Thank you all for coming out tonight. We are hosting photographer howard ruffner, who during his College Years at Kent University was a photographer for the yearbook as well as the newspaper. His book moments of truth is a collection of more than 150 of his photos surrounding the kent state massacre of the 1970s in which 4 studentslives were lost. [applause] first of all, i have to say, its nice to see familiar faces out here. Lots of people from pasadena village and relatives. My daughter is out here with my soninlaw and his parents are here. Most of all, i have to thank my wife for being here. If she will just raise her hand. [applause] as most of you know, whenever you endeavor on a real good project, your spouse is the one who picks up the other stuff, and lark kept me organized, kept me going and made sure i did not lose too much focus of where i was going with this. So let me get started. The intention of my book is to let you know more about me in the beginning before i attended kent state, my introduction to photography, and the rest of the story starts with when i enrolled in kent state in march of 1969. I will give you a glimpse of the campus life i knew before may 4. The rest is about the photography of my experience. Thats me in the photo standing next to my mom looking up at my newest brother, rick. Thats rick. The cleveland press back in those days. A family of six boys made a good Human Interest story, so they title it sing a song of six pants p or, pants. They sent a photographer to our home. He positioned us and took the picture. The photo ran on the front page of the afternoon paper the next day above the fold. Neighbors could not wait to share the front page. We were famous. This was 1953. Here we are 18 years later. We are now seven boys in eight years. My youngest brother nick is on the far left. He was still in high school. Three of us had been in the service, two air force, one army. Two more will be joining, one air force, the other in the navy. It was about a year after high school when i enlisted in the air force. During my first two years as a writer in the Information Office in waco, texas, i applied and was accepted to a group called department of defense broadcast specialist course in indianapolis, indiana. Through the eight weeks of broadcast journalism, we were taught how to write for tv news and incorporate news film and slide and television broadcasts. Afterward, i was assigned to the American Forces philippines network. My duties included editing film, running a Television Camera during live news shows and uso broadcasts, and it sharpen my ability to quickly frame and compose pictures. If you Television Camera or 35mm slr, my visual awareness was growing, and later, i became the primary news director and got to call all the shots at the station. So the base offered me lots of opportunity to take photographs of celebrities. Many uso shows with comedians, singers, movie stars to entertain the troops and families, and the uso shows were on their way to vietnam. General Benjamin O Davis in this photograph, the highestranking africanamerican u. S. Air force officer, greeted bob hope upon his arrival at Clark Airbase. Davis would be asked to investigate the shootings that can state in 1970. Many of the photos i took then were used during our daily television show. It was at Clark Airbase where i got seriously involved in photography. This is where i bought my first nikon f camera and lenses. Now i had a professional camera. The hobby shop on the base was my escape from work. Next came printing my images. They really taught me how to make a really finished photograph. Watching your own photo appear in developer was just like magic, like id heard. I was being given assignments and taking pictures daily and printing what i thought was good. After a while, the photo lab techs encouraged me to enter an air force photo competition. With their encouragement, i entered this photo which won first place for portraiture. Another photo i entered won third place for landscapes. Having completed in one gave me a sense of accomplishment and encouraged me to get even better. Now that my photography was taking off, so to speak, i decided to submit the recent photo i took to the newspaper. This was my First Published photograph. It took some planning to get exactly what i wanted, and i had a feeling i was beginning to become more accomplished as a photographer. Now its march of 1969 and i enrolled at Kent State University ready to pursue my degree in broadcast journalism. Spring on campus was a time for students to get out and play and enjoy college life beyond books. These students had not been involved in anything as silly as a modified probably since elementary school. It seemed like a perfectly natural way to break the ice, get to know your fellow classmates. This helped me realize there was a lot more to college than just going to class and studying. While i was surprised by seeing this, it reminded me that it was safe and a playful way to relieve the tensions of school. From mud fights to dating. Casual fridays had not been invented yet. Few students wore jeans, and sneakers were for gym class. It was date night for a sly and the family stone concert that spring. Sly arrived on stage with mutton chops, long hair and an outrageous hippie outfit. Students, however, wore their best date night clothes. They look like they are going to job interviews. Kents student conservative side was apparent at the concert. This was my First Student protest photograph. Up until now, the school was pretty quiet as far as protests were concerned. Students had been working on signs and banners during the week in the morning of the antiwar march. It was thursday morning october 1969. Students grab