Sue Misheff, Oral History

Recorded May 3, 1990
Transcribed by Rhonda Rinehart and Craig Simpson

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]: Okay, I would just like to welcome you here today on May 3rd, 1990, and please feel free to express your feelings or your thoughts on what happened twenty years ago.

[Sue Misheff]: Okay. Well, I was a freshman at Kent State at the time and I had gone home for the weekend and heard all the difficulties over the news. I came back Sunday night; I lived in Terrace Hall, and so because that was so close to the president's house there were a lot of Guards around. I lived in a ground floor in the dorm room so all night long we had Guardsmen shining lights into our room and generally trying to keep students away from the president's house. I watched quite a few students try to get away from the Guards to try to get back to their dorm rooms; they were out after curfew. And because Terrace Hall was so close to the action there they had locked the doors, and there was a group of us going around unlocking the doors to let in students who were being beaten by the Guards outside. None of us got any sleep that night because of all the commotion going on outside and the lights being constantly shown into our room.

The next day I was supposed to take a mid-term exam in English. I got up and went to that, but the test was cancelled; the professor said none of us feel in the mood to take a test today so she let us go. I remember walking across campus and overhearing some news people over there saying, "Well, it looks pretty quiet today, we'll probably go home." But there was something in the air that you could just feel. We knew at that point about the noon rally. It was getting on towards noon and I had decided already that I was going to go to the rally. I wasn't extremely political, but I cared a lot about the war in Vietnam. I had friends who were there, who had been killed there. And I was always a very non-violent person and I heard the rally was to be non-violent. It was to be a peaceful demonstration, to try to make a statement about having the Guard leave campus, and that seemed perfectly reasonable to me. When we got there, we came with our handkerchiefs drenched in water just in case we were tear-gassed. That was a real possibility because that had been going out all weekend.

The rally was peaceful for such a long time and I remember a student who had just become a Christian running around telling people to leave, that there was going to be trouble and a lot of people were laughing at him anyway for his changed views in life and so nobody really paid attention to him. But I can still see him going up and down the rows of students who were all in The Commons - I was close to the Engleman sign. It didn't seem to get nasty until the Guards came, and then of course things began to heighten and...Since I was on The Commons, I didn't really see the shooting occur. We heard the shots, we saw the smoke from the guns, and we just thought it was fireworks or blanks. None of us even dreamed that they would be using live ammunition. But then I remember seeing a boy run over the hill with a T-shirt, a bloody T-shirt screaming that they were killing people. And I just went into shock at that moment; I just couldn't believe that could be happening on such a beautiful spring day here. And I was 19 years old and very idealistic and, um, I couldn't move. I was glad that Dr. Frank came and asked us to have time to sit down on The Commons and just to be quiet and try to get some sanity going. He was the only voice of peace. I remember hearing that day. I think if it hadn't been for him, it would probably have been a lot worse. But I remember sitting very close to where he was standing with his bullhorn trying to talk to us and calm us all down and ... At that point there were rumors that there had been Guardsmen shot, too, so we really didn't know what had happened. We were all very confused. But General Del Corso, I believe, came over to Dr. Frank and told him to get us off The Commons or we would all be hurt more. And I remember Dr. Frank telling us all to walk off and to get home as best we could, that these people would kill more of us if given the chance. And I remember looking around and being completely surrounded on The Commons by the Guards and their guns and their bayonets pointed at us. And it was like being in a dream; it was like watching myself go through these motions of trying to walk off the campus and The Commons and try to get home.

I lived in Terrace, so I didn't have very far to go, but the first thing I heard when I got into my dorm room was my roommate saying that the students deserved what they had gotten. And that was my first taste of that awful, ignorant attitude. And of course all the phone lines were down, and I'm an only child; my parents had no idea what was going on with me, and they were of course extremely worried and they lived in Cleveland.

But I think probably the one image I have of the extreme emotional confusion after that was when I went to Canada right after that, and I had a Volkswagen with the peace signs and the Kent State sticker on the back of it. I was passing through some construction in the area, and these construction workers looked at me, saw my car, and started yelling at me, calling me a murderer, and, uh, and I thought, they will never ever blame anyone else but the students for this. I think that's still happening. You know, the other day - I'm a professor here now; I've gotten three degrees from this university. I teach in the English department here, and I was looking at the plaster casts and a young student behind me was saying, "well, they never talk about how the students were spitting at the Guards." And I didn't even want to turn around to talk to her because I knew she would never understand that spitting is not an excuse for murder. And to me that's what it will always be; there will never be any justice done. I'm still - I'm almost 40 years old now and I still have not come to terms with this. I'm bringing my two children with me tomorrow; taking them out of school and 'cause I think it might help them to understand me better. And hopefully it will help me to understand me better, I don't know.

[Interviewer]: You still have a lot of confusion in your mind?

[Sue Misheff]: I do. I've never been able to reconcile that day.

[Interviewer]: But you understand why it and how it happened?

[Sue Misheff]: Yeah. But I teach a course on the Holocaust now and I really think - I don't think I would be teaching that course if it weren't for what I went through. I'm still trying to find answers to people's hatred, you know? And sharing that with students helps. I think I'll probably do that for the rest of my life, though.

[Interviewer]: Probably in addition to hatred, there was fear--

[Sue Misheff]: Yeah.

[Interviewer]: --that unleashed those dark forces. I think it was a little bit of both.

[Sue Misheff]: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[Interviewer]: Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

[Sue Misheff]: I don't think so. I think it's important; I'm glad we're doing this. Yes. I think this is so important. It's part of the healing that we all need to be going through right now.

[Interviewer]: And I think that for those people that were there, this is especially. Because not everybody is an historian.

[Sue Misheff]: Right.

[Interviewer]: And it gives them an opportunity to tell their point of view.

[Sue Misheff]: That's true.

[Interviewer]: Are you afraid for tomorrow?

[Sue Misheff]: Yes.

[Interviewer]: What might happen tomorrow--

[Sue Misheff]: I really am.

[Interviewer]:--on campus?

[Sue Misheff]: I really am. I'm going to try to stay towards the back, especially since my children will be there with me. Because I've overheard just too many younger students especially, who like the excitement, you know? Um, I've heard rumors that there are some students who want to re-enact the whole thing. I cannot even imagine doing that. I think that's so inappropriate.

[Interviewer]: But don't you think it's a different atmosphere this year than it was then?

[Sue Misheff]: Yes, but I also believe that the Holocaust could happen again, you know?

[Interviewer]: Oh, yes, I agree.

So I think that Kent State May 4th could happen again, too. I don't think that we're immune from it completely.

[Interviewer]: Because people have emotions.

[Sue Misheff]: Sure. It seemed so unlikely 20 years ago. I would have said 20 years ago, "Well, of course nobody will get really hurt. We'll have a demonstration, but it won't be that bad." So, yeah, I don't trust people much anymore. I'm afraid to say that, but it's true. But then I do have a lot of hope, too, for people because I think as a teacher I have to, otherwise I couldn't do what I do.

[Interviewer]: Well, very good. Thank you.

[Sue Misheff]: Thank you.

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