>> first of all, i have to say it is nice to see familiar faces, lots of people from pasadena village, my daughter and son-in-law and his parents are here. it is kind of people where i live. but most of all, i've got to thank my wife for being here. if she'll just raise her hand. (applause) >> as most of you know whenever you endeavor in a good project, your spouse picks up the other stuff. she kept me going and made sure i didn't lose too much of a 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 photograph, and then the rest of my story is when i enrolled in kent state in march of 1969. i will give you a glimpse of the campus before may 4. and the rest is my photography and my experience on campus, may 1 through may 4. that is me and my mom looking up at my newest brother rick. cleveland press back in those days thought a family of six boys made a good news story and so they titled it sing a song of six pants. i watched this photograph came into our house, looked around and found a place to gather us all together. he positioned us and took a picture. the photo ran on the local newspaper above the fold. friends and neighbors couldn't wait to share the news and we were famous. and this is 1953. here we are 18 years later. we are now seven boys in eight years. my youngest brother nick was still in high school, three of us were in the service, two air force, one army, two more would be joining, one in the air force, the other in the navy. so 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 was assigned to the department of defense broadcast specialist course at fort harris in indianapolis, indiana. we were taught how to write for t.v. news and incorporate news films and slides and television broadcasts. after this, i was assigned to the american forces philippines network. my duties included editing film and to sharpen my ability to frame and compose pictures whether behind a television camera or a regular camera, i later became the primary news director and got to call all the shots at the news station. so this allowed lots of opportunities to take photos of selects during u.s.o. shows. many were arrived, they were singers and movie stars. they were on their way to vietnam. general davis in this photograph ht highest ranking -- the highest ranking officer. he was later asked to serve on the president's commission on campus unrest to investigate the shootings at kent state in 1970. many of the photos i took then were used during our daily television show. so it was at clark air base 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. to hobby shop on base was a way to escape work. next came printing my images. here they taught me how to make a really finished photograph. developing film was like magic. i was given assignments and taking pictures daily and printing what i thought was good. after a while i was encouraged to enter an air force photo competition. i won first place. i entered another one and won third place for landscapes. having completed and won gave me a sense of accomplishment an encouraged me to gept even better -- to get even better. now that my photography was taking off so to speak, i decided to submit a recent photo i took to the base newspaper. this was my first published photograph. it ran with my credit and it took some planning to get exactly what i wanted and now i'm feeling i'm getting to become more accomplished as a photograph. so now it is march of 1969, and i've 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 been involved -- hadn't been involved in anything as silly as a mud fight since elementary school. it seemed to be a way to break the ice and get to know your fellow classmates. this helped me realize that there was a lot more to college than just going to classes and studying. while i was surprised to see this it reminded me it was a safe and playful way to release 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 sly and the family stone concert that spring. sly was in a hippy outfit, students, however, wore their best date night clothes. they looked like they were going to job interviews. the kent 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 grabbed signs and a banner as they left the university campus and headed to downtown kent to protest the vietnam war. they did this on thursday because kent was a suitcase campus. lots of students went home. it was the kind of school where friday afternoons and weekends the campus was deserted. the woman standing behind the word all is allison krauss. i will tell you more about her later. the antiwar was on the mind of many young students, especially young men who were assigned to school. this would change. as a photograph on campus, other than this protest march, most of the protests you heard were in the classrooms and the student union. the next large antiwar gathering won't occur until may 1 1970, when 300 to 500 students were at a rally to protest nixon's war in cambodia. by fall, the protests went to the mall on d.c. four of us decided to drive to washington, d.c. to join the antiwar protest on november 15. a few weeks after our homecoming, we arrived friday evening to watch people honoring the soldiers who died in vietnam. that night 18 of us slept in one room of a campus dorm. i was impressed by the size of the crowd and by their focus and steadfastness that was 