Adrianne Walker, Oral History

Recorded: August 6, 2020

Interviewed by: Liz Campion

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Interviewer]: This is Liz Campion, May 4 Archivist, speaking on August 6, 2020, at Kent State University’s Special Collections and Archives. As part of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, we are recording an interview over the phone today. Could you please state your name for the recording? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Adrianne Walker.

[Interviewer]: [00:00:25] I would like to begin with some brief information about your background, so we can get to know you a little better. Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, I was actually born in Bedford, Ohio. I tell people I came in with rock ‘n roll, because I was born up there in Cleveland the very week that Alan Freed [editor’s clarification: Albert James “Alan” Freed was an American disc jockey] started coining the term on his radio show. I grew up then in Twin Lakes, outside of Kent, just a neighborhood, and I attended Franklin Elementary School there. 

[Interviewer]: Okay. Thank you. And when did you first come to Kent State University?

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, as some people know, all the universities, or the state universities at one point in time, had a school with them, if they had an education department. So, I was connected with the university through the high school that was part of the university. So, I went through the high school there, and then I started at the university in the fall of 1969. 

[Interviewer]: [00:01:46] What brought you to Kent State, and what was your major when you were a student? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, what brought me was because my mother wouldn’t let me to go to Colorado. She was actually on the faculty also, she was a math professor, assistant professor. And I started in architecture at Kent, but I had a great deal of problems with math at that point. And even though my mother literally wrote the book, it was sort of beyond me at that point—everything else—but the math I had trouble with. 

So, anyway, that’s what got me to Kent, because I was there. I wanted to go, like I said, Colorado was my first choice and I was actually accepted there but they didn’t want me to go. So, I ended up at Kent. And there I am, it’s just where I was.

[Interviewer]: [00:02:49] At the time, how did you view the protests and the Vietnam War when you first arrived on campus? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, growing up having gone to the university school sort of affected my development a little bit and how I viewed a lot of things just because of the fact that, especially during my junior and senior year, that our school was a little lax as far as, I just took off for lunch and I would go to the Student Union and you would see the people there, you would hear them, you might meet some of the people that were involved in the anti-war movements and that Russell Means of the American Indian Movement because at the time, he was working up in Cleveland for a year, year and a half. Also, some of the people that came through were part of the Black Power Movement because they were working with Black United Students [BUS], and then, of course, the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] and the Weathermen, and I would just be up there and run into those people. You just sort of—then I had some people that I sort of knew and this was sort of on my own, just because I would go up there at lunch or I’d go up there after school, sort of on my way home or whatever I was doing or going up to the library. And I would, I just sort of ran into and met people. And for whatever reason, I did not have the same real conservative streak that everybody else in my family did. And I was much more open to liberal ideas, I guess, and I thought the whole war was a hoax to begin with. I thought it was. I didn’t think that the whole idea of what we were being told, what was going on, and what we were fighting for and that, I just didn’t believe it. Even way back as a sixteen and seventeen-year-old. Of course, I was about to have to sign up for the draft, too, and that was a (unintelligible [00:05:20]). So, I was already sort of open-minded. This just isn’t right.

[Interviewer]: [00:05:35] Did you participate in any protests or political organizations on campus?

[Adrianne Walker]: I wasn’t a member of, actually any member of any organization. I did go to a couple rallies and stuff here and there, protests, but I was not, I was not a big—what do I want to say, I was not somebody upfront and active. I was still sort of feeling my way around things at that point in time. We were just, at that time, getting through the Civil rights Riots and stuff from Detroit and Cleveland and Akron and those sorts of things, and in Northeast Ohio, right before all this, before May 4th, there was a big Teamsters strike going on too, that happened before this. And anybody from Northeast Ohio that knew anything about the Teamsters, which at that point, I also happen to be a member of, because I had a job that I had to join, so there was folks like Jimmy Hoffa [editor’s clarification: Jimmy Hoffa was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 until 1971] that you hear about and people like that. And so, there are all kind of other things happening, sort of all going on at the same time. 

So, there was a lot of, I don’t know what I wanted to say, competing issues that would keep you thinking or keep tugging at you because, like I say, because I was an actual Teamster, I wasn’t involved, but I had to become one to be in the stuff. So, I was sort of asked on occasion, Would you come do this? Would you do that? I didn’t really do much there either. 

