Vita Semeraro, Oral History

Transcribed by Rhonda Rinehart

This is a former employee's -- retired employee's version of my thoughts and feelings from the birthing, the flowering, and the death of May the 4th, 1970. As a supervisor in the registrar's office at that time, I not only employed some of the participants of the May 4th SDS movement, but also had a lot of dialogue -- personal dialogue -- with these students. And in fact, one of them had advised me the day before the ROTC building was burned, that if I had any comp time or any vacation time, that tomorrow would be a good day to take the day off. I had gained confidence with this young lady -- she was the girlfriend of the leader of SDS -- I don't recall his name. At the time, she told me that I had worked too hard and that I should take the next day off. I also felt sorry for her because she came from a very emotionally upset family, and she was on her own. And at that time, students only made $1.90 an hour, and she was helping support the five men that she was living with at the time. This made me feel very bad; it was her choice, but on the other hand, I felt at the time that a human being was being used. And this gave me bad thoughts about this movement. As time went on, I realized they had a message, and someone should listen. My feeling all along has been that I wish they could have done it in a different way. It's not my belief then or now that any human being should have been killed -- there had to have been a better way to do it. Whose fault that was, I've never decided, but I think that each side contributed to the tragedy that took place. At one point in time, I felt so strongly for these young people and their message, that I even walked in the Vietnam parade in Washington, D.C. I'm a native Washingtonian, and I knew the avenue that they were taking -- and I mean literally avenue -- that whoever had orchestrated where they would walk, that they were being led into a trap, because I knew the old post office building and I knew that it had archways and had walkways. It was a very good entrapment for a group that they felt weren't controlling themselves. I'm proud that I did walk with them. I later lost a nephew in Vietnam -- 19 years old that I had raised after his mother died. He got out of a helicopter, was shot down, never saw actual duty. He laid in the swamps for five days before he was found. So I know the heartache. I also know the heartache that the parents must feel over these children. And I guess the Lord provided some kind of survival for them -- they remember the children that they took to church, they took to the circus, they put bow ribbons on -- they were proud of their achievements. And to have their lives snuffed out so early was a terrible tragedy. And it shouldn't happen to anyone.

I also remember the day that they burned the flag. And for my generation, that was a terrible atrocity. They came down from the administration building, they threw a bottle, and it didn't make the ROTC, which was on the second floor of Rockwell Hall. They crashed a twenty foot window behind me with it -- glass all over my typewriter and all over the floor. And my thoughts then were, why do they pick on people like us that just come here to do our job; that these aren't the real people that you're after. How better can you do it? Then many times we had to stand out in the parking lot with no coats on in cold weather or bad weather -- just grab your purse and go because there was a bomb threat in the building. Sometimes we'd stay out there an hour or two, waiting for them to clear the building. And my thoughts then were, we have rights, too. How can we mediate this? How can we come to some common ground where you can get your message through, yet you weren't violating other people's privileges and rights also.

And I kept the records of the students that were shot. For a long, long time they were in my possession, and anyone that came in to review them had to come to me to be reviewed from different departments and different states; primarily Washington, D.C. At one point in time the American [Civil] Liberties [Union] wanted to subpeona me because I had given rosters to the FBI. The FBI at that time was trying to find certain people -- common people that were in with the SDS. And it came down to common rosters were Political Science and Psychology. And it was believed at that time that the core of the SDS came in as full-time students. And then later -- I don't remember if we were on quarters or semesters at that time, or whether it was a semester or a quarter that had gone by -- when that went by, this particular core of people dropped all classes, with the exception of Political Science and Psychology. And these are what they were looking at. My administration had told me that regardless of what the FBI asks you for, you must give it to them because they can go out and get a subpeona and be back in a half hour with it. So I had no compunctions with furnishing them with this material. Also, I was advised by my administration that in no way could American Civil Liberties hold me responsible; that the responsibility lied with my administration.

Since then, I have seen the young lady that I mentioned earlier, and I don't think it hurts to name her because her picture was in the paper. Her name was Mary Cassaday. She came from Silver Lake. Her father was a lawyer in Akron, and he shot himself and his secretary, and broke the family up. And I think that was the beginning of her not knowing which way she should go. I have seen her once since, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, hitchhiking. I'm a little ashamed to say it, I slid down in the seat because I didn't want her to see me. If she would have been alone, I would have helped her. But she was with some young man that didn't look particularly responsible. And with all the things that go on, I was afraid to pick her up. But I will say that I like to feel that I did help her in some small way when she worked for me. I would bring her food, because she didn't have food lots of times. And my generation couldn't accept the time that I would give her food and that she would take it home to these people that she was living with -- because I didn't approve of it, and I wanted her to know that I had some standards and some scruples of my own. And the fact that she confided in me the day before the trouble for ROTC and asked me to stay home showed that there was still some hope for her. And I hope in some way that she has found peace in her life.

[Interviewer]: Thank you very much. Is that all you want to say, or is there more? How have you felt throughout these years since then?

I have felt very inadequate; very sad that I couldn't have helped these young people find a better way to get their message across. The National Guard, I also feel sorry for them. They had come off of bivwack. They were tired. They weren't trained for such an incident. And I don't think it ever has been proved who fired the first shot. I don't know what I would have done in their situation. I wouldn't like to have had rocks thrown at me. I wouldn't have liked to have plastic bags of urine thrown at me. I wouldn't liked to have had plastic bags of fecal matter thrown at me. I think I would want to defend myself. And these are all the thoughts that I have had through the years. But I still think that our young people had a tremendous message to give to our nation, and I just wish that it could have been said in a way that no lives were lost.

[Interviewer]: Thank you very much.

So other than that, I don't know...

[Interviewer]: Very good.

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