President Richard Nixon’s April 30, 1970 announcement that the United States would expand its Vietnam War campaign into Cambodia increased the already significant unrest on college and university campuses. On May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine others were wounded when Ohio Army National Guard officers opened fire on demonstrators at Kent State University. Eleven days later, city and state police fired on demonstrators at Jackson State, killing two students and injuring twelve.

In the aftermath of the shootings, Kent State University Libraries sent letters to colleges and universities across the nation requesting campus strike newspapers and related documents to be archived for future research. This exhibit highlights a selection of the responses that are found in the Campus Strike papers in Special Collections and Archives. The Campus Strike papers have been digitized and can be viewed in their entirety online in the Kent State Shootings Digital Archive.

• Requests for Strike Papers
  
• Selected Images