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Show Transcript
Harley Daniel Donnelly, Oral History
Recorded: May 27, 2020Interviewed by: Will UnderwoodTranscribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau
[Interviewer]: My name is Will Underwood and I’m speaking on May 27, 2020, in Kent, Ohio on the telephone to Harley Daniel Donnelly who is located in Vermont. Is that correct?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: That’s right. Williston, Vermont.
[Interviewer]: Okay, great. And as part of the May 4th Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, so Dan, I’ve already said it, but could you please state your name for the recording?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, my name is Harley Daniel Donnelly.
[Interviewer]: Thank you. [00:00:48] Well, so, Dan, I’d like to begin with some brief information about your background so we can get to know you a little better, so, could you please tell us where you were born and where you grew up?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, I was born and grew up in Lockport, New York, which was Western New York, not too far from Buffalo, but it was the county seat [00:01:12] of Niagara Country, which is a different county from Buffalo. It’s the largest city in Niagara County which, well, it used to be, I think Niagara Falls is. So, we had a four-hour drive from Lockport to Kent, Ohio when we went back and forth frequently.
[Interviewer]: So that was you and your folks?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, originally. I went out with my mom. The first time I ever saw the place was in July of 1966. Back then, we didn’t tour around and look at colleges so much. So, I don’t think I really looked at any of the colleges I applied to but went out in July of ‘66 for an orientation. But beyond that, there were a number of people from my hometown, people in my age, people one or two years older than me that went to Kent State.
[Interviewer]: [00:02:18] I see, okay. So, what brought you to Kent State University?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, it was my safety school. And I wanted to go to Duke [University] where my sister went, but I didn’t get in. And ultimately, got accepted off of the waiting list to Wake Forest [University], but that was in the summer and I had already made my plans to go to Kent. And, as I say, I knew a few people who went to school there, and people in my class were going there.
[Interviewer]: So that made it a little—
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: That’s what brought me there. In fact, I remember getting the acceptance letter. Back then, you made all your applications in, probably in November and I kind of worried I would never get into any college, and just before Christmas, I got this acceptance letter from Kent State. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a mistake.
[Interviewer]: Well, that’s great. I’m sure that was a relief. [00:03:20] So, what was your major at KSU?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, I wanted to go into medicine, but let me say from the start, that I was not a good student. And I shouldn’t really have been there at that time, but if you weren’t there, you were drafted. And so, I managed to hang in there for, not four years, but five years since I fooled around too much and dropped classes that didn’t look like I was going to make it through. I ended up losing my college deferment not too long before the first draft which was in, I think November, the fall of 1969. At which point, I got a high number and that was it.
And all of a sudden, that was all in the past, all lifted from your life, and you didn’t have to worry about it. But that didn’t make me a better student, nor did it make me decide to drop out of college either which I probably should’ve done. But at any rate, I clawed my way through and graduated in 1971. So, I started doing the sciences and ended up in the social sciences. I found that after taking several sociology classes, I had pretty good grades there, so I stuck with that.
[Interviewer]: I see. Okay, well, that’s sometimes what happens in college. You have to figure out the right path. [00:04:57] So, how did you view the protests in the Vietnam War when you were, when you first got to campus? Were you aware of that?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Oh, no, I think in 1966, there wasn’t a lot of that. And, frankly, at that time, I was probably, in some ways, conservative. I think it just wasn’t that big an issue and as it became an issue, I was not an activist. Maybe more sympathetic but, sometimes, not really understanding. In 1968, we had Hubert Humphrey come to campus and he was this liberal, I mean very liberal guy, at least at the time, and after Johnson withdrew from the presidential race, Humphrey was one of our first stops and there was an organization we call the Black United Students, or B-U-S, it was in a, and as I recall, it was in a big gym, and at some point, everybody in the BUS organization stood up and walked out. And in the meantime, Humphrey was reciting all the things he had done for Black people and suppressed people over his lifetime because he was a liberal senator from Minnesota.
So, I was a little surprised that that happened. I can understand all of it much more now. The Black Panthers, I wasn’t really clear about, but all that anger was not something that I understood back then, or really paid much attention to, I guess. Now, I can understand it all. And around the time of the, before the shootings, when there was more demonstration, I remember I was part of a fraternity, but kind of falling away from it, but I do remember one of these guys in my fraternity actually got into a fight with one of the war demonstrators which I found repulsive. So, at that time, my sympathies were more evident, at least to my memory now. And I got to say that I realize that memory from fifty years ago doesn’t necessarily jive with reality, but for the most part, I think I have a pretty good lock on what happened.
