Michael Wilt, Oral History

 

Recorded: December 2, 2021

Interviewed by: Liz Campion

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Interviewer]: This is Liz Campion, May 4 Archivist, speaking on Thursday, December 2, 2021, at Kent State University Libraries 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?

 

[Michael Wilt]: It’s Michael Wilt. W-I-L-T.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you, Mike. [00:00:27] I would like to begin with some brief information about your background, so we can get to know you a little bit better. Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yes. I was born in a small town in North Central Pennsylvania, by the name of Muncy, M-U-N-C-Y, which is located about fifteen, twenty miles from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which a lot of people know basically from being the home of Little League Baseball, guess that was their claim to fame. But it was a small town of about 3,000 people, and that’s where I grew up and went to elementary school and high school.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, thank you. [00:01:05] When did you first come to Kent State University?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I believe it was in the summer of 1968, when I was going to be a senior high school, and we were touring and looking for some colleges that I might be interested in going to, and we found our way to Kent in that summer of 1968.

 

[Interviewer]: Was there anything specific that brought you to Kent State University?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I was interested in communications. My father was an editor of a small-town weekly newspaper, and my mother worked at the newspaper with him and also taught journalism at the high school. So, I came from a, should we say journalistic family? And doing some research in high school we had identified Kent State as having a good telecommunications program at that time, radio television. And that was the major that I was looking for. And so, that’s what brought me to Kent in the first place, because I had good references about their telecommunications program and that ended up being my major at the school, along with a minor, they called it an area study then, in political science.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, wow. Thanks for sharing that. [00:02:35] While you were here at your start, did you participate in any campus organizations?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Well, I immediately started working with the radio station, WKSU. So, that was the extent of it at that time. Is that what you were referring to?

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. So, when you were working at WKSU, can you explain what your role was there and kind of what activities you did when you were there?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I was basically a reporter and an announcer. I had some in on-air shifts and also did some reporting and did some, did an interview with Joe Walsh.

 

[Interviewer]: Very cool.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yeah, it was just kind of like, it was a pretty, at that point in time, the radio and the television were clearly much more utilized mediums for information, of course, back in 1960s and ‘70s than they are now. So, yeah, it was a really good experience.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you recall your interview with Joe Walsh? Any memories from that?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Just that he was pretty cool. Yeah, he came right into the studio and we sat down and had a good ‘ole chat.

 

[Interviewer]: Very cool. [00:03:58] How did you view the protests and the Vietnam War when you first arrived on campus?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Well, it’s kind of interesting, because like I said, I was from what would be classified as a small, conservative town in North Central Pennsylvania and basically those were the political blue beliefs that sort of had been, I won’t say forced on me, but certainly what I grew up with. So, when I got to Kent in September of 1969, that was my first experience, basically face-to-face with any type of anti-war protests, sort of my first exposure to like, the SDS and other left-wing groups. And I was just sort of taken away by it because I had never been exposed to anything like the before from where I had come from. So, it was like an all-new experience, and I remember very clearly October 15, 1969, I was at, participated in my first anti-war protest. And it was a Student Mobilization Committee, which was a fairly well-known organization back in the day. Had a march on the campus, and they marched downtown and it was huge. There was like 7,000 people or something in it.

 

That was my first experience with that. And since I lived fairly far away at that time, I was about 300 miles from Kent, I stayed over most of the holidays and didn’t go home, I didn’t have a car, didn’t have any transportation. Back in those days, if I wanted to get home, I hitchhiked, which is like a dying art these days. I mean-

 

[Interviewer]: It really is. You couldn’t Uber then.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Really. So, it just, I was in Kent a lot and I got to meet a lot of different people and, of course, being, working with the radio and the television, especially the radio, you start getting different points of view and things of that nature, so. It was sort of a slow transformation, but I would say that I was still relatively in the conservative side, but I was just starting to get exposed to other viewpoints and other perspectives on the war.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:06:34] How would you describe those moods and attitudes among the students in the lead up to May 4, so that spring of 1970? Did you get a sense that things were heating up or what--

 

