E. Timothy Moore, Oral History

Recorded: May 14, 2009
Interviewed by Craig Simpson
Transcribed by Shannon Simpson

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[Interviewer]: Good morning, my name is Craig Simpson and the date is May 14, 2009. We are conducting an interview today for the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project. Could you please state your name?

[E. Timothy Moore]: E. Timothy Moore.

[Interviewer]: Where were you born?

[E. Timothy Moore]: Cleveland, Ohio

[Interviewer]: When did you attend Kent State?

[E. Timothy Moore]: I started as a freshman in fall of '69.

[Interviewer]: When did you graduate?

[E. Timothy Moore]: With my first degree in 1973, my second degree in 1977. My master of arts--well, first was a BFA and my next was an MA and then my final degree an MFA, all in visual communication design. I got that in 1983.

[Interviewer]: How long have you been in the administration?

[E. Timothy Moore]: Since 1998.

[Interviewer]: How would you describe the culture of the university prior to the events of 1970?

[E. Timothy Moore]: The culture of the university, in my sense, was as you would find any institution of higher education. I remembered coming down here with a group of my high school colleagues to visit Kent State. It is interesting that the bus parked in front of Bowman Hall, where I'm now, I have my office as an associate dean. And it looked like my expectation of any typical university environment. Students were going back and forth to classes. We took a tour of the grounds, and we were very impressed to the extent that many of us that were on that bus ended up becoming freshman that following September. It was just like any other expectation of what you would see on a college campus. But there was no evidence of anything that would lead up, of course, to the May 4th incident.

[Interviewer]: Was there something specific on that tour that made you want to come to Kent State, or were there other deciding factors?

[E. Timothy Moore]: The other deciding factor was the partial scholarship I received from Cleveland Scholarship to come to Kent State. I thought I was going to be an architecture major, but I knew my strength was not in mathematics. So when I learned I needed to take calculus, I decided to follow the advice of my art teacher who told me to go for graphic design; and that's indeed what I went with, and he was absolutely correct. That was my niche. So that's the major that I stayed with throughout all of my degrees.

[Interviewer]: That's interesting. We've had other people talk about the quality of that program.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Oh, phenomenal. And to have been there when it started, because graphic design was a couple of rooms over in--they didn't have a department or an office in the art building, which didn't exist. My first art courses were taken in Van Deusen Hall, but the graphic design program was on the second floor in White Hall. I met my advisor, J. Charles Walker, and John Buchanan, who was a graduate student at that time. We knew each other all while the program grew to become the stellar program that it is today.

[Interviewer]: How would you describe--because you came in 1969, you said--what do you remember about the growing protest movement as it was occurring on campus?

[E. Timothy Moore]: Well, it was my understanding of a continuation of numerous phenomena. First, having come from Cleveland and having witnessed the kinds of riots that were going on all across the country in the '67-'68 period as a result of the Civil Rights Movement from years earlier, that to my understanding evolved into what we would call the "black consciousness movement." At that point, [the slogan] "Black Is Beautiful," and wearing afro hairdos, and wearing African garb was a phenomenon for all of us in Cleveland as well as when we came to Kent State. So there was a vitality in the newness of that whole new attitude about ourselves and appreciation of who we were. And then to come to Kent State and find that a Black Studies program had been created out of that same momentum was a phenomenal thing for me while I was pursuing my degrees in graphic design.

But, at the same time, you had the conversion of the Vietnam phenomenon also happening, where college students and others across the country were beginning to protest an unjust war. And those kinds of precursors paved the way for the merging of those two forces on a college campus where you had people--again, another dimension of the people that were protesting the Vietnam War--were people who were very much in support of the ideas. Because Malcolm X had come onto the scene by this time, and so [did] "by any means necessary" or the whole concept of no longer turning the other cheek. Because, again, this is right around the time when Martin Luther King was assassinated as well. There was even a shift in what we now know was the college experience all across this country. The SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee] even started shifting its view and approaching a new attitude of resistance. Stokely Carmichael became a spokesman of that, of being in support of the ideas of Malcolm X to not turn the other cheek, but use any means necessary to get what you deserve. The Black Panther Party had evolved out in Oakland. And there was also the Black Panther Party that evolved out of the South with the voter registration drives that Stokely Charmichael was involved in.

