Anti-War Movement

Around the same time as the Civil Rights Movement, college students began gathering together in opposition to United States military involvement in Southeast Asia. Following the approval of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent than 500,000 U. S. troops, together with air support, to countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia to fight Communism.

As United States involvement in Vietnam continued to escalate, campuses and large cities in Ohio became gathering places for protestors, who believed they were taking a stand against an immoral war and a corrupt government. Protests occurred on almost all campuses in Ohio, from colleges as small as Wilmington College to major universities such as Ohio State University.

In 1968, incumbent President Johnson decided not to seek reelection. Richard Nixon was elected to succeed him. As president, Nixon continued to increase U. S. involvement in Vietnam, rousing anti-war sentiments nationwide. In 1970, Nixon ordered troops into Cambodia to halt Vietnamese supply routes. Many saw this movement as an escalation toward war and major demonstrations and protests erupted on college campuses across the country. In Ohio, the National Guard shut down Ohio State University in response to student violence.

The worst, however, was yet to come. During the first three days of May 1970 at Kent State University, students rioted in the streets of downtown Kent, burned down the ROTC building on campus, and yelled insults and curses at police officers and firemen trying to restore order. Some students threw large rocks and hunks of concrete at police and fire officials trying to combat the blaze that had engulfed the ROTC building. Governor James Rhodes ordered the Ohio National Guard to Kent's campus on May 2. The guardsmen, who had been policing a truck strike in Akron the week before, were forced to confront insulting and often violent students and sleep deprivation, as many guardsmen reported receiving less than three hours of sleep during the nights they spent at Kent.

On May 4, 1970, the National Guard confronted a large gathering of students on Kent's campus. Since such large gatherings had been declared illegal due to the three previous days of rioting, the students were ordered to disperse. However, as the Guard tried to push the students back, they were met with a barrage of rocks and insults, although the majority of students were reported to have been peaceful. Shots rang out, and when the firing was over, four students were dead and nine others were wounded.

In response to the events at Kent, campuses across the country shut down, some for a few days, others for the remainder of the school year. Three years after the shootings, United States troops were officially withdrawn from Vietnam. Ohio lost almost three thousand soldiers, and more than twenty thousand Ohioans were wounded in the war.

Other Causes

Since the middle of the 20th century, African Americans and women have been the focus of the most visible civil rights struggles. Other minority groups, such as American Indians, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, homosexuals, and the disabled, have also pursued equal opportunities under the law and in society.

Bibliography

Booth, Stephanie Elise. Buckeye Women: The History of Ohio's Daughters. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001.

Blocker, Jack S. Jr. "Give to the Winds thy Fears," The Women's Temperance Crusade, 1873-1874. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Burns, Stewart. Social Movements of the 1960's, Searching for Democracy. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Gara, Larry. The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1961.

Jordan, Philip D. Ohio Comes of Age: 1873-1900. Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1968.

Knepper, George W. Ohio and its People. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1989.

Roseboom, Eugene H. and Francis P. Weisenburger. A History of Ohio. Columbus: The Ohio Historical Society, 1991.

Walters, Ronald G. American Reformers 1815-1860. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978.

Warner, Hoyt Landon. Progressivism in Ohio, 1897-1917. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1964.