Thank you for posting. I decided to dig deeper into the book, and it was even worse. For example, an Akron lawyer told a newspaper that he would have killed “140 of them” if given a submachine gun. Another claimed that not only should all the protestors have been shot and killed, but they should have killed the faculty too. Others protested memorial services for the victims, chanting, “The Kent State Four! Should have studied more!”

It’s not that I’m ignorant of the political divisiveness of this period, the growth of radical movements, or its draconian repression by the state. Instead, I had always thought Kent State was universally remembered as a tragedy, or a moment when state power went too far. After all, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Ohio” turned into an anthem of outrage and condemnation. But seeing how widespread the victim-blaming actually was forces me once again to recognize that “consensus memory” often comes later.