But so, like I say, I was sort of finding my way in. I guess maturing might be a better word for some of this, because I was learning a lot of stuff that I hadn’t fully understood that some things, it took me twenty years to learn about institutional racism and things like that.

[Interviewer]: [00:08:20] Did your family have an awareness or a feeling of the protests that were taking place on campus? Were they hesitant about you being on campus? Was there anything they were communicating about their feelings about that?

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, they were, I don’t know, they never said, my dad was pretty conservative, okay, along with a lot of other people. They never said anything about not going to school or staying off of campus. I don’t remember anybody being terribly worried per say, but they sort of supported what was going on even though I thought LeRoy Satrom was an idiot. But me along with a lot of other people, but I just, my parents weren’t overly, too overly concerned. At least, they never—I got away with a lot of stuff. I was the middle child. Now, my brother, he was more conservative, and he was older. Me, I literally was sort of left to myself a lot, and I probably did—if they knew even a quarter of the stuff I was doing back in those days, oh my God, they’d have strung me up. 

[Interviewer]: A troublemaker. 

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, it’s one of those things; I never got caught. Me and Alan Frank, Glenn’s son, oh, there were lots of stuff we did at times over the years. 

[Interviewer]: That brings me to my next question, can you describe how you and your family knew Professor Glenn Frank?

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, they lived in the same neighborhood. Sort of, let’s see, you go down our drive and you cut through Brady’s [00:10:34] yards and down the hill and up the hill, and there was their house. I knew Alan from kindergarten. Well, I still know him now, he was my best friend, Glenn’s son, all the way through high school at least though the first year of college. We sort of lost contact after that time. I’m back in contact with him now on a more regular basis. 

But his dad—well, let’s see, he was one of our little league coaches along with my dad. There’s some pictures around of all of us up at a Cleveland Indians game or two. One of my best memories is he took me with the family and, with his family, the Franks, we all went to my very first motorcycle race up at Nelson’s Ledges.

[Interviewer]: Oh, wow. 

[Adrianne Walker]: Yeah. And we’d go some places with him, him being a geologist and stuff, occasionally we would take—I can’t even tell you where we went on occasion. But we’d go here or there when he’d be sort of maybe looking for rock samples or that. And I’d stay overnight at their house, with Alan, on lots of occasions. And his dad was—he was just sort of a normal neighborhood guy, so to speak. They weren’t good friends of my parents, they didn’t hang around together, but we knew each other.

And through high school, I was on the swim team for a couple years. Now Alan was on his own high school time [00:12:41] but we shared rides back and forth for that. Like I say, we went places, we went to the drive-in movies together at times, I remember going in their Vista Cruiser station wagon to the drive-in there out at Midway before we were driving ourselves. Just sort of things like that, and I’d stay overnight. Glenn would be up, I don’t know, working with the TV on, way until late at night. I commented this to Alan, a couple of months back, I sort of laughed about it. Said my dad was the same way. He was up, God knows what he was doing, working until three in the morning and falling asleep when the television went to the snow screen, because they weren’t on all night, back then. So, that’s how I knew him. 

[Interviewer]: That great, a lot of sweet memories. 

[Adrianne Walker]: Yeah, and his office was—I believe it was in the bottom of Lowry Hall is where the Geology Department was, at that time. My mother was in Merrill Hall and Lowry, I think, was the one next to it, north of it?

[Interviewer]: [00:14:04] Did you happen to have any classes taught by Dr. [Glenn] Frank?

[Adrianne Walker]: I never took geology. As much as I loved it, I never did. But then again, for a lot of years, we spent time down in his office and down in the Geology Department, looking at stuff, and he’d show us things. I loved geology, I don’t know why I never took anything. But it just didn’t fall into the courses I was taking, I guess.

[Interviewer]: As both a local resident and a Kent State student, you have kind of a unique perspective. [00:14:48] What was your sense of how the community members perceived the students prior to the shootings?

[Adrianne Walker]: There was sort of always two camps. There was those that sort of always thought we were trouble, so to speak, and then there were those that thought it was great to have us there and so much good came out of it. But back then, when school was in session, you more than doubled the population of the town. When school was out of session, there was nothing going on because there was very little summer school then. So, people just—particularly during those years there when, all of a sudden, you started having all this student activism and that, I say, started with the civil rights stuff. And that got a lot of people upset because, “They’re not good Black folk,” and they didn’t want to hear it, so to speak. And me, at those ages, was trying to understand why I didn’t—I was a little young yet, a little immature, and I didn’t understand the issues, the total issues involved and people now are starting to figure some of this out. So, there was a lot of there was a lot of conservatism. And you’d find this particularly—you’d even get it in the churches, because the church I went to was the base church, the synod, was very conservative. But the church there, Faith Lutheran Church there, is right next to campus, right across from—well, it was the education building. I don’t know, I get my buildings mixed up now. I think they tore down Terrace Hall, didn’t they?