[Michael Wilt]: You know, I never got the sense that Kent was a very radical institution. I mean, you read about things, you read all these stories and almost all of them start, Kent State was a conservative school in a small midwestern city. I mean, they’re almost all identical like that. And that was true, I never got a sense that- I mean, the leftist groups on campus were very small. The SDS might’ve had fifteen, twenty people come to their meetings or something like that. So, it was not what I would call a “hot bed” of radicalism, which I think made the whole events surrounding May 4^th even more hard to comprehend, because it was probably one of the last places you would think this would happen.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Now, one of the things you mentioned was being exposed to this, which we hear a lot about, students coming on to campus and college and having a lot of these new experiences. And you mentioned going to the anti-war protests on October 15, 1969. Did you become more politically active after that, or did you participate in any protests around campus?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yes. I started gradually transforming from the small town, conservative person into the college activist. But still, not to the point that I was attending too many meetings or stuff like that, it’s just like a whole perspective on the war was changing for me at the time. And it was a slow process, which of course got accelerated tremendously after the events of May 4^th.

 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely. Were you living on campus in 1970 or were you off campus?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I lived in Dunbar Hall for my first two years.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. Okay.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Which was right in the middle of things as it turned out.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. Location-wise, that wasn’t ideal for that. Was your family aware of the protests or anything that was happening on campus, and if so, did they communicate their feelings about the war or protests?

 

[Michael Wilt]: No, I always got the sense that my father was sort of toeing the party line and that was war was necessary and he was going to support that to no end. I think my mom was a little quieter about it and started to have a lot of feelings sort of against the war at that time. By that time, I mean, the war had been going on for so long. And I just think we didn’t, like I say, I didn’t go home much, I had only gone home at Christmas time, so my freshman year. They really only saw me for a week or so between September and May. So, we probably sort of drifted apart a lot. It’s not like we had email, cell phones, or anything like that. So, we didn’t really communicate as much as people do these days.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Did you have any friends or family that were worried about the draft or were drafted to the War during that time?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Well, I think we were all worried about it. We were all very, very worried about it. And I did not know anyone at that time that was drafted. So, that was kind of a non-issue for me.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. That’s good, I mean-- [00:10:47] Do you happen to remember the environment in your classes in that spring of 1970? Were professors speaking about what was going on with the war or protests, or was it kind of quiet and just regular kind of schoolwork?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I think it was more on the regular type of schoolwork. I think one of the ironies of the thing is that in my first year, I took geology class from Glenn Frank.  And, of course, he turned out to be one of the most prominent people, not by his own choosing. As it turned out, on May 4^th, he’s one of the unsung heroes for sure.

 

But I was just doing a scrapbook a while ago and I listed my best class ever at Kent State was geology, which was so weird because I didn’t know anything about it. And it was just, he was such a wonderful professor and took us on field trips to study rocks and all of these things, and it was just really great. And who would’ve known a few months later how involved he got with that situation?

 

[Interviewer]: Wow. Yeah, that’s something else. Especially to have such great, vivid memories of his class and then-

 

[Michael Wilt]: Absolutely.

 

[Interviewer]: -having these vivid memories of that day.

 

[Michael Wilt]: I have pictures of a group of us walking along this ledge and, I mean, it’s just a cool, cool experience for sure. And, like I say, it’s just fate that I had that class with him right before this happened.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:12:25] Did you have any kind of sense of how the local Kent community members had perceived the students?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Oh, they hated us. You probably heard that before.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah.

 

[Michael Wilt]: I mean, you talk about a town-gown separation. It was clearly a town-gown situation. I mean, there were only a couple places that you would really feel comfortable going to off campus. In terms of once you got away from the Water Street bars at that time. There was just a lot of animosity. I mean, I think you can see it in the letters to the editor and stuff like that. Their perception of what Kent was and what Kent really was couldn’t have been further apart.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. And I’ll circle back to that question to see if that changes at all after the shootings. [00:13:27] But can you tell me about your experiences in the days leading up to May 4?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Well, as you know, I was working with the [WKSU] radio station, and some of the information that I had supplied to you earlier, my first involvement with it was- of course, everyone was upset when the announcement was made by the president that they were going to expand the war, basically, and the rally that was held on that Friday, and everyone didn’t think much of it, that anything different was going to happen. And I got a call about two thirty or so, Saturday morning, from the radio station saying that there had been a riot in Downtown Kent and to get there as soon as possible. And another staff person and I went down there, and immediately got accosted by two policemen who wanted to know what we were doing and things of that nature. So, we had credentials, at least from the university. And so, I went back and we worked basically the next day Saturday. I wasn’t involved in anything that went on Saturday, because I was working at the radio station. So, I was not on-site for any of the demonstrations or the ROTC building or the, anything that happened on Saturday because I was working at the station itself.