So you had people paying more attention to politics. In that context, you also had students reading Chairman Mao, Lenin, Marx, and bringing those ideas into their views of the college campus. When I got here, those ROTC buildings that were behind the old Student Union were where I took a number of my art classes as well. And I was also aware of the term "the military-industrial complex" being mouthed by numerous student groups on the campus, because they didn't appreciate the military presence on a university campus. That was another dimension that would contribute to their targeting the ROTC buildings during the May 4th situation.

So, I hoped that helped.

[Interviewer]: Absolutely. Did your own consciousness change as a result of this conversion?

[E. Timothy Moore]: It was a detached observation for me, because I was aware of the circumstances going on, but it wasn't my focus in the sense that I wasn't reading Marx and Lenin and all of that. I was very involved with Black United Students from the first day I stepped onto this campus. Black United Students had what I would call revolutionary-minded leadership at that point, where "Off the pigs" was a common saying because of the violence that they witnessed still happening to black people. So, that violent dimension, and black militants being associated with it, and "black nationalism" being another term that was mouthed very much during those years. All of those, and, "Black Power," of course, which was one of these vague terms that nobody really knew what it meant. But it was something that rallied us just because it sounded so good and had so much power to it. [clears throat] Pardon me. And so I was aware of all of this. I was involved with the Black United Students, so I was hearing these people talking this way but it didn't become my reality. It was just more--I was an observer, I would say.

So I knew of it. But I also knew what I wanted to do, which was art. I also was involved with a musical group that developed on the campus at the time too, from Glenville High, where we had all come where we sang in advanced chorus, and then when we got here we started a musical group. Some of us were considering going pro with our music. But I was more interested in art [laughs]. So I pulled away at that particular time later. But that was another dimension of my involvement when I was here. We were called the Original KSU Black Ensemble. There's even some Stater articles on some of our performances because we sang when Stevie Wonder came here. We sang before him and they wrote up one of the songs that we had created. It was nice.

[Interviewer]: Do you remember when he came here?

[E. Timothy Moore]: I would say, '71? '72? I may even have--because, as I hung around what was then the Institute for African-American Affairs. The reason I hung--well, I hung around it because that was our home away from home for black students. But I noticed the first poor piece of art publicity that I saw was, I think it was for a Richie Havens concert that they were having. So I decided to volunteer my own artistic talents to prepare some of the publicity. From that, Dr. Crosby, who was the director of the Institute, saw my talent and asked me to do a mural because he was creating a series of television interviews with scholars for the first class that would be offered. That was known as "Tour de Black Cosmology and Aesthetic." He didn't have a large budget, but it was an ingenious idea because he brought the best scholars to talk about different topics and he videotaped them, which was not being done by anybody else at that point, so it was very revolutionary. And then that way he had the same lectures that he could share with the subsequent classes, but he wouldn't have to pay someone again to come and lecture them. It was genius.

So all of these things were happening, but I started doing art work for the Institute and then I got hired as an artist. Then I got hired as a graduate student, and then I got moved. Once I got my master's degree I moved on to a tenure-track [position] in Pan-African Studies because at that time it had become a department. And so here I am still pursuing my graphic design interests. I had access to a dark room of my own, because photography was something we learned in graphic design. Then art photography, black experience, the whole Black Studies phenomenon was a part of my growth. I was aware of things but I wasn't immersed in any one particular thing. It was just a convergence of all three. And, so that's why--yes, I knew of people that had views I didn't have, but I also knew why they felt the way they did. It was interesting because by 1971--well, when I first came here and they knew I had artistic abilities, and the Kuumba House if you've ever seen a picture of it--

[Interviewer]: Which house, I'm sorry?