[Interviewer]: Do you, can you share what fraternity you were in?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: I was in Phi Gamma Delta, which by the end of my time there, I really wasn’t participating in it anymore.
Then at some point, it got closed up or faded away and now I’ve noticed that they’ve restarted a chapter there. And frankly, some of my closest friends now are from that time, or that experience. None of us survived the four years of fraternity life I would say, but that’s where we met.
[Interviewer]: [00:08:27] Yeah, yeah. So, in the spring of 1970, how would you describe the prevailing attitudes or moods amongst students at that time?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, the feeling against the war was strong, and the thing that stuck out at that time was Nixon deciding to go into Cambodia to fight where he said the North Vietnamese were going for protection. And so, that started that particular weekend as well and one of the memories I’m not sure that jives is me seeing the people out by the [Victory] Bell, whatever that bell is—
[Interviewer]: The Victory Bell, yeah.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, and there was a bury the Constitution thing, I think I walked by that as that was going on. There’s this thing called the “Ronald Reagan Effect” where he kind of mixed-up real life with some of the movies he was in and in fact, I have a friend, we went to Woodstock and years later, he said, “I’ll never forget seeing Hendrix play.” And I said, “Pete, he played like Monday morning, and we left Sunday afternoon.” And he said, “No, no, I know I saw him for sure.” Well, we all saw the movies—and then a few years after that, it came up somehow and he said, “Oh, no, we didn’t see Hendrix. We weren’t there.” The same guy.
[Interviewer]: Yeah, now that’s a common thing. I never heard it called the “Ronald Reagan Effect” but that is a common thing, especially if you see photographs or something of an event after and you say, “God, why can’t I remember that?”
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, yeah. So, that’s my feeling about seeing the activity going on with burying the Constitution that day. And people were upset that this was expansion of the war. Again, I was not an activist. I was kind of on the periphery.
[Interviewer]: [00:10:39] Yeah. Actually, that’s a great segue; so, the next question was how politically active were you and did you participate in any protests or political organizations?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, I don’t think I was, I don’t think so. And the ones that went on before that weekend were kind of mundane. People would get together and talk and I probably listened or heard sometimes, but I know that Jerry Rubin came to the campus one time and I didn’t see him. I had friends that saw him, I did not. So, I wasn’t fully involved. I was more of a simpatico, I guess.
[Interviewer]: [00:11:29] Yeah. So, was your family aware of the protests that were happening on the campus and if so, did any of them communicate their feelings to you about the protests or about the war?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: No, not at all. I mean, I think we probably talked about the war, and I know that it was before all that that my mother was trying to figure out how I could get out of the draft. Because I had had tinnitus from too much loud music, so, That might get you out of the draft. But that was about it. I don’t think they were big supporters of the war, although they were conservative Republicans.
[Interviewer]: [00:12:14] Yeah, okay. Let’s see what this says, do you remember the environment in your classes in the spring of 1970? Now, I guess that’s referring to the sort of the bubbling protests in Cambodia and all that.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, this may be the same semester, I can’t remember, I think it’s possible, but as an illustration of my lack of student ability. You know those dreams you have when you walk into a class and you sit down and you realize that they’re giving out the midterm and you hadn’t studied and that sort of thing? Ever had anything like that?
[Interviewer]: Oh, absolutely.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, I walked into this class and sat down, and they passed out a midterm and I didn’t know it. I got up and said, “I’m in the wrong class.” So, it may have been that same semester. I probably dropped that class, too.
[Interviewer]: So, yeah, you were focusing—
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: I don’t recall specifically any sense of—I had Jerry Lewis as a sociology teacher. If you knew of him.
[Interviewer]: I know Jerry, yeah.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, and I had him for two or three classes, and can’t even tell you what they were, but the thing I remember most about him was that some person just didn’t show up for the final and he was kind of pissed off and called him and dragged him in. He said, “I don’t care if you flunk the test. I don’t want people not to just end it.” He’d rather give them a D than an F. But so I don’t think he was stoking the fires in the classes and I don’t remember particularly in my classes people spending a lot of time talking about it.