 

Sunday was, it was such a bizarre day on Sunday as, as I’m sure you know from a lot of other conversations you’ve probably had. It was just such a surreal atmosphere between students intermingling with the Guard and yet, you had this entire presence of troops armed and personnel carriers and all these kinds of things, jeeps, transport vehicles, and things of that nature. And that was all during the day, and everybody was all like, buddy-buddy. And then, there was another rally Sunday night, and they sort of, students started at one place and marched around to several of the dormitories picking up lots of people as they were going and as they were trying to work their way downtown, that’s when the tear gas started. There was some number of people arrested and things of that nature that and I was an eyewitness to, to a lot of that. And it was kind of an interesting position for me to be in, because I was getting grief in some places by students who wanted to know what I was doing with a walkie-talkie and may have had the perception that I was doing something to aide the police or the National Guardsmen. And then, on the other extreme, the National Guardsmen stopped me and confiscated my walkie-talkie and said they didn’t care who I worked for. And since I said I had a press card, and one said that he didn’t care if it was signed by the president. So, I’m like, Oh my God. The students are mad at me, the National Guard’s mad at me.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, you were really caught in the middle there.

 

[Michael Wilt]: I’m not really doing well here. You know? It was an interesting situation with the National Guardsmen, like I say, it was so long ago, but they did call back to the radio station and returned the walkie-talkie to us, which was kind interesting, I was given one of ten press passes that was given out during the disturbance. And on Sunday night, later on, we had two National Guardsmen as escorts for me and another reporter. So, it was just a very surreal experience between interference by students, interference by the Guard. Nobody really knew what was going on and we were just trying to provide stuff, basically all just volunteer people working for the radio station on campus. And then, the next day, everybody was hearing through the grapevine that there was going to be this rally. And everybody was under the impression nothing was going to happen, regardless of the fact that it was banned. It just quickly turned into a standoff between the Guard and the students. And they said the students had to disperse, and the students, of course, we didn’t disperse. And I was working, obviously, still with the radio station at that time. Then the tear gas started again. And then, they sort of, the National Guard advanced sort of up the [Blanket] Hill, and I’m sure you know all this. You’ve heard it from a million people probably, but it gets very, very emotional at that time. They looked like they had sort of chased downhill, pointed their guns at people, and then, sort of looked like they were retreating and sort of going back. And then, I don’t know, some people might have assumed that was sort of a victory for the students or something like that. So, the students began congregating more. And then, just all of a sudden, for no reason, they just whirled and fired. And I was in that parking lot that’s basically, I think, right across from Prentice [Hall], at that time, I think there was a practice football field there. And all I can remember vividly was diving under a car and cutting my hands when I sort of put my hands out to break the fall. And the windshield of the car got shot out. So, I think I was probably somewhat in a state of shock at that point too, right after it happened. And that parking lot was very, very close to the telecommunications building, which is where the WKSU is located. So, I basically just made my way back to there and we all sort of congregated there and that’s when we heard that the school was going to be closed. And so, I had a friend that worked at the radio station, he, I got a few things out of the dormitory, because you just had to leave. I mean, you had no choice. And I stayed at his house in Kent that night, and he drove me to Cleveland the next day. And I boarded a flight and flew to Williamsport.

 

[Interviewer]: After you dove under the car, do you recall kind of the sights and sounds that were happening, or was it kind of a moment where you let yourself black out from shock?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I don’t have a direct recollection of the minutes after that. You know, you remember certain things so clearly, I remember running into Dunbar Hall, because that’s right where I lived. And I remember a girl pounding on the window of the lounge asking to be let in because there was tear gas all over, and nobody would let her in. And I thought, This is so weird. And she just sort of wondered off. I don’t remember exactly what happened after diving under the car, but I remember very, very, vividly, this woman, this girl, this student, trying to get into the dormitory and nobody would let her in.