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 half a million people of this continued 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 in the background, i needed to push my way through the crowd to find out where the march began. after a lot of walking and nudging p my way around -- nudging my way around i made it to the front. i saw coretta scott king and i nudged as close as i could take to take a photo. i was moved to be so close to such committed and important people who opposed the war. now it is may 1 on campus, may 1, 1970. history graduate student steve sherif urges a rally of 300 to 500 students to understand the severity of knicks obon's decision -- nixon's decision to invade cambodia. nixon this without congress. and someone said nixon murdered the constitution. therefore it needed to be dead and buried. with the constitution buried, the grad students packed up and went on their way. one grad student sees this as an opportunity to speak to the dwindling crowd to remind them how important it was and that the discussion needed to continue. he urged the students to return to the same place on monday, may 4. thrally took place between 12 noon and 1 p.m. most students started to leave before the lunch period ended. so 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 i observed the movement of the armed troops. where did they come from so quickly? how did they get here? what kind of trouble would happen after the students arrived back on campus after the weekend? well, students walked around the burned out rotc building sunday morning as they returned to campus, a flimsy wooden fence had been erected while they were gone and national guardsmen were posted at the building. the protesting had stopped. there were no rumors of more protesting or of more buildings being set on fire. everything had quited down. so why weren't the national guard leaving? well one reason was around 10 a.m. on may 3, ohio governor james rhode arrived and decided -- they were there to decide what to do about the student protesters. he was running for a u.s. congressional seat and the election was may 5 two days away. when i realized this, he viewed the burning of the rotc wilding -- building was a planned event to get media coverage to be splashed around t.v. and across the state. he wanted to impress voters that he was the law and order candidate so they would send him to washington. they didn't. [laughter] >> using street lights and search lights from helicopters sunday evening, i took photos as students staged a sit in in the center of town. they wanted to hear from the mayor of -- the head of kent. they wanted to know what was happening. who was in charge. what was the national guard's exact role and was the campus under martial law and confusion reigned all around. students gathered to continue the rally of may 1. i have adjusted this photo to allow specific students to stand up. and if you can't see it very well, in the front row are the legs and arms of jeffy miller who is -- jeffrey miller standing behind a female student. this is jeffrey miller. he was from new york. he was born in 1950. to his right, carrying a dog, is marianne veco, she would become the most recognizable nonuniversity protester, the photo known as the day after. 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 as they pause on their way to class. on the right is william shroder. he was a native of cincinati, oh, where he was born in 1950. to his left is sandy sawyer. sandy sawyer is a speech therapist, honor student fully intent on going to class. she was born in 1949 in youngstown ohio. i watched as a line of guards and students reached the crest of the hill and the guard continued to advance on them. on the right, just under the bagotta is allison krauss. she led the protest march to the city. allison krauss was a freshman honor student and born in cleveland in 1951. and this photo is particular difficult for me to look at because i see her holding hands with her boyfriend barry le have seen and i go back to the original photograph i took of her and the banner that read, bring all the troops home. at this point the guards seemed to have completed their objective. they were supposed to dissuppress the students from the front of taylor hall. yet the guards were still advancing. what more did they need to accomplish? what was their real objective? what they really wanted was for this all to end so they could go home. so as the guard continued -- guards 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, then 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. then 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, and back then the lenses were long and we didn't have the tiny lenses. i swung the left arm around my camera, my camera bag, and i went down to the ground. and 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 bull et cetera. they are -- bullets. they are using real bullets. i was 80 feet in front of the guard. this photo shows where the national guard turned and fire. it does not shown evidence of anything that would have put their lives in danger as they would later testify a the civil trials. i showed this because you look for what the photograph intend to see and you see in the first one, guns pointed in the air, people looking, and if you go back, you will see what i mean. when i talk about somebody maybe not in the