pillars mark the site where Jeffrey Miller was killed, immortalized in the photograph which earned a Pulitzer Prize.


This truck is parked where another person was shot.


The hill where the National Guard troops fired from, looking into the line of fire. The troops were right next to the concrete ‘pagoda’ just behind the tree.


The view from the hill, looking down the line of fire.


This sculpture was in the line of fire. A bullet went through one of the panels on the bottom left. The bullet hole is the only physical relic of the incident. The school administration quickly replaced the bullet scratched sidewalk and other pieces of evidence. The school asked the artist who created the sculpture to ‘fix’ it, but the artist refused. Instead, he built an identical sculpture for Bowling Green State University on the other side of the state and named it ‘Bridge over troubled waters.’


You can see the bullet hole in the panel at the left.


The May 4 memorial, called ‘the 7 percent solution’ because only 7 percent of the planned design was actually built. The school held a contest to design a memorial, but the first winner turned out to be a Canadian. So they went with the design of the runner up, but only partially completed it.


I do not know the official story on why the memorial was never completed, although I think I can understand if the other 93% also looked like what was actually built.


I kid you not; this car was parked in the lot right where people were shot. I have to wonder about the lesson to be learned here….

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