signs and a banner as they left the University Campus and headed to downtown kent to protest the war. They did this on thursday because kent was a suitcase campus. A lot of students went home. It was the kind of school where friday afternoons, weekends, the campus was deserted. The woman standing behind the word all is alison krauss. I will tell you more about her later. Antiwar sentiment was on the minds of many kent students, especially young men who knew they were deferred from the draft as long as they remained in school. This would change, however, on december 1 that year when the draft lottery was put in place. As a photographer on campus, other than this protest march, most of the protesting i heard was in the classrooms and the student union. The next large antiwar gathering would not occur until may 1, 1970, when 300 to 500 students would attend a rally to protest axons expansion of the war into cambodia. By the fall, the Antiwar Movement had grown off colleges, campuses, and d. C. Four of us decided to drive to washington, d. C. , to join the antiwar protest a few weeks after our own homecoming. We arrived friday evening in time to watch people honoring the soldiers had that night, 18 of us slept in one room of a friends dorm. The next morning, we headed to the mall and i was impressed by the size of the crowd and by their focus and steadfastness to be part of something so big it would make the government take notice. This was my first trip to washington, d. C. Everything was very new and exciting. The resentment of 500,000 people of discontinued war could be felt as i moved my way through the crowd. Their determination to have their voices heard was deafening. With the u. S. Capitol or background, these protesters amended an end to the war. I needed to push my way through the crowds to find out where the march began. After a lot of walking and nudging my way around, i came to the beginning of the parade. I stood in awe as i spotted caretta scott king and George Mcgovern at the front of the parade. I nudge my way through to get as close as i could and took my photos. Locked arm in arm, mcgovern and king showed the strength of their unity and commitment and i was moved to be so close to such committed and important people who opposed the war history grad student steve sheriff urges a rally of 300 500 students to protest nixons decision to invade cambodia. Nixon did this without the consent of congress, and according to steve, nixon murdered the constitution. Therefore, it was dead and needed to be buried. With the constitution buried in the crowd beginning to leave, the grad students got back up and went on their way, but one last grad student sees this as an opportunity to speak to the dwindling crowd, to remind them how important the rally wasnt that the discussion of the war needs to continue. He urged students to return to the same place unknown monday, may 4, and this rally on may 1 took place between 12 00 noon and 1 00 and both students started leaving before the lunch period ended. After the rotc building was set on fire saturday evening, i stayed up late saturday night into sunday morning and watched as the National Guard took up positions on the campus. I had a surreal feeling as we observed the movement of the troops. Where did they come from so quickly . How did they get here . What kind of trouble what happened when students arrived back on campus after the weekend. Students walked around the burned out rotc building sunday morning as i returned to campus. A flimsy wooden fence had been erected while they were gone and National Guardsmen were posted at the building to keep gawkers from getting too close. The protesting had stopped. There were no rumors of more protesting or of more buildings being set on fire. Everything had quieted down, so why werent the National Guard leaving . One reason was around 10 00 a. M. On may 3, Ohio Governor james rhodes and an entourage of officials arrived on campus. They were there to survey the damage on campus after they determined what they would do about student protesters. The governor was running for a u. S. Congressional senate seat and the election was may 5, just a day later two days away. When i heard this, i realized his viewing of the burned out rotc building was likely a planned event to get Media Coverage so he could be splashed across newspapers and tv across the state. He wanted to impress voters that he was the law and order candidate so they would send him to washington. They did not. [laughter] using streetlights and searchlights from helicopters sunday evening, i took photos as students staged a sit in at the center of town. They wanted to hear from the mayor of kent. They wanted to know what was happening, who was in charge. What was the National Guard exactly the National Guards exact role . Confusion reigned all around. On may 4, around 11 30 am, students gathered on the commons to continue the rally of may 1. I have adjusted this photo to allow specific students to stand out. You cannot see it very well. In the front row are the legs and arms of Jeffrey Miller who is standing behind a female student. This is Jeffrey Miller. He was a native of plainville, new york, where he was born in 1950. To his right is marion becky a vecchio, the most widely recognized nonuniversity protester. 