[Interviewer]: That’s something I’m not positive about. I’d have to look.

[Adrianne Walker]: I think it was torn down, if I’m not mistaken [editor’s clarification: Terrace Hall was demolished in 2022]. Anyhow, it was also right across. But so, in this conservative church, but you have a lot of people that were actually fairly progressive. And they had a hard time dealing with the conservative church and their progressive ideas. And the Vietnam War was bringing a lot of this out because they were having a difficult time with that. And then, the Catholic churches, too. The Catholic church was having more problems there itself, but on campus, you had the Newman Center. And of course, they’re blessing the protest signs, right? But the Catholic church itself, they were having a lot more trouble with that sort of thing. So, it just sort of filtered all the way through. 

And I would guess from my—and this, we’re fifty years away and my memories have been colored and are not as distinct as they used to be, and probably some of my personal prejudices and what I’ve read is also flavored in some if not changed a little—but I would say that it was maybe, at least at one point, sort of bordering 50/50 as far as support and against the war. At least maybe around ‘70, ‘71. That would just be my perspective, I could be way off on that, but that’s probably from within my context and the folks I sort of knew. And I would have to say there would be a lot of older folks that were pretty conservative and a lot of younger adults who weren’t. 

[Interviewer]: [00:19:45] In the spring of 1970, with your mom working on campus and Professor Frank, was there any kind of conversations about the protests that were happening, or was there any kind of sense of urgency you had heard from either? 

[Adrianne Walker]: No. And see, I didn’t have a lot of conversations with Glenn Frank about things like that, and I don’t know that Alan did either. He had been a marine, okay, so he was a little bit conservative and short hair. And my mother would not discuss things like that with me, okay. That’s just the long in the short of it. Those are just things she would not, she just didn’t talk about stuff like that with me, at least not then. So, my dad was extremely busy working, he had started his own business and I think he was really caught up with that at that point in time. I mean literally, he had just started that probably, he probably hadn’t even been doing it a full year on his own yet. So, he was really heavily involved sort of in his own working world and not totally into that and I think where I’d hear most about that, about these issues, was at church when they might be brought up in some discussion or there’d be, George would have a sermon and my dad wouldn’t appreciate it. And he’d talk to George about it. He liked George, we all liked George Gaiser, I don’t know if George is still there, still alive, I’m not even sure. Well, he was ten years ago, but I don’t know right now. But, he would say some things and my dad wouldn’t be totally with it, and then there would be people that were using the church that were progressive and anti-war and they’d be talking about stuff. My dad didn’t appreciate that I know, but he got overruled on some of those things, so. But again, I was sort of left out of those discussions, and I sort of went my merry way. 

[Interviewer]: [00:22:41] Can you tell me about your experiences the days leading up to May 4th?

[Adrianne Walker]: Leading up to it, alright, like I said, I ended up having contacts, just people I knew that were involved in this, that were involved more heavily in the protests and stuff. Why I ended up knowing these people, just because I did. I had been running into them and talking with them at the union for a year, year plus, because like I said, I would go up there while I was still in high school. And so, I knew they were going to do these things and these protests were going to happen, and I never heard anybody talking about any violence at all. And the whole time, I never, there were never, I never saw or never heard anything at all the whole time. I know there were people reporting of students having weapons or this and that was going, but never. 

And then there were also reports of outside agitators. Just like today, they’re always blaming outside agitators. Well, if there weren’t that many outside agitators coming in and going to, let’s see, how many universities in the country? What, four hundred? There couldn’t be that many outside agitators to disperse on the country. But there were some people that probably weren’t students that you’d see. But there were also, I had a couple, these people would say, Watch out for that person, we’re pretty sure they’re some sort of federal plant. Don’t say much to them. Don’t trust them. And like I said before, that because I knew—a fairly good acquaintance of mine was at school, and his father was part of Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamster exec type [00:25:14], but he was told he’d go to school and he’s not going to be involved in the business at all. He was going to be like first legit family member not part of the ‘business’ [00:25:26), so to speak, person. But he also, at times, he said, “Yeah, there’s always some guy following me around, federal or state.” It’s like, okay, there’s this alphabet soup of of God knows what government people were all floating around there the whole time. 