[E. Timothy Moore]: That was the Black Cultural Center. It was--see, when the students protested the walk-out in 1968--and that's what some of those photographs I want to see [are about]. Doug Moore or someone chronicled that walk-out. They protested some people coming on to the campus to recruit for the Oakland Police Department, and they knew that black people were being killed by the Oakland Police. And that's in some ways what sparked their resistance on this campus and led to a sit-in in the administration building, I believe, or over on Rockwell Hall at the early part of campus, and then eventually led to the walk-out. The university negotiated with them to return, and part of the negotiation was for them to create a Black Studies program, which became the Institute for African-American Affairs, and then to create a Black Cultural Center, which became--it was a house called the Ward House right on the corner, across from Satterfield Hall where the Business College now sits.

So I arrive. They find out I have artistic skills. I painted a sign showing that this was the Kuumba House. And it was a 4x8 sign that we put on the roof with Black United Students logo on it, and that was our Black Cultural Center. Because they knew I had artistic skills they selected me to be the Minister of Culture, because at that time Black United Students had modeled themselves after the Black Panther Party that had a Minister of Defense, a Minister of Education, a Minister of Publicity; and I was Minister of Culture because I had an artistic background. They wanted me then to become president when the elections were coming up, but I declined at that point because I was interested in joining a fraternity. I took some time off away from BUS to pledge and become a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Once I joined a fraternity I got back involved again, and in 1971 I became President of Black United Students. Part of my platform was the recognition that many black students were being alienated from BUS because they weren't interested in violence. They weren't interested in a revolution that had a violent dimension to it. There was a big concern because certain people felt--they were preoccupied with what we called the 'blacker than thou" mentality: that if you didn't subscribe to the same tenants of being black that they felt you should, then you were not "down with them," so to speak. So certain people started feeling alienated from the Black United Students because of this kind of revolutionary rhetoric.

Another group that was influencing our thinking was the Black Muslims, the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam at that time was espousing the idea that the white man was the devil, which is pretty much the reverse of what white folks had thought earlier about black people. In that context, they talked about black women dressing up like white women, wearing short miniskirts and et cetera, when Muslims did not do that. Women on the campus who chose to dress as they felt was appropriate were chastised--would be the best way of saying it--by the leadership of BUS. So I saw an alienation process happening, as well as a dimension of the "Greek" population--the black Greek organizations. The Omegas, at that time the Delta Sigma Theta organization, the Alpha Kappa Alpha organization--all of these were black fraternities and sororities. The leadership of BUS felt that all of the fraternities and sororities were not like them, and they felt that the fraternities and sororities were just interested in parties and dances and were not interested in the same revolutionary ideals that they were. So there was a big rift happening on the campus between the non-Greeks and the Greeks that was fueled by the leadership of BUS. Now here I am, a member of the BUS executive board, and I'm also a member of a fraternity; so they thought that by my becoming president I might be able to bring the two worlds back together.

[Interviewer]: A compromise.

[E. Timothy Moore]: A compromise. But it didn't happen. [Both laugh.] These were two worlds set in place. But, part of what I said, and it's a--there was a Stater article where they interviewed me when I became BUS president, and I was just saying that my administration was not about alienating anyone but trying to bring everybody back together.

[Interviewer]: What was the general attitude of BUS toward SDS?

[E. Timothy Moore]: SES?

[Interviewer]: SDS.

[E. Timothy Moore]: SDS. We saw them as colleagues. We supported SDS, SDS supported BUS. And I think that SDS and other white groups that--the Weathermen was another group that was also here--all of them were in sync with the kind of revolutionary ideals that were floating around the campus at that time. So there was no resistance to what SDS was doing. We were seen as colleagues, they were seen as colleagues.