 

[Interviewer]: Wow. Yeah, that’s remarkable kind of seeing what memories stick out after something like that happens. I mean, so unexpected, too. Do you think, personally, did you have an understanding if the Guardsman were, I don’t know. I guess, did you sense something bad was going to happen?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Not at all. No. I mean, the last thing in the world I would expect was that armed National Guardsmen would turn around and fire on unarmed students.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you with anyone when you were diving under the car-

 

[Michael Wilt]: No, I was by myself. After it happened, and that was one of the things that when I went back to the library system and found a picture, there’s just like a bunch of us, looks like we’re just all like milling around. Nobody knew what to do. And then they, of course, there was all this talk that they were going to rally again at The Commons and that’s when Glenn Frank intervened and eventually got everyone to disperse. Because he was right. He said, “Absolutely they will shoot you.” And at that point, I think people were starting to believe it. But it was just, and that changed me forever, of course. I mean, I’m sure you’ve heard this from many. I was never the same in terms of politics, I was never, never the same again.

 

[Interviewer]: I know that you mentioned that night, you stayed in Kent. [00:23:52] But can you tell me about your experiences the days and weeks after May 4, kind of what the community was like, what the national news kind of-

 

[Michael Wilt]: Well, I, this is kind of an interesting story too. He took me to the airport the next day and I flew back to Williamsport, and my father met me at the airport. And before I would get home, he took me to a barbershop. Which is really funny because my hair is longer now than it was then. In later years, he felt terrible about doing that.

 

But here he is- oh, well that’s another thing. When I was coming back to Dunbar Hall just to grab a few things, we didn’t have phones in the room then, there was just a phone in the hallway. The phone rang, and I answered it and it was my dad.

 

[Interviewer]: Wow. What are the chances of that?

 

[Michael Wilt]: And plus, all the phone lines were supposedly dead. And he was there, and I said, “I can’t talk, but I’m leaving campus and I’ll talk to you later.” But it was so freaky.

 

[Interviewer]: I think that, yeah, because we’ve heard so many times with the phone lines being cut, but probably what a great relief though for your family being one of those that was able to connect and find out that it wasn’t you that was wounded or killed.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Right. I mean, they knew I was involved with the radio station, but the fact that he got through makes no sense, because the lines were all dead.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. That is pretty freaky.

 

[Michael Wilt]: So, then I got back to the small town, and of course it was not a pleasant situation. I wanted to go, the following week, to the big demonstration that was suddenly called for in Washington, D.C. but my parents said no. And I had no money, so I was like- but my dad really, the Kent State shootings really turned my mother completely against the war, and I think my dad couldn’t come out and say it necessarily because of his status in the community as a newspaper editor and things like that. But he was gradually getting to that position as well. And so, I stayed there all summer and went back, thought it was incredibly ironic that the first gathering that they allowed back in Kent for my sophomore year was the Jefferson Airplane concert, where they’re singing “Got a Revolution.” I said this really is a disconnect from what probably the university wanted.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. After you-

 

[Michael Wilt]: But you know what else if funny too? Is like then, if you fast forward a little bit to June of 1972, so that would have been after my junior year, I think so, yeah. I was, the town got hit, where I lived, by Hurricane Agnes very, very severely in Pennsylvania. And for about a four- or five-day period, they were looking for all volunteers and people to help. We were rescuing people out of second floors. And so, here I am, long hair, hippy, whatever you want to call them at that time, working side by side with these conservative, redneck people for the greater good of trying to save, recue people, which we did. We rescued people out of buildings, didn’t get a whole lot of sleep for like three days but that did a whole lot, I think, towards helping heal the wounds that had been there for several years. Because I had gone back each summer and worked in between going to Kent.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:28:13] So, after the campus had closed down, do you recall completing coursework? I know a lot of people had some options, do you remember?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yes. Yes, everything was done by snail-mail. It was incredible. The weirdest thing, and you probably heard about this, we got this multi-page questionnaire from the university about everything under the sun had happened in that time period. Are you familiar with that questionnaire?

 

[Interviewer]: Yes. Yes, I’ve seen it before.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Hundreds, hundreds of questions.