So, anyway, people would tell me “Watch who you talk to,” or “Watch what you say,” and I just heard about “We’re going to be here,” or “We’re going to do this”, “We’re going to be standing here”, “We’re going to over in front of the administration building, and we’re going to do this and protest”, “We’re going to hold this protest there or hold this protest, that.” And then, I’m even vague about what happened during the week before up, until the night of the burning of the ROTC Building. Now that night, I was coming back from seeing a girl I knew down in Alliance. So, I was coming back at night. And things looked, they were staring to block roads off, well probably because I’m from here, I knew how to get around everything. And I got in fairly close and you can see, Holy crap, those buildings are burning. 

Now, what I know, because again, I lived there, the ROTC buildings were, would’ve taken anything but a small match to set those things on fire. They were that much of a tinderbox. They had, the one building actually had a firing range in it. And I had been there, gone to that firing range, the guy, the sergeant or whoever it was that was sort of in charge, said that you can’t smoke and do any of that in here, because this whole place would go up so freaking fast. You just had to be careful. I don’t know what class we had, some sort of class in high school, we went up there to the firing range. But anyhow, the whole thing would take nothing to set it on fire. And so, I got, I came up that night and got fairly close enough to see those buildings were burning and nobody was doing anything to stop it from burning down. Few years later, because I had ended up with a friend who knew one of the fire department officers in Kent, and I got to know him, and he told me that they wouldn’t let us go and try to put it out. He said the National Guard kept us from actually going in there and trying to put it out, we were ordered to stay away and let it burn. Now, that’s what I was told, okay. How much of that was, whether it’s hearsay or not, I don’t know how much. But this was an officer in the fire department, like a lieutenant, okay. I knew him, I sort of trust what he told me. He said they were not about to let us do that, they just let, said, You are to let this burn. Stay away, don’t let it spread. And they were all turned towards everybody to keep us away, to keep people away that night. And eventually, I thought, and I turned and I left and went home. Of course, after that, now there, my parents didn’t want me going into town the next day. I was sort of stuck at home because I was living at home then at that point and didn’t have my own transportation and I don’t think they let the buses run that day. 

[Interviewer]: Interesting.

[Adrianne Walker]: What was that, that was a Sunday, I think [editor’s clarification: The ROTC building fire took place on Saturday, May 2]. 

[Interviewer]: [00:30:05] Do you recall the National Guard’s presence on campus when they first came, what your feelings were? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Yeah, I thought, this is just not right. What are these people doing here, and they were tense pitched, and it made it look like a military encampment and like, what’s the reason for this? Who’s trying to prove what? And, it’s sort of like [Governor] Jim Rhodes trying to proves it’s his kingdom, which he was, I’m sure he was. And he’s the one that ordered all this stuff in, LeRoy Satrom of course, “I need help, I need help,” but—

[Interviewer]: Did you have any one-on-one interaction with any of the National Guardsmen? 

[Adrianne Walker]: No, I did not. I don’t know, I may have known one or two people that were in it. But I have no idea, I did not know where they were, or if they had actually been somebody who was called up to be present there, but I remember seeing them and just thought, this is so screwed up. What’s with the National Guard here? I mean, I know, I didn’t feel—it wasn’t like things were out of control, so what if some students want to take over the administration building? I mean, that’s from a student point of view, of course. But they (unintelligible [00:31:51]) at that point. Of course, they’re blaming the students for burning down the building. I really don’t believe they did. I, to this day, believe that somebody, probably a federal or state agent, started that fire. 

I will believe that until the day I die, from the bits of information I’ve heard back and forth. I don’t believe any students started that fire. I don’t think anybody was truly near that building to do it when it started. Now, obviously that’s my opinion, and I will go with that to my grave. 

[Interviewer]: We always appreciate opinions here. 

[Adrianne Walker]: That was my feeling on that. And I think after that, the whole composure of things changed a lot. There was much more adversarial nature to the whole business.

[Interviewer]: [00:33:04] Prior to the day of May 4, were you aware of the rally that was to take place that afternoon?

[Adrianne Walker]: Just for it. I mean I was aware that things were being planned, okay, but I guess I wasn’t totally aware of exactly what was actually going to happen. And maybe I didn’t know exactly the time of it, or I guess I’d have to say that, because of how I ended up there. I wasn’t totally aware of the timing on it. 