[Interviewer]: Right, because I think I remember seeing SDS had supported BUS with the walk-out of '68.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Absolutely, that was my understanding too. Yes.

[Interviewer]: What memories do you have of the events of May 4, 1970? You can start wherever you like. Some people start the weekend prior, or some people begin on the day of.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Okay. Well, for me, I was going through "Hell Week" for my fraternity. And the first thing that I knew when the events leading up to May 4 were occurring [was] when the students had protested Cambodia--the Cambodia decision by Nixon--and things started intensifying. I think we didn't really start responding until the National Guard were called in. And BUS told us to stay away. The leadership. So we did in that context. And then I was forced to stay away anyway along with my line-brothers, because we were finishing the fraternity process. We were on the other side of campus in small group in a residence hall called Munzenmayer Hall where we were sequestered and we could only speak to the big brothers and then go to class. Once we went to class we were expected to come back to what was then called the "Dog House," because the process for becoming an Omega man was you start off as what is known as a "Lampado." You pledge for a certain amount of weeks, and then when you are being initiated through "Hell Week" you are transformed into a "Q-Dog," we called them. We actually dressed up with dog collars. They shaved all of our hair, and we had to walk and talk as one line, and that was part of the process. We were all caught up into that.

So that's where we were. And then we heard about these buildings being set on fire. We could see the smoke at the night time in the air. But that was all that we heard. And then going to class and seeing National Guard--part of our process of the initiation was to carry purple bricks that each line-brother had to carry. The National Guard didn't want us carrying bricks because, again, that could be a weapon, so they made us put them down. We just went to class and went back to the "Dog House." Next thing we heard, some students got shot. But we were nowhere near it.

[Interviewer]: What was the formal reason for the leadership at BUS saying don't go to the rallies or don't participate--

[E. Timothy Moore]: I think it was just a common-sense perception that whenever police or military people have guns around black people there's a probability that they'll become the victims. In that context, I think it was just that common-sense perception: "Stay away from that." And so--have you interviewed Larry Simpson?

[Interviewer]: No, I haven't.

[E. Timothy Moore]: He is a provost now in Baltimore, at a school of fine arts or a school of music. Not Baltimore, Boston. I can get specifics, but he was the President of Black United Students at that time.

[Interviewer]: That would be great.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Yeah. Another person was Erwind, E-W- [pause], no, E-R-W-I-N-D Blount. Some people called him "Blunt." B-L-O-U-N-T. He was president after Larry Simpson. Another, third person--I just bumped into him yesterday, as a matter of fact--his name was Charles Everhart. Charles Everhart.

Okay, Larry Simpson was president when I arrived as a freshman, Erwind Blount took over after Simpson, and Charles Everhart was president of BUS after Blount, and then I was president after Charles Everhart. Now Charles Everhart is teaching math up at Martin Luther King High School in Cleveland; [I know] because I bumped into him yesterday. [laughs] Because I went up to speak to some students there, he comes up and calls my name and is--

[Interviewer]: It was fortuitous.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Yes! And those people could give you more than I, as to what the real motivation to tell us to stay away was and what their views were at the time. That was the leadership.

[Interviewer]: Did you know Curtis Pittman?

[E. Timothy Moore]: I knew Curtis Pittman very well.

[Interviewer]: Because he's pretty much the only other person that we've been able to interview for this who kind of mentioned the same thing you did--that it was just kind of a common-sense argument to stay away. He talked about how that was interesting, because, when you listen to the interviews of a lot of white students and alumni and faculty, that they were surprised that there was actually live ammunition being used.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Yes, we knew from experience in the black community, you don't fool around with police. Especially not. And military people? No. Stay away.

[Interviewer]: What do you remember your personal reaction being when you heard about the shootings?

[E. Timothy Moore]: Surprise. How could this happen? But again, I was not into politics per se, except that I got woven into being involved in politics by virtue of my--well, at this time I wasn't even president of BUS, I was still a freshman.