right spot. there is this other guy next to him and he's getting close looking at me in my direction. as i looked around from my crouched position, i spotted john cleary lying wounded on the ground just to the left and a little bit behind me. he was at the base of the metal sculpture in front of taylor hall. i couldn't tell if he was dead or alive. cleary was lucky. he survived a shot to the chest. say you this a week later on the front of "liv," someone called me from "liv" to tell me that they chose one of my photos for the front page. because i sent unprocessed rolls, i had no idea how my film turned out or what my images looked like that i capture. i never new what the cover shot was until "liv" hit the newsstands. -- until "-life" hit the cover. so at the memorial site of the reunion, visitors see these words as they enter the memorial. if you have not been to the memorial, well you won't be getting there from here, it is a thing to see if you go there. the first word is inquire. as i wrote this memoir, i asked myself hundreds of questions about what truths my photographs captured. who was to blame for killing unarmed students? what role did the students have? were the guardsmen lives ever at risk and was there an order to fire? for the word learn shortly after the kent state shooting, i realized that the kent protest and subsequent killing of students precipitated the closing of colleges and universities around the country. i remember reading about this in a local paper and watching it on television news. it was later estimated that more than four million students at more than half the 2,551 colleges in the university and country went on strike during the week of may 4. this is all in response to the kent state shootings, making it the largest student protest in history. then the last word is reflect. i always have been open and willing to share my kent state photos and memories. i have given talks at public schools, all grade levels, college classes and local community groups. my proudest moment happened in october of 2016. i told my story about the cannot state tragedy and protest at hanoi university where i was invited to speak to 200 english speaking graduates and it would not have been possible without the kent state international department. these young students had heard about the protests in the united states from their parent and grandparents and aunts and uncles but this was the first time they heard the story from someone who was there and was a primary witness. and the other thing that made this so important to me was just the students at hanoi university and their parents and grandparents recognized that the sacrifice at kent state and all the college campuses that protested the war in 1970 was what actually determined the ending of the vietnam war because then within ten months of what happened at kent state, 90% of the troops in vietnam were either leaving or scheduled to leave, and they -- they recognized that and they -- i think they really responded to what i had to say. the people i told you about, allison krauss andy sawyer, and jeffrey miller, those are the four students who died. nine students were wounded and one was crippled for life from the waist down. i would like to turn this over to any questions anybody would have. i would be more than happen to share what i have here. (applause) yes. >> i'm 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 -- i'm just interested in that transition or relationship. >> well, growing up in a family much seven boys born eight years apart, and my dad never drove we actually didn't have money for college. and as a young, you know poor middle-class kid, i stayed out of school for a year working several jobs and trying to go to an extension school realizing that it is not all going to work out very well. and a kid decided to join the air force and asked me if i wanted to join to. it didn't take half a second. i'm with you. i was ready to go. as far as the war goes, sure i was against the war, but if i didn't enlist and get g.i. money, i couldn't become something other than i was. when i enrolled, when you got to your draft place, if they drafted you, if the marines didn't have enough marines to fill their quota, you're a marine you're a marine. air force an navy didn't have that problem. i thought it was better to enlist rather than take my chances of being in the army or marines. when i was in the service i probably didn't have a lot of the same experience as others did. i had a brother who was an mcic in vietnam, another one who built roads in vietnam for two years, i wrote press releases for waco texas, and directed t.v. in the philippines. my view of the war was the same. i didn't think it was just. i didn't think we had a reason to be there. when i got to kent state, i held that view, but my personal desire to do photography was stronger than my desire to be a protester, and so i chose that and i had to keep myself a little bit more object if ied than do one thing or the other. yes? >> why do you think the national guard opened fire? >> i can explain that, really. it is quite strange. when governor rhodes, and all of this is in the book, but whenever governor rhodes arrived on campus, he had a public appearance, but then he had a private appearance in the firehouse -- i don't believe there were kent state officials or administrators