 

[Interviewer]: It’s a lot.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yeah. And then, we kept getting information by the various professors of the courses that I was. One was basically saying, You sign your name, and I’ll give you a passing grade. Because he was so mad at the university and the shootings and everything. All the way to, you know, other ones where you did have to complete coursework and take tests and write papers, which I did all that. I think I even donated one of them to you. But, yeah, I mean, it was a complete, it was just crazy because they were all encouraging you to finish rather than- they said you could all drop the course if you wanted. But if you wanted to continue on, because we would have had about another month of class.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Yeah, I was going to say because that was back when it was in quarters, correct?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Right. Yep. And, so, I completed all the classwork and got grades for everything and moved on.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:29:48] One thing I did see in the Daily Kent Stater, I was hoping you can talk a little bit about, was that you were the organizer for the Kent Out of State Students. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

 

[Michael Wilt]: That was another chapter. That was, did you have the year on that? Or-

 

[Interviewer]: I think it was 1971, or [‘7]2.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yeah, it was 1972. That was in protest to a, the Board of Trustees wanting to raise the tuition for out-of-state students dramatically higher than for in-state students.  And we put together, in a matter of hours, put together this ad-hoc group and somehow, I sort of gravitated to the front of it. And we got to, we staged a, I read a statement at this one forum and then, like 300 people walked out of the meeting with us. And then, I got to address the Board of Trustees in a day or so, and basically that was- it didn’t go well, shall we say. But yeah, I mean, it was an ad-hoc group that was probably in existence all for about a month.

 

But it was basically, we were trying to get them to understand the value of having a diverse university with having people from all over the place, not just Northeast Ohio and that if you kept raising the tuition disproportionately for out-of-state students, it was really going to diminish that. Like they were looking- I’m looking at the story now, it says they were proposing a ten dollar a quarter hike for Ohio students and fifty dollars for out-of-state students.

 

[Interviewer]: Wow, which was a lot then.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yes. Each quarter. So, yeah, I mean, it wasn’t anything, it wasn’t somewhat of an antagonistic, but it was an ad-hoc group that got developed and protested that.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you think that the administration was a little bit more weary of any sort of pushback from students, or do you think it was just things had kind of gotten back to normal at that point and they were okay with pushing back?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I think they were okay with that, but then, it wasn’t until a week or so after that, if you follow through on that, that there was like 129 people arrested with the protests at the, was at the new ROTC building [editor’s clarification: the ROTC offices were in Rockwell Hall], right?

 

[Interviewer]: I think so.

 

[Michael Wilt]: And I almost got arrested there.

 

[Interviewer]: At the ROTC building?

 

[Michael Wilt]: When they had the, where was that? I’m trying to read about it now. Yeah, it was the largest mass arrest in the history of Kent State University. A 129 people were arrested at Rockwell Hall.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, that’s a significant number.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yeah. And I was at that protest. I was involved in that protest. I left before the arrests started. My roommate got arrested. Several people on our floor got arrested. But it was interesting because the students that got arrested for that got letters within a day or two from the university saying that their financial aid was in jeopardy and to back off from anything in the future like that.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:33:59] I’m glad you brought up your roommate, but my question is, in the midst of May 4, did you find you roommate and/or just friends were politically active during that time? Or did you feel or sense everyone was kind of on the same page in these protests and this kind of anti-war movement that was happening?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yeah, it was pretty ambivalent, I think, when I first got to Kent. People were not that involved in it, they were more interested in the college experience.

 

But then, in the summer of 1972, which was also the year of the flood, after the flood, I got an internship with a U.S. representative for our district and spent six, seven weeks in Washington, D.C. And he was a Republican, and I was wearing my [George] McGovern button. But he was very cool about the ability to express yourself, but that was an interesting experience as well. I got to meet a lot of political people and if I hadn’t been politically motivated before that six- or seven-week summer internship, that certainly did it too. Met Hubert Humphrey, and Edmund Muskie, and all these names from the past.

 

[Interviewer]: Wow. During that internship, did you ever get the sense that they were uncomfortable, or knowing that you were, at the time, at Kent State, do you think there was any kind of ill-will?

 

[Michael Wilt]: No. I did not get that impression.

 

[Interviewer]: Good.

 

