Curtis Pittman, Oral History

Recorded: May 4, 2000
Interviewed by Sandra Perlman Halem
Transcribed by Amanda Remster

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[Interviewer]: This is Sandra Perlman Halem. We're at WKSU recording an oral history interview. Would you please give us your name and where you were on May 4, 1970.

[Curtis Pittman]: My name's Curtis Pittman. People know me as Jeter at Kent State University. On May 4th, prior to the shootings, I was on my way to class--sociology class--with Dr. Fleming. Also I was on the track team with Kent State and we had--prior to May 4th--we had just came back from Bowling Green State University that weekend, May the 3rd.

[Interviewer]: What did you remember specifically about the events of that day once you returned to the campus?

[Curtis Pittman]: Well that day when we came back to the campus, I mean we had read and heard what was going on at Kent while we was at BG. It was fantastic when we came back to see all the National Guards walk around the campus, their jeeps and stuff like that, guys carrying radio packs on their backs with antennae about thirty feet long. Monday, we was aware--well I was aware--of the rally that was supposed to take place on the Commons. But at the same time, the Black United Students, which I was a member of, had encouraged the black students to stay away from the rally because they felt that if there had been any kind of trouble, that most likely we would be the first ones targeted. So we was more encouraged to either stay away from the rally and to go about normal business, basically to go to class. And that's what I was in the process of doing, prior to the shootings, on my way--I lived in Beall-McDowell Hall--and was on my way over to the other side of the Commons to go to my sociology class and--

[Interviewer]: What--

[Curtis Pittman]: --prior to me getting to--on the other side, by the old student union building, because I forgot the name of where I was at sociology class [laughs]--the building. But anyway, we had heard some noise, and then eventually, when I got into the building, was smelling tear gas. Next thing I know people are telling us we had to leave the building. And then I went back and heard how some of the students had gotten shot and we was told that we couldn't go back to the Commons, but we could see what was going on from where we was sitting--you know, standing.

[Interviewer]: You were very instrumental in the Black United Students before this time, is that correct?

[Curtis Pittman]: Yeah. I was Minister of Education. I was basically in charge of the African Liberation School, which is a--we had a food program for the kids in the Skeels-Ravenna area every Saturday and I was in charge of that.

[Interviewer]: Was there a particular--I mean, you've stated that many of the members of the African-American community on campus were not a part of the rally, or told it would be better if they were not at the rally for their own safety. Was there a history of BUS [Black United Students] being involved prior to that though in demonstrations on campus in any way related to Vietnam?

[Curtis Pittman]: Basically just the BUS leadership. You know, maybe Rudy Perry, Erwind Blount, Fargo--Ibrahim [al-]Kafiz now--myself indirectly. Because one I was an athlete also, so I had to cover myself being a varsity athlete, a scholarship athlete, and not be too much involved with the politics. But at the same time, during the Vietnam War, world--U.S.-wide--that a lot of minorities: blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, were volunteering for the Marines. Even I had volunteered for the Marines prior to me coming to Kent State. The armed forces was a job opportunity for a lot of blacks between, I guess, between '66 and '70, that we had no problems with the Vietnam War. Outside even, Martin Luther King was not until around '67, '68 that he felt that something was wrong with the war. Then we all became aware that something was wrong with this war. And at Kent State, we had our own personal concerns that we was dealing with there. Seemingly like white students weren't even really concerned about what we were concerned about, in terms of trying to get more black teachers onto the campus, we had just started the Black Studies program, the Institute for African-American Affairs, back in '68, with the bringing in Dr. Crosby. And also Skeels-McElrath. The township of Skeels in Ravenna housed people who had moved from the south up north to work in Ravenna, building weapons during World War II. And it was a shame for a town like Ravenna, or Skeels, the township, to have hardly any electricity, hardly any running water, fifteen, twenty miles from a state university. And that was our primary concern, and not so much, say, the Vietnam War, the people protesting the war.

[Interviewer]: Do you remember after the shootings, any memories of what life was like when you returned to school. Did you come back in the fall?

[Curtis Pittman]: Yeah. One, I was on the football team. And it was kind of strange. One, after the shootings, and when they closed the school down, I didn't go home because we didn't know whether or not they was going to reopen the school. And so some friends of mine allowed me to stay with them up in Warrensville Heights, out of Cleveland, while we was waiting to see what the word was. And then we found out that most of our exams was going to be taken by mail or by telephone. And I’m almost glad [laughs] in a way, because I took twenty credit hours that time, and got about a 3.8 average. It kind of brought my grade point average up. But that day in August, when we came back to the football program, we were told that since we were the first ones coming back, that we had to show some kind of unity. They gave us all these shirts at KSU, that spelled out Kent State United. I didn't have that kind of association with the townspeople except out of a part that we called Dodge, which is in the black community of Kent, by Elm Street--I'm trying to remember the name of the bar down there. But people took us in, as far as--they made us feel as if we were part of their family, in terms of in the black community of Kent. Because they were aware of what had happened on the campus, and because it also happened in their town, in terms of the fires downtown at the bars. They was basically kind of concerned for our health and our welfare and I felt kind of touched by it.