[Interviewer]: [00:33:46] Well good, you bring us to the next part. Can you describe, kind of walk us through, that day for you? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Okay. What I remember, now, was just going, getting up, leaving home in the morning. And I can’t tell you if I—campus buses came out to Twin Lakes at that point. So, you could jump on a bus to get to class, or get to campus, or I could hop a ride in with my dad or my mother when they were going in to work. I don’t remember how I got there, I didn’t have my own car yet then, so it’s not like I was driving myself. And literally, I can’t tell you how I got in that morning. But I went, I think I had my first class and then I had some time in between, and then my second class was over at the speech building. God, I can’t even remember exactly which class it was, but it got cancelled. And I knew that there was supposed to be, by this point in time I knew. I think I probably heard it because I had the one class and then time in between before the next, and I probably, Okay, there’s going to be this protest, this rally going on somewhere around noon. So, I got up, they cancelled that class, I went, Okay, I’m going to go back over towards the Student Union and actually see what the heck’s going on, so I’m cutting across campus and up, you’ll have to forgive me because my brain doesn’t always remember things, but the parking lot there between Taylor Hall and whatever the—

[Interviewer]: Prentice, I believe?

[Adrianne Walker]: Yeah. Yeah, whatever the dorm is, yeah. And then down towards Blanket Hill and that. So, I’m coming across there and then, Oh, there’s where everything’s going on. So, I’m sort of coming across and I’m, okay, so I’m going down the hill and getting into the, okay, getting into the mix, whether I wanted to or not. So, there I was, and the next thing I know, they’re coming back up towards me, as I were sort of there at the top of the hill, and then they’re coming—the Guard’s coming this way and of course there’s tear gas coming. And I still tell people, tear gas was different then than it is now. I said, “You can survive tear gas, it is no fun but, out in the open, you can survive it and I did more than once.” 

But, so, they’re coming up and, Uh oh, this is just not looking good. So, I happened to go to the left towards Memorial Gym, instead of the other direction towards Prentice Hall. If I had gone the other way, then I’d have been in the mix for all the shooting. But I happened to go the other direction to get around or to get out of the way. And so, I was—I went around and sort of went down because I knew this is just not looking good, and they’re coming and they’ve got guns that are pointed out front, and this is just craziness that’s going on. I didn’t trust them; I just didn’t trust anything that was going on any more. 

And again, I never saw anybody on the student side with any weapons or anything like that. They might have thrown tear gas canisters, bags, there might have been some rocks or something, but I don’t know where they would’ve gotten them, because there weren’t any rocks on Blanket Hill, it was grass. But so, I went down and around on sort of—I thought, This is probably not the best situation, and I went down then towards the Student Union. So, I heard some stuff, but I didn’t know exactly what happened at that point. I did not know exactly what happened. 

So, I went down into the Student Union, sort of just waiting to hear from—you know, before I go back out. And next thing I know, not long after that, there’s all kinds of people piling in and then I’m hearing what’s happened and I’m seeing people that are much redder in the face than I was because they had gotten a lot more tear gas, and saying there were people killed. You’d hear anything from two to twenty-five, the reports and stuff. And I really didn’t know at that point. They’re trying to get us—they’re telling us to leave, so there’s a lot of misinformation probably being—and of course, that’s just what happens in a situation like that. 

And I didn’t know that Alan’s dad, Glenn Frank, was anywhere near there or doing anything. I didn’t even find out about that until, what, much later that evening. I don’t think Alan even knew until later on because, there we are, and then the word starts coming down, “Everybody, get the hell out of campus.” Basically, they were saying, “Get off of campus, get out now. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not collect your books, do not do anything, get out of here. Now.” And people were coming around and ordering us to get out. There were cops, there were more National Guard people showing up here and there. There was no—they didn’t tell us how to get out, they just told us, “Get out.” We were blocked from going anyplace. I couldn’t even go up to my mother’s office to find out, Are you leaving? Have you left? How do I—can I get home with you? By then, they were locking everything down or locking students out; literally, we couldn’t do anything. So, I had to walk, and I can’t tell you who I walked home with for most of the way, so I walked the five miles home that day. And there were a fair number of us probably walking north on [State Route] 43 to get home. I think Alan did too, because he ended up at my house eventually, and a couple other people did. But I remember while walking out of Kent and up 43, there was a pretty constant stream of state patrol cars [editor’s clarification: Ohio State Highway Patrol] coming down the road. And I always wondered, Why the heck did—why the heck, Jim Rhodes, you idiot, didn’t you call them in instead of the National Guard? They at least had some brains. They knew what they were doing. 

