Carol Mirman, Oral History

Recorded: April 1, 2000
Interviewed by Sandra Perlman Halem
Transcribed by Dorothy Potts and Kate Medicus

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Interviewer]: It is April 1, the year 2000. I'm sitting in my home with Carol Mirman and we are going to do one of our oral history interviews.

Carol would you like to start with putting things in perspective for you starting perhaps with that weekend, Friday or prior to May 4 -- you said you wanted to talk about that.

[Carol Mirman]: I want to say that I was a student at Kent State and I was a senior, in my final year in/for a bachelor of fine arts during all that ruckus. I was present on Friday night downtown when the disturbances occurred. I add this part because some people think that it was only just the Vietnam War that was the impetus. I believe that some of what happened on Friday night happened because it had been a very hard winter -- it had really been a long, cold, dark winter -- and that weekend was the first weekend of real spring that year. Consequently, people were down in the bars, down on Water Street, and out on the streets and just in kind of one of those youthful hormonal party places and I was there with a girlfriend. We decided we were goin' downtown to find her a boyfriend -- she'd been lonely too long. So that was my motivation for being downtown on Friday evening. And we were down in one of the bars. And it got crowded and hot and we went up on the street and there was a lot of people gathered around, including bikers and the political people. And what I do recall -- because I think the days are cumulative up to the shootings -- is that lots of people were milling around, more and more people were gathering together I think it was on Water Street. And somebody brought a barrel and started to put things in there and they lit a fire in the barrel. And more and more people gathered and some started talking about the war and people were drinking and what I do remember is that people started to block off the street. And then more and more crowds gathered. And the part that was -- none of that was a big bother to me -- it was all interesting. I was just kind of watching the whole show.

It became a little scarier for me when the streets were blocked off and I remember distinctly an elderly couple in their cars trapped -- the light had turned red, they were stopped in the traffic and they were surrounded by students. And students started to rock the car. And they were scared. They would lock the doors, they rolled up the windows and I think people were just kind of feeling their oats basically. I didn't understand it as being a political sort of an issue. Although some people did mention Vietnam and we were aware that Cambodia had been bombed. And that things had begun down in Ohio State. But, from my perspective it was drinkin' beer, lookin' for guys. I mean that was what it was about. Then it went from there.

It went from there. The next thing that I can recall is that people started after the blocking off and getting angry and rocking cars, then some people began to run down the streets and throw rocks and break windows. At that point I left. I wasn't in favor of the war. But I didn't see that the people that had the shoe store and the butchers had anything to do with being the cause of the war. And I went home, to the dorm.

The next day was Saturday and I thought all that excitement was over with. But in fact that's the day that the ROTC Building was burned. But I wasn't anywhere around.

On Sunday the troops were called in. I'd heard the governor was coming down to the site of the former ROTC Building which was right near the heating plant which is where I was doing my graduation show. So that is where I was doing my painting. I was getting ready to graduate and I was preparing for my senior show in painting and my studio space was in the heating plant which was an eye view from the ROTC Building so I hung down there all the time. So I went down there to check out the governor who came in and called the students Brown Shirts and Agnew who was making all kinds of nasty statements about the students. And the Guard came out and there was tanks and helicopters and guys with uniforms and guns and things like that -- I'd never seen anything like that. And students were milling around, I mean campus was cordoned off, so to speak. I was hanging down around the entrance to the campus, the old campus which was down on that main street and a cross street I can't remember the names of the streets. As the day went on there was interaction between students and, I think, that's the day that they caught the picture of Allison Krause with the flower and the Guard[s]man. And I was down there. But I didn't know any of these people that were shot. I only hung out with people in the Art Department. And only a few of them were out there, so I didn't know that many folks. I did have a few buds that I was hanging with that were there, so ...

And as it became darker word was going through the crowd -- I don't remember if it was officially announced -- that we needed to disperse, and after a certain hour we were to stay on campus and were no longer allowed to leave campus. I was exceedingly irate about that. 'What is this war -- it's war here.' I mean this is ridiculous. Nobody's really done anything. I didn't support the ROTC Building being burned down but nonetheless that didn't mean the tanks had to come. That didn't mean that Guards and people with guns and bayonets and teargas and helicopters had to come. But, sure enough, there they all were. And as night approached and the helicopters there thup-thup-thupping overhead and the strobe lights were flashing which was a sense of complete unreality -- I was thinking "Phooey with those guys. Who says we can't go someplace. This is my school, my campus, and my country. This is America., ya know. I have rights -- 21-year-old rights (I was 21 years old) -- and I want to go where I want to go." But not everybody felt that way. Actually up at the other end of the street away from where I was, that's where I had heard that someone had, several people had been bayoneted.