[Interviewer]: And that contrasts somewhat to the divisions between the student and the Kent community, which wasn't always--there was sometimes considered a division between the students and the Kent community. You're saying that was quite different in the black community?

[Curtis Pittman]: Yes, I felt it was different. I wasn't really aware--well, I was aware of the divisions basically in terms of the townspeople and those who were responsible for halfway--maybe not destroying downtown--but causing a ruckus and the fires downtown, at the bars and stuff. But the black community at Kent State was real small. Out of, I guess around 20,000 students, there was probably only at least maybe about eight to fifteen hundred black students on the campus, and a number of them from out of state, outside the Cleveland area. I don't know, that aura between, in terms of the black community, we was just picked up and sheltered by members of the black community. And also out of Ravenna too. I think because of our relationship with Skeels Township, and that African Liberation Program, that we had, the food program, because very few white people were involved with that food program. When we brought the kids from Ravenna to Kent every Saturday morning. So we kind of had a relationship with the town, with Ravenna as well as Kent. I think we had more relationship with them than, say, than the white students did.

[Interviewer]: One question that comes up often is the fact that the students did not, and faculty, did not believe or could not comprehend that the Guard had loaded weapons. That seems to be a different attitude among the black students, that they were not nearly as surprised.

[Curtis Pittman]: Oh no, we've been subject to so much harassing or abuse by the police that the National Guardsmen were no--I mean they weren't really the military, they were like, as far as we was concerned, police. And there was no imagination in mind in saying that those guys didn't have no blanks or pellets in their rifles, that we all assumed that they had real bullets. And the fact that they even had guns or rifles, it was automatic that we was not going to be involved in any kind of pushing or shoving that would constitute somebody retaliating because we felt we would be the first ones targeted, because we usually are the first ones targeted. And that was the gist of the whole thing.

[Interviewer]: And that was the reason in fact that you were told--that many of you didn't attend?

[Curtis Pittman]: Exactly. I think it was just a feeling.

[Interviewer]: Because it, you know, it's over and over stated that when the students were--if they were throwing anything or in any way harassing the Guard, that they always believed that the Guard would never retaliate with loaded weapons. And obviously that's not what the African-American students believed.

[Curtis Pittman]: No. Not really. Like I said, the fact that they had guns, and being on the campus. Even the campus police didn't have guns, but they had the National Guard on our campus, and to see that weaponry, that type of weaponry. Especially when the track team came back, because we came back that Sunday. It was just awesome to see all this. It was like being at a military base. So as far as the feelings by black students that we was definitely not going to be involved in all this stuff.

[Interviewer]: One last question I think is very important is how did your feelings--or what were your feelings when you heard about Jackson State? When the reports of the killings at Jackson State ten days later.

[Curtis Pittman]: To tell you the truth, Sandy, it wasn't really--I didn't have that much feelings myself. I was too busy trying to make sure that I was going to be--trying to see about my own education at Kent State and that I didn't really hear about Jackson State until probably a few months later, even after the Jackson State event even occurred. But the fact that it did take place, I didn't feel any surprises. I had known about other shootings that occurred at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that it wasn't really a surprise. It was just something that was just accepted--to me.

[Interviewer]: And finally, are there any other comments that you would like to leave on the record for the May 4th oral history?

[Curtis Pittman]: Only that when we talked, I talked to you last week, that I had received this magazine from the alumni association, and the president of the college--the university, I can't recall the name right at this moment--

[Interviewer]: President Cartwright.

[Curtis Pittman]: --yes, was mentioning the fact that she was trying to see that the Kent State University, the name, Kent State, stayed in the consciousness of the administration, as well as Ohio, as well as the United States. Because I was kind of disappointed that, say a few years after the shootings, I guess maybe around '78, that the knack was to try to take the State out of the name, Kent State, and just call it Kent University. But I'm glad she's keeping it, because people need to remember what happened May 4th. That should never leave the consciousness of anybody, even in the year 3000, so it will never happen again.

[Interviewer]: Well, I'm going to stop the tape now, and thank you, and then we'll just talk a few more minutes.

[Curtis Pittman]: Okay.

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