Never forget

Memorials should encourage campus activism

Kent State University dedicated memorials Wednesday to the four students killed by National Guardsmen during a 1970 campus protest against the Vietnam War.

Granite markers now occupy the parking spaces where Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder fell after members of the National Guards opened fire on protesters on May 4, 1970. Bystanders and students on their way to class were also hit.

The National Guard was called in on May 2 after the burning of Kent State's ROTC building. Wounded students and the parents of the four slain students later sued the Guardsmen, the state of Ohio and then-Gov. James Rhodes and settled for $675,000.

Until three weeks ago when construction on the memorial project was started, the parking spaces were only roped off annually for an overnight vigil on the night of May 3. The University had already set up a memorial to the dead at another location and offers classes on the shooting. The new memorials only came after a petition drive and $100,000 in private funds were raised.

While Kent State's previous efforts to come to terms with the 29-year-old shooting are admirable, the decision to mark the places where the four students died was a necessary and long overdue step towards properly recognizing the fallen activists.

Before the new memorials were built, cars continued to park in the spaces where the students died. But aside from commemorating specific individuals who gave their lives for a just cause, Kent State's memorials offer up a worthy challenge to modern campus activists.

While current popular campus movements - like the current anti-sweatshop movement and the South African divestment movement in the '80s - continue to be quite successful, active membership in these groups still appears to be dwindling or at least far too invisible in comparison with earlier movements.

The roster of worthy and relevant causes to fight for remains lengthy. Rights students tend to take for granted, like free speech and a woman's right to choose, are far from secure.

College activists must continue to address issues such as affirmative action, the environment, the war on drugs and poverty to name a few. These and other issues are just as important to everyone as the need for civil rights and an ending to the war in Vietnam were in the '60s.

Today's college-aged generation should be embarrassed that current issues are being addressed in a weaker fashion than the social activism of the '60s and '70s. Campus activism is far from dead, and it is unfair to characterize students as apathetic. Yet it is undeniable that the activist fervor of previous decades has faded.

The new Kent State memorials to the students slain in 1970 do not simply add a better sense of closure to the shooting. They also beg modern students to explain why campus activism was more prevalent than it is now, even though worthy causes still abound. The answer to this question ought to come in the form of actions rather than words.

09-10-99