14 years old, a runaway from florida. There are two shaded individuals in the middle right of the photo. These students are carrying their books on the way to class. He was a native of cincinnati, ohio where he was born in 1950. The speech therapist, honor student, going to class. She was born in 1949 in youngstown, ohio. I watched as a line of guards, students, reached the crest of the hill and the guard continued to advance on them. On the right just under the pagoda is alison krauss. Again, that is the person i took a photograph of in 1965. Alison krauss was a freshman honor student. She was born in cleveland in 1951. This photo is particularly difficult for me to look at because i see her Holding Hands with her boyfriend barry levine and go back to 1969 and remember the original photograph i took of her and the banner that read bring all the troops home. At this point, the guard seemed to have completed its objective. They were supposed to disperse the students from the crowd that had gathered in front of taylor hall. Yet, the guardsmen were still advancing. What more did they need to accomplish . What was their real objective here . What they really wanted was for this all to end so they could go home. As the guard continued their marching, they reached the corner of taylor hall. I witnessed the group at the rear turn in unison. Some crouched down while others stood. And the gunshots began. Of course i thought they would be shooting blanks. I took a photograph as they turned and fired, and i stood there. A moment later, i thought to myself i better get down anyway. I probably look like a good target with these cameras hanging around my neck. Back then, the lenses were pretty long. We did not have the little tiny lenses or cameras. So what i did is i swung my left arm around my cameras, my camera bag, and i went down to the ground. Just as i was getting down and dropping to my knees, i heard a young woman scream, oh, my god, get down, they are using real bullets they are shooting real bullets i was 80 feet from the guard when they turned and fired. This crop photo shows the ground in front of taylor hall where the National Guard turned and fired. It does not show evidence of anything thrown at the guard or anything that would have put their lives in danger as they would later testify at civil trials. I show this because when you look at a photograph sometimes, you look at what the photographer intended for you to see. In the first photograph, you see the guns pointed in the air, bayonets, people looking. If i go back, you will see what i mean. Maybe im not in the right spot. Cspan. Org[indiscernible] kind of getting close to looking at me in my direction. I spotted john cleary, at the base of the medical sculpture in front of taylor hall. I cannot tell if he was dead or alive. Cleary was lucky. He survived a shot to the chest. The first time i saw this photo was more than a week later on the cover of life magazine. Someone from the magazine had called me a week before at 2 00 a. M. To let me know they had chosen one of my photos for the may 15 cover. Because i had sent unprocessed rolls of film to life in chicago, i had no idea how my film turned out or what my images look like or what i had captured. I never knew exactly what the cover shot was until life hit the newsstands later that week. Some of you might remember this cover. At the memorial side of the shootings, visitors see these engraved words as they get to the Memorial Plaza at kent state. If you have not been to the memorial or can state recently and you well, you will not be getting there from here, but it is a thing to see if you go there. As i wrote this memoir, i asked myself hundreds of questions about what truth my photographs really captured. Who was to blame for killing unarmed students . What role did the students have . Where the guardsmens lives ever at risk . Was there an order to fire . Shortly after the shootings, i realized the kent protest and subsequent killing of students i remember reading about this in the local paper and watching on television news. It was later estimated that more than 4 Million Students went on strike ring the week of may 4. This is all in response to the kent state shootings, making it the largest student protest in history. The last word is reflect. I always have been open and willing to share my kent state photos and memories. Ive given talks at Public Schools to all grade levels, college classes, and local groups, but my proudest moment happened in 2016. I told my story about the kent state tragedy at the protest at Hanoi University where i was invited to speak to 200 undergraduates. These Young Students that heard about the protest that had not heard about the had heard about the protest in the United States from their parents and grandparents and on sunocos, but this was the first time they heard the story from someone who actually was there and was a witness. The other thing that made this so important to me was just that the students at Hanoi University and their parents and grandparents and the protests were determined the end of the war. It had been 10 months what happened at kent state that 90 of the troops were either leaving or scheduled to leave. They recognize that, and i think they really responded to what i had to say and actually, the people i told you about, those with a four students who died. Nine students were wounded. One was crippled for life from the waist down. So i would like to turn this over to any questions anyone would have. [applause] themr. Ruffner yes . Im interested in your transition from a family that had many people in the military and the military that you served in and how if, how your experience in the military affected your view of what was going on, if you became an antiwar activist at some point, or just even antiwar without being an activist. Im interested in that transition. Growing up in a family of seven boys born eight years apart, my family never drove, we actually did not have money for college. As a young poor, middleclass kid, i stayed out of school for about a year working jobs and trying to go to an Extension School but realizing it is not all going to work out very well,