there state police, national guardsmen, some reporters, and he -- his words were being broadcast also to the -- i don't want to call them dormitories, but the facilities where the national guard were, and he made it very clear in his pronouncements at the fire station that he said these students are worse than the brown shirts of world war ii and we are not going to let them get away with anything. this kind of stuff is going to stop here. they are no longer to burn down our million dollar buildings. the building that was burnt down was a 1942 world war ii barracks. worth about $2,000, maybe. he gave the guards permission to use any force they could to stop the protesting. and what becomes very confusing and is probably something that needs more answering more than the guard had an ordered fire, is why did the university administration give up their role in protecting their students and why did they feel they had to give up their position to the ohio governor at that time. when governor rhodes took control of the university he gave permission to the generals to do whatever they could to stop rioting. and that included that there would be no protests of any kind, peaceful or otherwise, no gathering of students. so at 12:15 on may 4, a jeep went around where the students were gathering and told the students they had to dissuppress or suffer the consequences. at that point in time, we didn't know it shalls but their -- we didn't know it, but their guns were locked and loaded, their had their gas masks on, and even though -- if i were to go back to that one photograph, the people in the front of the crowd, maybe 300 to 500 protesters, okay, and behind them were people who said, yeah, maybe cheerleaders or whatever and beyond that you had onlookers. cannot state had 18,000 students and the number of real protesters was fairly small. so without any further, the guard just said they had permission to dissuppress the -- disperse the crowd. kent was a huge campus, like many campuses, and they chased them and they disappeared. but when you look at the book the guard ended up on what is called a practice football field, which is surrounded by three sides by a six-foot chain link fence. they had nowhere else to go. and the students gathered in front of them. they could have gone back to the rotc building and avoided any confrontation, but they chose to chase them up a hill giving the guard a 20-yard advantage over the parking lot and football field. so when they reached that spot, there were a certain number of guards that turned and fired. there's a lot of conspiracy things about was there an order to fire? some people said there were. some said it might have been a gun shot. it doesn't matter because the guard claimed their lives were in danger, and we know that to be a lie. so regardless of what the guard had said, they shot and fired and it took ten years for the one guardsmen to admit to a reporter to the journal that he intentionally stood there and shot two bullets into joe lewis, a student 60 feet in front of the guard when they fired. so there's a lot of secrets, a lot we don't know, but we do know the guard got away with murder that day. >> along that line, there was a report that there was a tape where the word fire was heard. >> right. >> and have you heard that or any opinion on that? >> i've heard about the tape. i know who has the tape. the person who -- the aud olgist -- audiologist, he passed away, so he can't testify to anything anymore. i think it is interesting. i was 80 feet in front of the guard when they fired. i didn't hear anything. it could have happened but to me it doesn't matter. i feel that there was a group of guardsmen -- there were a group of older or seasoned guardsmen, and it seems they are the ones who stayed back as they marched up the hill. and it was only that certain group who turned and fired. and if you go back and look at that picture, you will see the general is far ahead. that's one of the things that's confusing about kent because no one knows who had control of the university. martial law was never officially proclaimed but it is often thought that it was there. the ohio telephone operators, they have a procedure that if a school or any place or town is under martial law, they cut all telephone lines. so they were under the impression that it was under martial law. >> you say they were. >> they were under the impression it was martial law, but it had never been officially documented. peter. >> back to the comment about whether somebody said fire. how much noise were the protesters making per your recollection at that crucial point? >> actually there was no could noise -- there was no noise. the guards were walking up the hill, the students were watching them. i was watching them and i was kind of alert for -- i was a string are for "-life" magazine and i was trying to be ready for anything that might happen. that's why i looked back a couple of times, i looked for rockets to be thrown. i didn't see anything. i didn't feel anything. you know, i didn't hear anything. so, you know, there wasn't really any noise at that point in time until they turned and fired. to this day i still get shook-up or have a reaction to helicopters flying overhead with search lights or ambulances racing down the streets. i can still see the kids being put on gurneys and rolled away from