“Then I heard the tatatatatatatatatat sound. I thought it was fireworks. An eerie sound fell over the common. The quiet felt like gravity pulling us to the ground. Then a young man’s voice: 'They fucking killed somebody!' Everything slowed down and the silence got heavier… The guardsmen themselves looked stunned. We looked at them and they looked at us. They were just kids, 19 years old, like us. But in uniform. Like our boys in Vietnam” ~ Chrissie Hynde, Kent State student, later to become lead singer for The Pretenders ~
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard fired upon unarmed students at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, during a protest against the bombing of neutral Cambodia by United States military forces. Four students were killed and nine were wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. Two of the dead, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, had participated in the protest of about 500 students. The other two, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder, were walking to class at the time they died. Schroeder was a member of the Kent State ROTC battalion.
The Kent State Massacre followed four years of protests, sit-ins and walk-outs by Kent State students against the ongoing war in Vietnam and the invasion of Cambodia.
Just five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, D.C., against the war and the killing of unarmed student protesters. The Kent State shootings also led to protests on college campuses throughout the United States, and a student strike, causing more than 450 campuses across the country to close with both violent and non-violent demonstrations. A national study concluded that this was the first nationwide student strike in U.S. history; over 4 million students protested and hundreds of American colleges and universities closed during the student strikes. The Kent State campus remained closed for six weeks.
Richard Nixon expressed that those in the anti-war movement were the pawns of foreign communists. A Gallup Poll taken immediately after the shootings reportedly showed that 58 percent of respondents blamed the students, 11 percent blamed the National Guard and 31 percent expressed no opinion. Students from Kent State and other universities often got a hostile reaction upon returning home. Some were told that more students should have been killed to teach student protesters a lesson; some students were disowned by their families.
Though eight members of the Ohio National Guard were identified in videos and photographs as having fired upon the students, none of them ever faced criminal or civil trials.
"These are, in today’s Republican party, spineless politicians rotten to the core without virtue, without any level of human integrity, devoid of self respect, self reflection…Without courage and without the moral compass to recognize their own malevolence." DavidJolly
Don't forget the 90% of Republican voters who still support him!
The Tampa Bay Ferry is a fun day for the privileged, not a means of transportation for those who really need transportation.
Tampa commuters on their way to another hard day's work in St. Petersburg
It would be far more cost effective to expand the hours for the current rapid transit buses to St. Petersburg and South Hillsborough and let the privileged who won't ride on a bus with the unwashed masses pay for their own sightseeing excursions. "While taxpayers paid $14.23 per ferry boarding last year, the similar cost per passenger was $6.17 for HART and $4.94 for PSTA." (Tampa Bay Times) Read the Tampa Bay Times editorial "Tampa Bay ferry is fun. It’s not real mass transit" HERE
The far-right fundamentalist Christian radio host and peddler of conspiracy theories, claims he has figured out the administration insider who wrote the tell-all book about President Donald Trump, A Warning—and it's Barack Obama. HERE
Matt Gaetz endorsed Anna Paulina Luna in the crowded field of Republicans vying for the nomination in Florida’s 13th Congressional district. The Panhandle Republican and close ally of Trump said Luna “can be counted on to support the president.” HERE
A Greyhound and a Trailways bus, carrying seven black and six white civil rights activists ranging in ages from 18 to over 50, left Washington, D.C. bound for Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The goal of these riders, members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was to bring worldwide attention to the fact that the Jim Crow Laws in the southern states were still being enforced, despite being overturned by several Supreme Court rulings that public transportation vehicles and facilities must be fully integrated and that the "separate but equal" doctrine enforced by several southern states was unconstitutional.
Fri, May 12, 1961 - Atlanta, GA The Freedom Riders arrive in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King, Jr. warns them of violence ahead.
Sat, May 13, 1961 - Anniston, AL When the Greyhound bus reached Anniston, Alabama, it was met by a mob who forced the bus to stop, threw a firebomb into it and forcibly held the doors shut, intending to burn the riders to death.
