Kent State University today dedicated the site of the May 4, 1970, shootings of 13 students -- killing four -- by Ohio National Guard soldiers as a National Historic Landmark.
Journalist Dan Rather will speak tonight as part of the school's Presidential Speaker Series.
“This was an emotional earthquake for the country to have young national guardsmen firing on young students," Rather says. "Or if you want to use a metaphor, it was a tremendous hammer to the heart.”
The 17 acres of the Kent State campus where students, bystanders and National Guard soldiers met during a protest over the U.S. invasion of Cambodia was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.
The four students killed that day were Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder. Nine people were wounded.