the campus that day. yes. >> sort of as a recap, how does this incident compare to any other university campus violence at the time? i mean, was this listening and huge deal or -- i mean, as far as i can sort of remember, being really young, there was violence at berkeley and ucla had a riot. was this vastly larger than those other larger places. it seems like ohio is kind of, not really on the forefront. >> i can't speak completely for the other university, but i had gone to ohio state several times before the incident at kent state, and i had national guard in parking lots and protesting, and i think it was pronounced at other schools but not -- but the burning of the rotc building, which happened on kent at that particular time was the straw that broke the camel's back for the governor, and the fact that he was running for public office at a high level. i would think that that's what i would attribute kent state's situation or tragedy to be all about. yeah, i know that the -- that the schools in the east, columbia berkeley had a lot of violence, but not the kind of violence that precipitated the national guard to stop anybody physically like they did at kent. it became a political thing because governor rhodes was there. it was a new mayor and on friday evening there was some rough housing after the bam bodyian -- after the cambodia invasion. trash cans had been put on fire and the mayor demanded a curfew on the town and a curfew on campus. it gets down to who was in control. one other -- we didn't know who was in charge, and for the record the president of kent state university robert white, at 12 p.m. on monday may 4 was having lunch at the brown derby with one of the generals in charge of the national guard. do you have an idea of what's going on? >> so post may 4 then there were massive demonstrations at universities across the country. i lived in seattle at the time, and at the university of washington maybe as many as 10,000 students decided to march downtown to the federal courthouse and protest, and they marched out on to interstate 5 and shut down the freeway. but you in effect, said and certainly implied that it was not insurance for -- not unusual for universities , public as well as private to insist on their police forces, the university police retaining control over law enforcement on the campus, and that's what was the case at the university of washington at the time. the university president absolutely insisted that neither the state patrol nor the seattle police department were to come on campus without express permission from the university. >> and i think that's what happened at kent. the mayor gave in very easily to some violence that took place, called governor rhodes, rhodes sent the troops in, it was friday, the building was burned on saturday, and i was watching the troops roll in cleverly under the darkness of night. no one could see them. wow you wake up and you have the national guard. if the national guard had not been there, i'm not certain there would have been a problem at all. students went to rallies back in those days for one thing, right? to get information. a rally wasn't to storm or take over a building. that was decided at the rally. the rallies were to see what you were going to do or what you believed. the rallies were for information. i tried to remind the younger readers, we didn't have cell phones or t.v.s in every room. let me say one more thing before i close this out. another intent on the book, and it is very timely right now, is that back in the 1960's and early 1970's, we saw a lot of passion, end the war. there was a lot of passion with the students and schools. today that passion is just beginning again with the youth of the united states to end gun violence climate control, and i'm hoping that the book will help them understand that, you know, keep your passion, keep the fight. you're going to have to make some sacrifices, but you can make a change. so the book is more than just a reflection of kent state it is a hope for the future students and generations to know that they can make change by being passionate about something. >> what motivated you to put this book together? did someone tell you to do it or you sat there and said -- this whole thing of using it as a teaching tool? >> well, i know i had all of these photographs, and i just didn't know what to do with them. and my wife and i, larkin i, have -- lark and i have friends who are ph.d.'s at colleges. we were at that cabin in casper wiemg, visiting them -- in wymong. visiting them, my friend jeff looked at me and said, you know, howard, you're an eyewitness. you're a primary witness. you need to wroi that book. and they -- you need to write that book. they gave me a good kick in the butt for that push and we have another friend from new york named michael mcdonald and he wrote "all souls" and he grew up in south boston with eddie bulge ar. i was sub letting his place and i said, michael, how do i get this started? i had no clue, and i taught english for two years in high school. he said here's my writing desk, and this is what i did, just start from the top of your head. i wrote 60 80 pages that lark looked at and she said, throw that away. which is what you need to do. you get the rough stuff out of your head and then you get organized and focused. it took about -- actually it took about