[Interviewer]: Yeah. And the information that you provided to Kate, I’m going to just read back what you wrote. You said, “Part of my weekend was spent driving on the interstate in Ohio where I witnessed the National Guard Troops on overpasses guarding against snipers that had been shooting at trucks who were running in spite of a trucker’s strike.” Could you maybe elaborate on that a little or just comment?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, after I may or may not have seen them burying the Constitution, my girlfriend at the time and I drove that Friday down to Kentucky and we were going to the Kentucky Derby. And so, at that time, there was a Teamsters’ Union I guess, strike, and because there were drivers that would continue to drive, there were people shooting at the trucks. That had been going on for probably not a long time, but it had been happening so much that the National Guard was called out. And I remember driving down that interstate and, on the overpasses, you’d see Guardsmen on one of the other entrances to the bridge going over the interstate and all the way down through Ohio. I don’t remember it in Kentucky, but it was pretty impressive. And I can’t say how bad that action had been. Actually, I just read this recently, I’m reading some of the Kent State reviews was that it was a Teamster strike, so I don’t know how many incidents had happened, but it must have been a fair amount for calling out the National Guard. There were a fair amount of them. And I believe that some of them were the same ones that were called to Kent, and maybe all of them.
At any rate, so we drove down to Kentucky and the next day was the Kentucky Derby and Sunday, we drove back. I don’t have a memory of them being out there Sunday. But certainly, they were now in Kent and I have a clear memory of all of that.
[Interviewer]: That’s quite remarkable. That was Sunday, May 3rd, then?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah and of course, the sort of rioting had gone on Friday night downtown and as I’ve said to people before, some said it wasn’t as bad as things would get in Columbus after Ohio State won a national title. But people came out of the bars and were rowdy. I don’t really know how bad it got.
[Interviewer]: Well, there was property damage and things, and people were upset and angry about it, the townspeople, but yeah.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: So, I don’t really have any knowledge of that detail, but as I say, it was said that things got worse in Columbus at times. And then, of course, the next night when the ROTC Building was burned, we weren’t there for that. But by Sunday, I then, at some point, we got back and I remember walking through the campus on Sunday afternoon and it was—the Guardsmen were young. They were probably a little older than I was usually, but it was one of those, at least from what I saw, it was more of people were kind of amused by seeing them there and talking to them and “flowers are better than bullets” and that sort of thing. I don’t know how much the Guard was talking back, but there certainly was, from what I saw, was not a lot of animosity at that time and from my point of view. I didn’t see a lot of that. It was a sunny day and that’s kind of basically what I remember of it.
Then, Sunday night, things seemed to get dark and then I think things were going on downtown. My place where I lived was kind of east of Kent, out towards Ravenna. So, I wasn’t downtown, but I do remember helicopters flying over and searchlights would be flying around on the ground. And so, it was kind of ominous.
[Interviewer]: I bet. So, you were in an apartment out east towards Ravenna at the time that you were living there?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah.
[Interviewer]: [00:19:13] So then, tell me about Monday, May 4th.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, I was very fortunate in that I got out of bed about noon. And it’s one thing I would never change. To my way of thinking, it may be one of the nine lives that I may have had saved because whether or not I was much of an activist, if I was there, I certainly could’ve been as, at least as much of a benign observer as any of the people that got killed, Bill Schroeder, Sandy Scheuer. I wouldn’t have been throwing rocks and giving them the finger, but I could’ve been standing back and watching.
Yeah, I have a friend, he was actually one of the fraternity brothers, same as John Darnell, and he took one of the pictures. The picture of the Guard having completely turned around and pointing, one guy holding out a .45 and his point of view is from the architecture building. So, he was kind of behind that metal statue, I would say somewhere around there. And if you were, if you had bad luck, you were just in the wrong place and got hit. And thinking of it more recently, my guess is that those guys probably weren’t expert marksmen. Most likely, they just pointed and fired and whatever they hit was not necessarily something they aimed for.
[Interviewer]: So, were you there on The Commons when that went down?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: I was not. I was going to say, I went from my apartment, somehow, I picked up my girlfriend or she came over or something and we drove back to the campus and she lived just off of campus. I can’t remember the name of the streets anymore, but we pulled up to her apartment. Her landlord was there and he said, “I wouldn’t go over there if I was you. They just shot two National Guardsmen.” And of course, we hightailed it right over. And I ended up by, it was The Hub, do they still call it The Hub?