But again, my own personal opinion is Jim Rhodes orchestrated the whole thing, and probably told them to load live bullets and got away with murder. That’s what I believe, that is my firm belief, and there are a lot of us around that still believe that, that he got away with it. He couldn’t have done that—they couldn’t have gotten away with shooting students at Ohio State [University]. They would’ve had them up on charges for everything if it had been Ohio State. But my belief, Oh it’s Kent, Northeast Ohio. It’s up—it’s a liberal corner that Jim Rhodes couldn’t win, no matter how many votes he tried to buy. All his election years, because it was all Democratic, it’s all union. So, my belief, he got away with it. What’s his name, the person in charge of the National Guard, got away with it, and whoever the particular soldiers involved, of course, they got away with it. Again, that’s my opinion. Just based on what I know about the characters involved at that point in time, and how things went down and how this could have been handled a whole lot differently. Just like things today could be handled a whole lot differently, a whole lot better. 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely. Could you describe where you were at, emotionally, when you got back to your house? I mean, I imagine your mother coming home, experiencing that on campus, you, your neighbors—just kind of give me an idea of what that environment was like. 

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, I was, I guess, just sort of dumbfounded. Maybe it would best be described that we were in a bit of shock that something like that could even happen. 

[Interviewer]: We hear that a lot, yeah. 

[Adrianne Walker]: And it happened at Kent, of all places? Kent? Backwoods, little state school that nobody knows anything about? I mean literally, back then, nobody knew anything about Kent. There were a few school departments that maybe have some notoriety, but not much. I mean today, the school is much more highly regarded than it was back then, but it’s like, Kent? This happened in Kent?

And I remember, and Alan and I have talked about this this year a couple of times, that when my dad got home and we’re still sitting around talking and we—there was considerable argument there, at that point in time. I ended up—the fallout from this was life-long between me and my family. There was a certain amount—there’s some estrangement that never changed, that never recovered, that they don’t understand. “What the heck’s wrong with you? Where did we go wrong raising you,” type of thing. 

But it sort of cemented the course I went on, as far as my belief structure on a lot of things—always was a little different to begin with. But they just had a really hard time with me after that, because of the fact that I wouldn’t put up with this stuff. And I would question them the following years about a lot of things. About Rush Limbaugh—I remember walking in one day in Florida, and they were watching Rush Limbaugh on TV and I said, “How can you listen to that pompous ass?” All he ever does is criticize, and he never has an idea or a decent solution. But he’s really good at criticizing, and you’re all sitting around here listening to it. Why don’t ya’ll come up with a good idea?” Oh my god, it was like hell froze over in Florida. 

[Interviewer]: It sounds like there was an obvious generational gap in terms of dealing with things and whatnot. To quickly go back to the day of the shooting, were any of the victims, wounded or killed, any of those people were your classmates, just people you knew, or—?

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, I was acquainted with John Cleary. John was in a few of my architecture classes. I wasn’t close to John Cleary, but I was acquainted with him. I guess Alan still talks to him on occasion now, still. And—oh God, one of the girls that was killed—

[Interviewer]: Sandy? Allison?

[Adrianne Walker]: I want to say Sandy, that I knew—I knew a girl who was friends with her. But those are as close as I knew of any of the people who were killed or wounded. So, I didn’t have any close connections. If I’m not mistaken, John Cleary wasn’t really right there, but he was hit with a ricochet. I think that’s right. It’s not like he was right up front. 

[Interviewer]: Right. Yeah. 

[Adrianne Walker]: Yeah, I think he was hit by a ricochet. So, I don’t, wasn’t like I had personal friends involved with that. 

[Interviewer]: [00:49:59] Did you and Professor Glenn Frank ever cross paths and discuss what had occurred on campus that day? 