When the bus's fuel tank exploded, the mob dispersed and the riders were able to escape, only to be beaten by the returning mob. Only warning shots fired into the air by highway patrolmen prevented the riders from being lynched.
Sat, May 13, 1961 - Birmingham, AL The Trailways bus is attacked. A riot breaks out at the Trailways Bus Station in Birmingham, AL. A KKK mob savagely beats both Freedom Riders and innocent bystanders alike with iron pipes, chains, and clubs.
Fri, May 19, 1961 - Montgomery, AL The Freedom Riders arrive in Montgomery, AL where a police escort abandons them to an angry mob. Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg and Federal official John Seigenthaler are badly injured in an ensuing brawl.
Wed, May 17, 1961 - Nashville, TN
Diane Nash of Fisk University in Nashville, TN, organized a second Freedom Riders effert. A group of eight blacks and two whites, students from Fisk University, Tennessee State University and the American Baptist Theological Seminary, traveled by bus from Nashville to Birmingham, where they would then resume the Freedom Ride from there to Montgomery, Alabama, and then on to Mississippi and Louisiana. However, upon their arrival in Birmingham, they were immediately arrested – “protective custody,” according to police. Later that night, in the early a.m. hours, this group was transported by Birmingham police chief Eugene “Bull” Connor to Ardmore, Alabama near the Tennessee line, and dropped off in a rural area – an area reportedly known for Klan activity. They were told to take a train back to Nashville. After finding refuge with a local black family, they reached Diane Nash who sent a car for them, returning them to Birmingham, where they intended to resume the Freedom Ride.
Tue, May 23, 1961
The Riders board buses from Montgomery to Jackson, MS under National Guard escort. They are jailed upon arrival under the formal charges of incitement to riot, breach of the peace, and failure to obey a police officer.
Sun, Jun 11, 1961 - Parchman State Penitentiary
Riders are transferred to Mississippi’s notorious Parchman State Prison Farm.
Segregationist authorities attempt to break their spirits by removing mattresses from the cells. New Freedom Riders will continue to arrive in Jackson, MS and be jailed throughout summer.
Mon, May 29, 1961
Attorney General Kennedy sent a petition to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) asking it to comply with the bus-desegregation ruling it had issued in November 1955, in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. That ruling had explicitly repudiated the concept of "separate but equal" in the realm of interstate bus travel. Chaired by the South Carolina Democrat J. Monroe Johnson the ICC had failed to implement its own ruling.
CORE, SNCC, and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) formed a Freedom Riders Coordinating Committee to keep the Rides rolling through June, July, August, and September. During those months, more than 60 different Freedom Rides criss-crossed the South, most of them converging on Jackson, where every Rider was arrested, more than 300 in total. An unknown number were arrested in other Southern towns. It is estimated that almost 450 people participated in one or more Freedom Rides. About 75% were male, and the same percentage were under the age of 30, with about equal participation from black and white citizens .
By September, CORE and SNCC leaders made tentative plans for a mass demonstration known as the "Washington Project". This would mobilize hundreds, perhaps thousands, of nonviolent demonstrators to the capital city to apply pressure on the ICC and the Kennedy administration. The idea was preempted when the ICC finally issued the necessary orders just before the end of the month. After the new ICC rule took effect on November 1, 1961, passengers were permitted to sit wherever they pleased on interstate buses and trains; "white" and "colored" signs were removed from the terminals; racially segregated drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms serving interstate customers were consolidated; and the lunch counters began serving all customers, regardless of race.
Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and more recently a lobbyist at a firm with extensive ties to President Donald Trump, will join the White House communications staff temporarily to help with messaging during the ongoing impeachment inquiry.HERE
Commissioners in Citrus County, Florida, decided on October 24 to not approve a subscription for the library to have a digital subscription to the New York Times.