I don't recall exactly what transpired. There was a lot of movement. It was dark at that point -- people -- and then tear gas was released, and I definitely felt the tear gas and got the heck out of there. And it burned, it burned.

Then I heard through the grapevine, and there was just a lot of grapevine -- I couldn't even tell you what the grapevine was, but there was -- that there was a rally, an antiwar rally this time on Monday. And while I had never been to an antiwar rally that I can recall in the past, in school -- because I had had a growing awareness to the opposition to the war. I went to it because I was pretty pissed off about all this army -- it seemed like an army to me. Now they were stabbing people. Now they were tanks and this time there was tear gas and awful things and it didn't seem to make any sense and we were not supposed to be in groups of more than two people at one time. "Excuse me!" So I went to the rally. And when there was somebody in charge, organized and said, "Disperse," and people didn't disperse -- I was as stubborn as many others saying, "Excuse me, I've got my rights, I'm not dispersing." But in fact when they started coming at us with guns, I dispersed with the rest of them. And we ran up the hill with the Guard behind us marching in line. And that was like a scary sight.

So as -- there weren't all that many students there that were involved in the rally. I couldn't tell you how many at that time. And there weren't even all that many on the periphery at the rally. But as things began to get more heated up, and it was noon, and it was a school day, more and more students began to appear on the periphery. So the Guard drove us up over the top of that hill where the sculpture was and down -- I went down into the parking lot. I was one of those people in the parking lot that you could see in a lot of the photographs, and it's from the parking lot that the more active people were, and the few rocks that were thrown were thrown. And I did throw some rocks. I'll be frank about that because, heck, I gave that testimony 30 years ago to the FBI. I quit, I couldn't hit a darned thing. It didn't seem to make any sense to me to throw a rock if you can't hit something -- these guys were really far away -- and I couldn't throw for beans anyway. It was more of an angry statement to me. I really never wanted to hurt anybody, but I was mad at all this -- war. It seemed like war to me. I'd never seen anything like that in my life. I did see one rock hit a Guardsman. And I say this because there were reports that came out of the press that fire hydrants had been thrown, Guardsmen had been bleeding and there was lots of lies afterwards, but I was right there -- right in the middle of it -- nada -- did not happen. But the one rock that I did see bounced off of a Guardsman's helmet. And we're talkin' like a long way away. These guys were way down in the field. And that was that. So the Guard were in a crouching position with their guns out to shoot. Like you would think the Continental Army was. I mean, they were literally in that kind of a position. It was a shock. I thought they would shoot tear gas. But they didn't. And they -- the next thing I knew from where I was -- there weren't that many of us in the parking lot -- the Guard was not surrounded at that point. There's pictures to show it. Lots of lies about that. Now that's not to deny that those people, those Guardsman that were down there didn't feel surrounded, didn't feel threatened, weren't tired, weren't in all kinds of circumstances, but the reality, the physical reality was not that.

So they got up and moved and, I thought retreated up the hill. I was with that group of people that followed them up the hill and said, "Yeah, get off the campus, get outta here, we don't want ya' here, what are ya' doin' here, get outta here," and was makin' lots of noise. And then I heard a single shot. And then there was a volley. I was very close to the Guard and the bullets whizzed past my ears. I was very much in the line of fire.

I do recall -- some of those things are sort of burned in my memory. I remember thinking so clearly when that volley went by my ears, "This is not what it sounds like on TV. This is not what the sound of bullets sound like on cartoons." It was a very different sound, the bullets so close to one's head, to one's ears. Very different sound. And I jumped over bodies and ran down the hill. I also recall some students saying "Walk, don't run. They're only blanks." And I remember thinking "Huh? Why carry a weapon if you don't have something in it that's intended to work." I'm outta here. And I did. I ran over bodies two, three deep were hittin' the ground. And so I ran down the hill to a place of safety, but by the time I was behind that yellow Volkswagen which was right near where Jeff Miller was shot, the volley had stopped. I got up when the volley had stopped to look to see what the heck had happened. And I did see Jeff Miller at that time -- and -- that's when the photograph of me was taken by Jeff Miller. I'd never seen blood like that. I'd never seen anything like that. It was a complete shock. I wanted to touch him. I remember wanting to hold him, but I was afraid of the blood. I did touch him, I did touch and hold his hand. 'Cause I didn't want him to feel alone. I figured how can anybody live with this, his life was running down the sidewalk. Running. Just kept flowing. And there was nothing to be done, that I felt I could do.