three years, so it was a long process, but it was something i wanted to get done, and as the only photographer there for the entire weekend, i have the only record. >> you were hired by life? >> i was hired to be a stringer. i went to kent on the g.i. bill. i didn't have any relationships, i had nothing to do, i had two roommates, $5 a week spending money, i had free film. so what better thing to do with free film than take pictures? a few more questions. >> somebody at colombia thought somebody wants to take over a building for a couple of days. didn't anybody think these are the kids of affluent citizens. what are the repercussions? because parents of these kids who are slaving to send their kids to colleges and have them slaughtered, were what -- what were the repercussions? >> some of the students went home, and cleveland being a very conservative area, i know someone who has a masters in journalism, and her dad said if you were involved in those protesting, you should have been shot. the conservative nature back then -- and i think you have to look at the general radificational -- you have to look at the generalational thing. if you dad had gone to war and you didn't want to fight in a war, they didn't think you were very manly. they didn't think there was a difference because they fought for something that was meaningful and we were trying to say that you need to be democratic here, not communist, and senting people over just to get shot. we weren't protecting ourselves we were just advancing ourselves. >> there were no repercussions? >> the national guard -- in terms of the national guards, what the repercussions for the national guard was, they went to trial twice. i was a lead witness at both civil trials in the courts. i was on the witness stand three days. the first time they actually were convicted but then it was thrown out on appeal so they had a second trial, and that was in 1978. and the -- i was on the witness stand and then after my few days, they got the second witness up there and while he was up there, the judge came out and said we've reached a conclusion. the -- the government and the court had agreed to a settlement with the guard writing a letter of -- they didn't want to say it was a letter saying they were sorry. it was a letter saying they wished it could have been handled in a different way. and the judge awarded the plaintiff $650,000. the reason for this, dean taylor, who had been woundeded and paralyzed from the waist down, he didn't come -- he didn't have a rich family, and he was still paralyzed so they gave him $450,000. so part of the settlement was to end the whole thing and get to help people out, the people who died, parents of children who were killed got money, but most of it went to dean taylor so he could live the rest of his life. he actually worked for the state of ohio. he's been a teacher. he's in a weech. he does -- wheelchair. he does wheel chair races every weekend. >> he's in a wheelchair now? >> yes. i have a photograph of him in the kent state memorial area. he said, howard, you know that photograph there. i said, yeah. he said, i had never seen that photograph before and that's the last photograph of me standing. one last question. >> how did you maintain your ability to take photographs on such an emotional day? >> yeah, really. >> i've been asked that several times, and maybe i have a -- i have an ability to not let my emotions get involved with my work, and that's -- it is kind of difficult because when i got down, we all thought they were shooting blanks over their heads, even if they were shooting real bullets. the bullets they were shooting, there's a sculpture on the campus a metal sculpture with three-insurance steel -- three-inch steel, and some of bullets went through that sculpture. as a way to maintain myself, i had a job to do, and i maintained that sense of separateness. you know, and i was even told, you know or asked to stop taking pictures by some people on campus, and i just told them i had to keep taking pictures because people had to know what actually happened. but if i was taking a picture and they said, don't take my picture, i certainly won't have taken it. if the person on the cover of life magazine, if there was no one coming to aid, i would have put my camera down and helped him. i had done that previously. it wasn't a picture opportunity it was a place to help. you can't let your feelings get in the way of your job sometimes. it is tough. yeah. thank you for coming tonight. and i hope it was something you were interested in. [pa mraus /* /* -- thank you for coming tonight. we ask that you get your book before getting it signed. you can buy them at our registers downstairs or at willcall across the hall. have a good night. thank you. >> today on american history t.v., at 6: eastern, former -- john lindberg as a hostage in iran. >> what permits you to detain a guest against his will? >> and at 8 p.m. on the presidency ronald reagan's political affairs director and historian on reagan campaigns for the white house. >> reagan just reasons up in new hampshire. he wins like 2-1. it was such a momentum, it was a good thing we won by such a big margin because we spent most of our money. >> american history t.v. is every weekend on c-span 3. >> the c-span city tower is on the

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