[Adrianne Walker]: No, I never did. After that, I hardly ever saw Professor Frank after that, and I can’t tell you why. I think it’s probably somewhat because my academic course didn’t correspond with anything he taught, and then Alan and I sort of lost touch there, school-wise. Again, his path went different than mine and I’d see him, on occasion, as life went on, and I went this way work-wise and he went a different way. We just sort of lost some contact. Now, I see his mother here and there, but again, I also moved away. So, five years later, then, I was out of town. So, it’s not like I was there, and I really can’t tell you why I never really saw Glenn Frank or talked with him. I don’t know, I might have had a hard time talking with him about that, too. I probably might’ve—I would’ve. I would’ve had a really hard time. And I think, from my discussions with Alan, he had a hard time talking about that with him, too, for quite a while. 

[Interviewer]: I could only imagine, absolutely.

[Adrianne Walker]: Plus, because he ended up being in the position there totally by accident. It wasn’t that, all of a sudden, he planned to be there, type of thing. I think he was what—with a group of faculty that agreed to be something that day or whatever, anyway. 

[Interviewer]: [00:52:28]) Could you describe what the days and weeks were like after May 4, both on campus and in your community? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, there wasn’t anything. I mean, basically we were, everybody was booted off campus. I mean, there was—it’s like, Okay, go to Kent now, you’ll see the same thing, there’s nobody there. There’s no students. There was your first distance learning project when we went snail mail and telephone. I had a car then, in the fall, and I had some friends up in western New York that I’d go visit, and I had a Kent State sticker that I put on the window. Oh, they didn’t even want to put gas in my car. Oh yeah, people were afraid of me. They’d see that Kent State sticker and literally, they’d be a little bit afraid of you. Around town, that was a difficult summer. But the same month though, because when you went—summer jobs—almost everybody who was a student, all of a sudden, you’re all home, because they shut down OSU, they shut down Miami, they shut down OU [Ohio University], all those schools got shut down. So, stuff happened at Kent and I should say, just for remembrance, also, Jackson State, there were also some students killed. 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely.

[Adrianne Walker]: And we tend to forget that, that there were students killed there too, and that’s very seldom brought up. But it’s not like it was just one school that was shut, basically they ended up shutting them all down. Jim Rhodes couldn’t keep them open, as much as he wanted to force the issue. Put all the troops in there and shoot all the students (unintelligible [00:54:44]). So, the summer was just kind of a little bit numb. After that summer, the folks that I hung out with—it never sort of happened again, the whole group of folks that we all did stuff together just sort of changed and evaporated. 

And going back to school in the fall was a little tenuous maybe to start. But surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad, I guess, as I thought it might be. And I don’t think, back then, that—really didn’t know to handle that. Nobody really knew how to handle what happened. Plus, the protests, the whole Vietnam thing was sort of expanding across the country. It was moving on from college campuses to the streets, so that the emphasis, that was sort of, the campuses was the—what do I want to say—the ignition in that it just started spreading to lots other places. It was no longer confined to campuses. And the idea of, the thought that you shot students, again, totally backfired. All of a sudden there was more support for the protesters than, I think, they imagined there would be. That, again, that’s coming from my perspective—that you could go places where people would, in spite of the people being afraid to pump gas for me, I’d go other places, “You were there?” “My God, you were there?” And I mean, in a way, you’d have a little bit of, I don’t want to say hero worship, but, “My God, you were actually there?” So, you sort of tell them a little of the story. That lasted for a little while, anyway. 

[Interviewer]: [00:57:53] Is there anything you’d like to share about how these experiences have affected your life over the years? 

[Adrianne Walker]: Well, I—so, let’s see. I was against the Iraq invasion, I knew that was bullshit from the start, I knew—Oh, there we go again. Grenada—here we go again. All the business with the Contras in South America, excuse after excuse for some form of imperialism or another—totally unnecessary. The whole idea of, We’ve got to stop Communism—give me break. Maybe these people want Communism, maybe it’s a good government for them, maybe it isn’t, but maybe, for them, it is. That our interventions haven’t really solved much of anything, especially in third-world countries, they just haven’t done anything. And I guess, after Vietnam was over and things had settled down, I just thought, Oh God, enough is enough. Maybe I’m done with them, and then, stuff happens again. Here we are again, 2000, and were doing the same stupid stuff. And it’s like, Can we not learn anything? Can you not move ahead? It’s just—and for me personally, Okay, I didn’t think I’d be back standing protesting again, especially because, without going into my background with the rare diseases that I have, and I thought, Oh, enough is enough, dealing with myself is enough. But I found out that my own, personal DNA, I cannot not be involved, a little bit, in Black Lives Matter. So, here I am again, sixty-nine years old, it’s not over. And I guess maybe it never will. 