However, being the superficial young person that I was, there was somebody I had a crush on from the Art Department who was there, and I got up from this person and went to look for that other guy. And I didn't see him. And when I came back to the side of Jeff Miller that's when Mary Ann Vecchio was there. Who -- I didn't know who she was. I knew she was a young person and she was freaked out and I put my arms around her shoulder and -- cause I'd already been to the site -- and I remember feeling her. She felt like a block of ice. She was frozen. She was stone. She couldn't move. That picture was -- in that picture, sure -- but what was going on in her after her arms were outstretched -- cause that's when I reached her. And I don't remember, I think it was before, when I was at Jeff first that there was a guy that had a flag and he dipped his flag in the blood, when I remember feeling -- and then he jumped in the blood. His feet touched the blood and the blood smashed/splashed out. He was so angry. He was waving that, you know, "Look!" It was all kind of shocking to me.

Ah, well then, more people gathered around. I didn't see anybody else shot. I didn't wander any place else. It was too much of a shock for me. I was a touch on the frozen side. I remember feeling like I wanted to cry but I was in such shock I didn't know what to do. And then some of the National Guard came in the area, and this is all in the photographs. And I remember the Guard in that particular vicinity were as shocked as I was. I remember the looks on their faces. They didn't know what to do. And they didn't know what to say. But there were many students who had come from other areas that were gathered and they became afraid of what, of the emotion that was going on and they retreated. And more students gathered and then ambulances came and people took things away.

[Interviewer]: "We're gonna go on now, and I'm going to ask Carol what other points she would like to leave in the May 4th Archives."

[Carol Mirman]: There were some misconceptions in the press, and I don't know how much has been cleared up. First of all, when the Guard actually turned around and shot, or when they were down in the valley, yes, there were a number of students that were on the top and they were clearly bystanders. They weren't even yelling -- maybe a few were. There were only a few active people in the parking lot that were really raisin' a stink, and that's where those guys turned around and shot. And they shot in an area which some people say was shot with intent. I know that I, as a yelling person, was right in the middle of it, but the Guard were never in danger of their life nor of being overrun by the students. They may have felt that way. That may have been perceived by them that way. But objectively they were not.

The other thing is, what I found so painful, and I still find painful to this day , are the number of citizens across the board who said , "The students should have been shot." To understand what the difference is between exercising your right of free speech -- there's a difference between free speech and burning down a building. I understand the difference between that and burning property. I understand damage to life and limb. But free speech is free speech and I feel like there had been struggles at Kent in 1967 when I first went there, about free speech. And -- because that was what was going on in the campuses in '67 and they were -- had tremendous amount of problems from the University. And the University had had other problems with the Speech and Music Building the year before. And they hadn't exercised the best judgement. But nonetheless, it was really, really, really painful for people to say that the students should have been shot, based on misconceptions and narrow-minded views of "love it or leave it." And people today still say, "Forget it, get over it, forget this stuff; they were rabble-rousers." What does it mean to stand up and say when you're in opposition to the war, when you say we should not be surrounded by tanks and troops, when nobody's really willing to really negotiate and talk about things? What other options are available? I'm not saying burning things down are what's called for, but I'm saying that what happened was wrong. And what came out in the press were lies. And the awful things that people said were terrible. It made it a lot harder for the healing process, for the Guards and the students to be able to stand up and tell the truth, to try and heal. And, so, that's all I want to say.

[Interviewer]: The last point that I would like to ask Carol is were there any specific memories about those very important 15, 30 seconds when actual violence occurred that you specifically remember?

[Carol Mirman]: Yes. There was a crowd of people on the way up by that journalism, by that building, but I distinctly remember a single shot. I remember it in a different sense of my ears. But that single first shot that preceded the volley had a different sound quality. Now granted, I was walking up the hill and when the volley happened I turned around and was running down the hill. But it was very, very different. And there was a space of silence between it. Something happened. And then there was a volley. And it's not to be denied -- I was in the middle of it.

[Interviewer]: Thank you very much.

×