[Interviewer]: Yeah.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: It was the Student Union back then. And right near the burned-out ROTC Building, so I was standing up above the hill, looking down on the ROTC Building across the field to where the Victory Bell was and then up the far hill to the architecture building. And all that was going on back there and it already happened. So, at that time, there was a line of Guardsmen across the street, blocking anybody from going through that direction, going, essentially, past the ROTC Building and across the field. Interestingly, one of those Guardsmen was a fraternity brother who was older than me by probably three or four years. He was there the first year I was there and saw him there and I don’t know if I said anything to him or not. But we’re all standing there and frankly, I wasn’t completely sure of what had happened and I think it may have been, at that time, I heard that students had been shot. And funny, I mean, maturity wasn’t my high point at that time and my one thought, a thought that I remember anyway, Well, that’s happened before. They’ve shot kids at colleges before and they had been Black kids somewhere but it had happened.
And so, we’re kind of milling around and then, at some point, Glenn Frank arrives and seems like he got driven up there, but I don’t recall how. And he’s yelling and saying, “Please, you got to break this up. Go home. The school is closing down. Don’t stay here.” And I remember, again, I think I remember, saying, “Who are you? Someone’s telling us the school is closing down.” And so, at some point, I kind of, I don’t know how I left my friends and such or how long it took, but at some point, later, I did get over to the site and the images that stick out in my mind because it was not a lot of people there at the time anymore, one was looking at the statue [editor’s clarification: narrator is referring to the Don Drumm sculpture called the Solar Totem #1] that got a bullet hole through it. You know that one?
[Interviewer]: Yes.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Bullet was brand new, fresh, and all those edges were like a water drop in water and it makes a crown effect in water. All the edges on both sides were these very sharp, crown-like pieces of metal just like a crown really on both sides, sharp to touch, could hurt yourself. And I noticed that forty years later, I was at Kent ten years ago, that’s all been worn to a nub.
[Interviewer]: Yeah, it’s just smooth now.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, the very first day, it was just, couldn’t touch it. It was so sharp. And the other thing I did was walk down to the site where Jeff Miller had been killed and there was a lot of blood stain in the street still and some kid—I was not a hippie and I could think of other people as being hippies and not necessarily thinking the greatest about them, and some of my friends were I would say, but this guy was kind of looking like that and was kind of poking through the blood stain with a stick and saying, “I think I see some bone pieces here.” Now that’s a weird little memory I have, but that was the two main memories of being at that site just some hours later.
[Interviewer]: Yeah, wow. That’s something I would stick in your memory, I think. That’s macabre and kind of grisly. Well, Dan, thanks so much for taking the time to tell your story. [00:26:23] Can you talk about what the days and weeks were like after May 4th?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, that day, pretty much everybody was forced out of Kent. I was in my apartment, I was thinking, Oh boy, no more school. I drove out of town, and I remember, I think it was North Street it’s called over the river and heading north [editor’s clarification: probably State Route 43, northbound], there was something going on. It was like somebody was being pursued and I had no idea what it was all about. There were cops and I’m not sure what was going on. It was another one of these bizarre memories but, even at the time, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. But I drove up north towards Cleveland and just, forget the name of the town up there, about six miles out of Kent [editor’s clarification: Streetsboro, Ohio]. There was a roadblock and I don’t know if they were troopers or police or what, but anybody could go out, but nobody could come in and I assumed they did that on all the major highways or roads coming into Kent.
And later that night, back in my home in Lockport, out with friends at the local bar, and the first time, I don’t know who it was that said it, it wasn’t a friend of mine, it was some person I didn’t know, for the first time I heard someone say, “Oh, they should’ve shot more of them.” And I just thought about this today, it’s so interesting, and this never occurred to me before, but people that were out shooting truck drivers who refused to go on strike in Ohio were probably a week later, saying the same thing, “Oh, they should’ve shot more of those students.” And there they were shooting innocent people themselves.
And then, the next night, I remember going up to Buffalo to see a movie called Z. Z was a popular movie at the time, and it was about the Greek junta. And the interesting thing about the movie is that there’s these generals and they’re really bad and everything is going their way and at the end, they get caught and everybody knows they’re wrong and the good thing happens. However, at the very end, they all get off. So, it lifts you up and then drops you down. That’s what the Z was all about, and I walked out of the theatre, and it was right across the street from the University of Buffalo campus at which they were having a big demonstration over the Kent State Shootings. And I walked over there, and they had a sign of all the, written of all the schools in the country that are on strike, and I remember saying, “You don’t have my school down there.” He said, “What school is that?” I said, “Kent State.”