And back in the initial Iraq stuff after 9/11, I thought, Oh God, here we go again, this is just an excuse to do something that you have no proof of. And, at that point, nobody’s going to stop Dick Cheney and his cohorts. But like I say, over the years I’ve opened my mouth here and there. I’ve done some stuff, I’ve tried to do—what do I want to say? Other things, other support. I’ve not been like a frontline, stand up in your face, or always doing stuff. It’s more like, Okay, I was a member of Stonewall Union here in Columbus for a number of years, I did stuff with them. I’ve done stuff with the homeless kitchen, I’ve done the thing where I’ve gone and helped and served at the soup kitchen. Just try and do stuff just to try and maybe be a little bit part of the change. Maybe I can do a little something here and there?

Not a big mover or shaker, but I could do a little bit, I could do a certain amount that’s my part, that there are things that I can do. There are things that I don’t have to be part of, that I can just say, “No, I’m not going to be part of that. No, I can challenge somebody on this. I can support this cause with this much, I only have X number of dollars to go around.” I select the causes that I think are important to me, and maybe I can do a little more here than I can there and try and just be a little bit more cognizant of the impact that maybe I have. Like, I think I mentioned earlier, that it took me a long time to really understand, twenty plus years to really understand, what institutionalized racism is and really come to grips with it’s more than being nice. But there are issues out there that you don’t even realize that you’re part of. And that falls into other areas that I try and stay with or that are important to me. Like ecology things where, okay, I might not have the most fuel-efficient car but, jeez, I could limit the amount of mileage I drive. I can be more efficient on my trips and I could use my bike more and use my feet more. So, there’s other things that—I would guess some of the stuff I do is somewhat precipitated by what happened back then. 

[Interviewer]: Right. It sounds like you have, from your experiences, you’ve garnered a lot of awareness. So, that alone is something that people need, is just a general awareness of how to change things. [01:05:45] Is there anything else you’d like to talk about that we haven’t covered yet? 

[Adrianne Walker]: I don’t—probably by the time we hang up, I’ll go, Whoops, I wish I should have said that. Maybe I should have said that. But I don’t think so, at this time. Like I said, it’s not like I was one of the people right up there in front, directly in front of the Guard or anything like that. I was just there that day, I was on campus, and I knew people, and I knew, on the fringes of what was going on. A lot of people don’t even realize that, even my closest people, don’t even know that I was there and these are the things I knew that took place. These are the things that affected me that can still affect and upset me. 

And I’m really glad that people today went and made this memorial of the whole business up there, because I know it was neglected for a number of years. And I’m just so glad that it was finally done. I don’t know when it was done, I just know it was. I sort of lost some contact with the university for a number of years there, where I wasn’t back up there. But I’ve been back up there numerous times in the more recent—in last five years. I’ve reconnected with a lot of people that I knew from my earlier days and I’ve walked around campus. I have good memories from being there and growing up there and having the access to the university, especially as a youngster. I took art classes up there when I was real little, and having access to a large library, which had a lot more information, and just the goings on that went on from concerts, to postings of—this rally was going to take place, go listen to this speaker, and just all that general stuff that sort of happened. And I’m really grateful that I did have that exposure growing up. 

[Interviewer]: Well, I’m glad to hear the positive that came out of being around Kent State and at Kent State. We really do appreciate you sharing your perspective, it’s as important as any other perspective of somebody being here on campus that day. I’d like to thank you again for participating in our Oral History Project, and we’ll conclude our interview at this time. 

[Adrianne Walker]: Thank you. 

[End of interview]

[Interviewer’s note–Adrianne Walker sent the following comments via email on August 14, 2023, and asked that they be appended here]:

In June, I rode GOBA (Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure) and one day was spent in Kent. Did not ride that day. My wife, Karen, came up and spent a few hours visiting. I gave her my personal May 4th tour and description of my experience. In 40 years that story had never been personally shared intimately. Truly hard on me. It is amazing how much the landscape has changed. All those trees on ‘blanket hill’ which did not exist, plus the overall campus. Several other GOBA riders quietly joined my ‘tour’ and thanked me after.

Last week I returned for a total walkabout of the entire campus. So much larger and nicer than in my day. Several markers brought smiles of remembrance, that few will recall such as the ‘buried dirt shed.’ [Editor's clarification: Partially Buried Woodshed by Robert Smithson, an art earthwork created on the Kent State campus in January, 1970] 

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