A student and photographer for the College Newspaper at the time, one of his photos was used on the cover of life magazine. He has published a book about his experience, moments of truth a photographers experience of kent state 1970. Max thank you all so much for coming out tonight. Tonight, we are hosting the photographer Howard Ruffner who, during his College Years at kent state university, was a photographer for the yearbook and newspaper. His book tonight, moments of truth, is a collection of more than 150 photos around the kent state massacre of 1970 in which four students lives were lost. So without further ado, please welcome Howard Ruffner. [applause] howard first of all, i have to say it is nice to see some familiar faces out here. Lots of people from pasadena village and relatives. My daughter is here with my soninlaw, and his parents are here. People from near where i live. But most of all, i have to thank my wife for being here. If she will just raise her hand. [applause] a
Joining us from his home is the author, howard means. Thank you for being with us. What happened and why did four students die and nine others were injured . Thats a big question. In the ultimate large sense of this, all the toxic orders of together atlowed Kent State University and the first weekend of may in 1970 it was an age of hate. Was an age of distrust. It was a generational divide. Right now, the museum laura davis was talking about, does a wonderful job of capturing all of this. Is a gem of the museum. That has a wonderful walk you can take, narrated and if you are anywhere near kent, stop and do it. In the more immediate sense, you nixons speech to that thursday, in which he announced the extension of the war into cambodia, after saying he was going to bring 150,000 troops and that was a time bomb waiting to opt, which it did the next evening in the bars offcampus. There were windows broken and trash cans set on fire. The real problem with that demonstration was it convinced
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
Located right beside taylor hall is a parking lot, the parking lot that four students unfortunately passed away during the may 4th shooting. And i have parked in that parking lot. I have walked across it. I have talked to my friends while walking across it. And i think theres something incredibly powerful about something that people encounter daily, having such a wound located there. I really am grateful that i have been able to attend kent state and been around may 4th and be able to exist in that space because it fires me up, honestly, every time i see it, to just keep fighting. Because some of the things they were fighting for back then were still fighting for now and we cant become complacent. Complacency is not that is a privilege. And one that we cannot afford. Hello. My name is todd dican. Its my honor and privilege to serve as the president of Kent State University. I have said many times you do not have to be an historian to understand the place of Kent State University in the
His book tonight, moments of truth, is a collection of more than 150 photos around the kent state massacre of 1970 in which four students lives were lost. So without further ado, please welcome howard ruffner. [applause] howard first of all, i have to say it is nice to see some familiar faces out here. Lots of people from pasadena village and relatives. My daughter is here with my soninlaw, and his parents are here. People from near where i live. But 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 laura kept me organized and kept me going and made sure i did not lose too much of a focus on where i was going with this. So let me get started. The intention of my book is to let you know more about me at the beginning before i attended kent state, my introduction to photography. And then the rest of the story starts wi