So then, in the weeks after that, I went out to Canada, went down to Florida, and then, in the summer, I came back to Kent and one of my instructors, name is Jack Null, N-u-l-l, and he was an English professor. And he then held classes in his home which was I think in Ravenna. And so, we had classes there, it was very nice, his family was nice and people kind of talked, the class was called, Great Books in Translation. And I remember we were talking about one book by [Emile] Zola called Germinal and I didn’t read it all. I wasn’t a very fast reader and they talked about how some people couldn’t read the book because there were some scenes in it that were too painful and bringing up thoughts of what had just happened at Kent. And I also, that summer, took a photography class which was in the basement of the Architecture School.
In July, went to Washington for an interesting thing, it was called “The Great American Smoke-in” and of course, it was a demonstration for marijuana. But, at the same time, there was something going on which I wasn’t aware, I don’t think anybody knew it was happening. It was called “Honor America Day” and that was put on by Bob Hope and they had this parade and all these entertainers later on. In fact, years later, I found there was an actual record called, “Honor America Day.” And it was just such a clash of cultures with the Great American Smoke-in and Honor America Day going on at the same time. It was crazy. I took a lot of pictures there and brought them back and put them on display. I got a ton of pictures from that.
[Interviewer]: Interesting. Just to back up, when you did your English class with Professor Null in Ravenna, I mean, I know it was a lit class so you were talking about books, but was there much discussion about May 4th among you and your fellow students?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, I don’t remember. I think people were probably numbed by it. So, I can’t say that we sat and talked about what happened. I don’t have a memory of that.
[Interviewer]: [00:32:47] Okay. So, that’s the end of my formal prompts. Is there anything else you’d like to put on the record that we haven’t discussed?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, in defense of myself, I eventually matured a little bit, went and got a nursing degree from the University of Colorado and after five years as a nurse, went to medical school at the University of Vermont. So, for thirty years, I’ve been a family doctor.
[Interviewer]: Oh, that’s wonderful, good for you.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, well, I’m very lucky that I pulled it out because I spent a few years after that in Colorado being kind of a ne’er-do-well and something sparked at some point in my life. I was lucky.
[Interviewer]: Well, that’s great. People live their lives at their own pace. [00:33:36] So, in looking back, is there anything about the events of those days that have affected your life and your attitudes?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Well, yeah, I would say whereas I might have been more of an observer back then, I’m less of an observer and more of a person that speaks his mind about social injustice and I’m not sure that would have happened if I had gone to Wake Forest. And so, having those experiences kind of, I would say they radicalized me in a certain way.
I’m a big supporter of Bernie Sanders and he’s been our representative and senator here for years. And I just don’t know if that would’ve happened if I’d gone to some more conservative school or not had that kind of experience. I mean, even school didn’t have to be particularly conservative to not have the same kind of experience that we did because it was about as bad as it could be and very frustrating because back then, I said all the time, everything was so black and white. You were either a white-hatted, white, construction-hatted, conservative, or you were a long-haired hippie. The movie at the time was with the motorcycle, Captain America—
[Interviewer]: Oh, yeah, Easy Rider.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Easy Rider. Yeah, where they get it at the end too.
[Interviewer]: Well, there was another one called, Joe. That I think had what, Peter Boyle?
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, that’s right. And he went through blasting all the kids and—
[Interviewer]: Yeah, that was for the anti-Easy Rider.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Right, right. And my wife talks about that one a lot, but Easy Rider was the one. Joe was more cartoonish. Easy Rider kind of hit home.
[Interviewer]: Well, Dan, thank you very much for taking the time to do this and—
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, well thank you too, Will.
A few years ago in the Kent State Magazine, there was a little blurb about a fellow who died and he was one of the wounded people, Jim [Russell], I can’t even think of his last name right now. But, he had been my roommate in my freshman year.
[Interviewer]: Oh, my goodness.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: And for a long time after that, I was puzzled by the fact that nothing was ever mentioned about him except that this little blurb that he died. It didn’t even mention that he was wounded. And I called and said something on a tape recorder and I left a message not too long ago that it seemed to be unrecognized and that he may have been the first one of the wounded people to die otherwise. But they did have a blurb about them and I think it was in something from the museum that they have there. And he was the first one to die, but it was quite a long time ago. So, it must’ve been a big span of time between when he died and when this got published because I don’t think it was that long ago that I remember reading it. And he was the first of two people who died. He was somewhat superficially wounded, I guess.