[Michael Wilt]: I got the impression that it was more open. Obviously, Republicans and Democrats back then, treated each other with more respect than we do now. I mean, you could have different opinions and be sociable. Which unfortunately, that is not the case anymore.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:36:19] In addition to politics, but politics included, can you share about how the experiences surrounding May 4 have affected your life over the years?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Well, it’s certainly politicized me to no small event. I determined that at some point in time, I enjoyed, I don’t want to sound conceited or anything, but I decided that I was doing better making the news than reporting it. And so, while I graduated with my degree in telecommunications, it was my minor in political science that actually caught more of my interest. So, since Kent, I’ve been involved in a lot of different political issues and not just Republican, Democrat ones, but in a lot of social issues. I’ve been very involved, I ran for political office a couple times. I also took part in the Kent’s Inaugural United Nation Study Program in 1973, when we went to Switzerland. We studied the United Nations system. That was from January to June in 1973, so I sort of delayed my graduation until December of ’73, so I managed to be a student for four and a half years. So, yeah, I mean, my entire life as shaped. I would say, if you could point to one thing that most impacted my life at my formative time in that life, it was obviously Kent state and the shootings.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. [00:38:12] Did your viewpoint of Kent change after those events? I mean, you obviously stayed. There’s always conversations about people wanting to leave immediately after. What made you stay at Kent State University?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I had never, never ever considered not staying. I loved Kent. I mean, I love Kent to this day. As you know, I still get the opportunity to go back several times a year because we have family there. I mean, the campus is just beautiful, I mean, it’s always been a beautiful place. I never considered transferring at all. And my parents, I will give them, they were not forcing that at all. Because they knew how much I liked it.

 

[Interviewer]: Did you have anyone you knew that left after? Anyone from the press, or roommates, dorm mates?

 

[Michael Wilt]: No, the people that I spent my time with, they all came back.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:39:29] Is there anything that you’d like to talk about that we haven’t covered today?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Boy, it’s just I wish I could remember more of the specific details, but that several minute period right after the shootings that I just do not recall exactly what I did. I wish that that went somewhat differently, but I think I have certainly kind of a unique perspective in the fact that being a reporter during that time as opposed to being an active participant on one side or the other, sort of put you in the cross hairs from both perspectives like I was saying earlier before. You could see the anger and the tension rising among the students and the overwhelming belief that, this was our campus and why are they here?

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, that is a good point. You kind of walked in as press and then left as an eyewitness.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: I mean, to really go in with two perspectives and turn them into one is really fascinating.

 

[Michael Wilt]: It’s impossible to separate what you saw from the fact that you were a reporter. I mean, the fact that you were a reporter doesn’t diminish what you saw. The fact that I wasn’t throwing a rock at somebody or anything like that doesn’t diminish the fact that somebody could have easily shot me for no reason. And when you look at the stories of the students that were killed and wounded, a large percentage of them were not involved in that at all.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Absolutely. Do you think, looking back, if you weren’t there on behalf of the press, do you think you would’ve been a participant that day?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. Wow. That’s-

 

[Michael Wilt]: That was the transformation from the small, conservative person just a few months ago to that.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, again like you said, it’s kind of the journey of exposure, I mean, and it’s proven in your story. And you just saying you would have been there should it not been press related, so that’s a really interesting piece of your story and completely fascinating. Wow. I’m trying to think, is there anything I haven’t asked yet that you think would be helpful?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I was just in the process here of trying to get through all this stuff. We followed of course, after the shooting, we followed everything that was going on, and the fact that the indictments of the Kent 25, and then, the fact that that was all such a joke on trumped up charges and things like that. And then, how that ever cleared through, and then, the absolute reluctance of people to ever blame the Guard. And it took how many years for something like that to happen? I went back for the 20^th anniversary in 1990, and it was just like it had just happened. And I’m sure, the next time I go back for May 4^th, it just seems like yesterday. It’s just, I guess we have all these experiences in life that shape our life. You know? And this was certainly the one that did it for me.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t just something that happened in Kent, it was recognized on an international level too. So, the impact is completely understandable, but again, especially as a student being on campus and something like that actually happening, people don’t, I mean, there’s never an expectation that that’s going to happen. So, I understand that completely. [00:44:02] One thing that I did want to ask, did you continue to work for WKSU after 1970?

 

[Michael Wilt]: I did, yes.

 

[Interviewer]: Were there stories that you worked on that were about the shootings after they took place?

 

[Michael Wilt]: Not that I can recall. It may have been, but I just don’t remember.  But yeah, I worked at that radio station basically the whole time I was in college.

 

[Interviewer]: Very nice.

 

[Michael Wilt]: But then, I also drifted farther to the left in politics too, so-

 

[Interviewer]: Well, I think those are my big questions. If there’s anything else you’d like to share, please do. But I think at this time, I’d like to thank you for participating in our project and I’m going to end the interview right now.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Okay, well I appreciate it. I probably should have done it years ago.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you so much, we really do appreciate it.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Okay.

 

[Interviewer]: All right, thank you. Bye-bye.

 

[Michael Wilt]: Bye-bye.

 

[End of Interview]

 

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