Dr. J. Gregory Payne was an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois when the May 4, 1970, shootings occurred. He worked for his college’s student newspaper, The Daily Illini, and first heard about the events at Kent State over their wire service. He took immediate action and drove from Illinois to Kent, Ohio, in order to interview people and learn more about what had happened. In this interview, he discusses those early days and describes how this motivation has carried him through multiple scholarly and artistic projects during the course of his career so far. His work includes the first dissertation written about the Kent State Shootings, co-authoring and working on various productions of the play, Kent State: A Requiem, historical consultation for the 1981 film, Kent State, incorporating the history of the Kent State Shootings into his teaching and writings, and chairing the Kent State-Jackson State Memorial Forum, to name a few.