Over the past few years, the May 4 Visitors Center has received many new artifacts from people who were on campus in 1970 and their families. Memorabilia from the victims of the tragedy, as well as photographs and personal items from witnesses awaiting context and reflection.
As the campus prepared for the 50th commemoration, WKSU's
Amanda Rabinowitz and Kent State University journalism professor
Jacqueline Marino worked with journalism students to start creating audio reflections of these "Fragments of May 4." Working in teams, they interviewed people connected to these artifacts to discover the stories contained in seemingly ordinary objects: two photographs, a plaque, some bullets and a box marked “Keep Forever.”
JACQUELINE MARINO & AMANDA RABINOWITZThe cardboard box is torn and taped. Before it held the childhood photographs, Boy Scout medals and other items that belonged to Bill Shroeder, one of the…
DAVID BURGETT & ALEXANDRA SOBCZAKJust as protests against the United States’ invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War were beginning on Kent State’s campus, Bob Crane started to notice…
In May 1990, a hillside on the Kent State campus burst with 58,175 daffodils for the first time. One flower was planted for each of the U.S. servicepeople…
For Marty Levick, the photograph he donated to the May 4th exhibit was a treasure. It showed his dear friend Sandy Scheuer as the person she truly was—a…