[Interviewer]: Yeah, I forgot about that. I guess I didn’t know that, but it’s been some time.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, another friend of mine, his former girlfriend was Sandy Scheuer, and I noticed that in these archives of the four people who were killed, there’s a scrapbook of hers and in that scrapbook is a letter from my friend, Joel Shackne, written to her parents thanking them for allowing him to come and visit their home at some point.
[Interviewer]: Wow.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, very surprising to me.
[Interviewer]: Oh, that’s wild. I’m trying to see; James Dennis Russell was one of the wounded.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Jim Russell, yeah. Yeah, he was a nice enough guy. I had troubles in my first year at Kent and was kicked out of my dorm for this kind of ongoing feud. And so, I showed up at one of those old dorms on the front end of the campus with the arc of street in front of it. He was nice enough to have me be his roommate but he didn’t know what he was getting into because they told him, Oh, this guy got kicked out of Manchester Hall. And frankly, it wasn’t my fault, and he came to realize that I wasn’t probably what he was afraid what I was going to be when I got there. But he was a nice guy and I was impressed after reading that he died, I Googled him, and he had moved out to Oregon I think and all sorts of nice things that you read about him and his life out there. A lot of times, a lot of water under the bridge since then.
[Interviewer]: Yes, indeed. Well, Dan, thanks again and—
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Yeah, thank you, Will. I appreciate it. Nice to get this stuff out, I think.
[Interviewer]: Yeah, that’s good. I appreciate you taking the time. I think it’s a worthwhile effort. It’s getting to be a good collection so, thanks again.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Good. All right, thanks Will.
[Interviewer]: Take care.
[Harley Daniel Donnelly]: Nice talking to you.
[Interviewer]: You, too. Bye, bye.
[End of interview] × |
Narrator |
Donnelly, Harley Daniel |
Narrator's Role |
Student at Kent State University in 1970 |
Date of Interview |
2020-05-27 |
Description |
Harley Daniel Donnelly was a student at Kent State University in 1970. In this oral history, he talks about his life as a student starting in 1966, seeing but not actively participating in demonstrations, and his concerns about the draft. He relates his experiences from the days surrounding May 4, 1970, including seeing National Guardsmen on duty at interstate overpasses between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, and the presence of the National Guard on campus when he returned to Kent on Sunday, May 3. He also shares what he witnessed during the immediate aftermath of the shootings on campus, both on The Commons before the crowd had broken up and in the Prentice Hall parking lot. |
Length of Interview |
39:46 minutes |
Places Discussed |
Kent (Ohio) |
Time Period discussed |
1966-1970 |
Subject(s) |
Civil-military relations--Ohio--Kent College environment--Ohio--Kent College fraternity members--Ohio--Kent--Interviews College students--Ohio--Kent--Interviews Draft Drumm, Don, 1935-. Solar Totem #1 Firearms Frank, Glenn W. Helicopters Humphrey, Hubert H. (Hubert Horatio), 1911-1978 Kent State Shootings, Kent, Ohio, 1970 Kent State University. Black United Students Military occupation--Ohio--Kent Miller, Jeffrey, d. 1970--Death and burial Ohio. Army National Guard Roadblocks (Police methods) Russell, Jim Searchlights Strikes and lockouts--Trucking--Ohio Students--Ohio--Kent--Interviews |
Repository |
Special Collections and Archives |
Access Rights |
This digital object is owned by Kent State University and may be protected by U.S. Copyright law (Title 17, USC). Please include proper citation and credit for use of this item. Use in publications or productions is prohibited without written permission from Kent State University. Please contact the Department of Special Collections and Archives for more information. |
Duplication Policy |
http://www.library.kent.edu/special-collections-and-archives/duplication-policy |
Institution |
Kent State University |
Restrictions Note |
content warning |
DPLA Rights Statement |
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
Format of Original |
audio digital file |
Disclaimer |
The content of oral history interviews, written narratives and commentaries is personal and interpretive in nature, relying on memories, experiences, perceptions, and opinions of individuals. They do not represent the policy, views or official history of Kent State University and the University makes no assertions about the veracity of statements made by individuals participating in the project. Users are urged to independently corroborate and further research the factual elements of these narratives especially in works of scholarship and journalism based in whole or in part upon the narratives shared in the May 4 Collection and the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project. |
Provenance/Collection |
May 4 Collection |