[Interviewer]: Minister of Culture.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Right. Or previous Minister of Culture at that point. So I knew of everything, but it did not really affect me directly. It was more an observation of the events going on that led to us being shut down for the year, because of the closing of the university and et cetera. But unexpected. Who would ever have thought that anybody would shoot some students, even if they had bricks and bottles? A bullet is a drastic answer.

[Interviewer]: What do you remember about that summer? Did you take correspondence courses?

[E. Timothy Moore]: We had to--no. The professors, I think, were reasonably lenient with their grading because of the abrupt way by which things stopped. As I suspect, we were only dealing with very close to Finals Week. Because this was May, and so summer school was within three weeks, so finals wasn't that far off. I think most professors really did have a really good sense of where their students were. Even without necessarily giving a final, I think that we did do some written take-home exams. You mailed them back in by a certain time, and that became the formal resolution of the class. Thirty some years ago. But I do remember, yeah, we did do something to resolve most of the classes. I had art classes, so it was more whatever we had done to that point, I think, sufficed in most of those classes. Drawing classes, for example, because you couldn't come back and draw anymore models, and so the professors basically went with what you had already done, that helped to make the grade you earned.

[Interviewer]: What do you remember about the atmosphere on campus that fall when the university reopened?

[E. Timothy Moore]: One of, again, mixed perceptions of what happened, [and] why? Unresolved and unanswered questions. Glad to be back. Wondering again if this would ever get resolved. Trying to get back to a sense of normalcy after what had happened. I, again, just came back. Continued my art classes. Hung out in the Institute in the Cultural Center. And it was life as normal or as usual for most black students, I would say. But, again, this was looming over our heads as a bigger thing than--and now it was a national understanding. But we just came back and started getting back into the normal things that we would do as students.

[Interviewer]: What year again did you say that you finally left Kent State, that you finally got your degree?

[E. Timothy Moore]: I graduated with my first degree in '73, but I didn't leave because right after that I was offered a graduate assistantship. And that same summer I began starting as a GA. And then from there--but I've never left.

[Interviewer]: You've been here ever since?

[E. Timothy Moore]: I've been here ever since. Yes.

[Interviewer]: That kind of puts you in a really good position insofar as talking about the administrative response to these events through the years. What's your impression of the university's response through, for example, the Gym Annex controversy in the late '70s through the Memorial Design [Competition] in the '80s to maybe how it is now?

[E. Timothy Moore]: You know, it's really interesting when you look in retrospect; and I understand why some people refer to this place as "Chaos U."

[Interviewer]: [laughs} I've never heard of that.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Really? Oh, yeah. Now here we have an administrative decision to build an Annex to an area contiguous to the site of the shootings. So you can see why students would be very upset that were more involved than we were. But I'm just, again, observing from afar. You have, on one hand, the need for expansion of the Memorial Gym into an area that to them is close but is not violating the sacredness of what the students feel it is violating. And then you have those students that feel it was a violation and should never have been done in the first place. And now when we look at how that space is even used, very little of it is used for Gym-related purposes. The School of Architecture, I believe, is in the majority of that space and the School of Exercise, Leisure and Sport has a number of offices there. So in some ways it's still being used, but it's interesting that's now a dead issue, and we've gone on and it did turn to be that it was not really a violation of the space, the sacred space. But, again, you have different points of view on that and I'm sure there's some people who would say that it is still a violation.

But, from my standpoint, it was just an observation again. As I'm going back and forth to class and as I have a camera, and as I see these people out here setting up a "Tent City," so when I had a camera with film in it I took some shots--of some of what I saw as the protesters--through some of the years. Some years it was more intense than others, I think, just because you have people drinking and smoking and talking revolution still, and sometimes that just gets carried away. Then violence happens where they started trying to tear down some of the benches and et cetera. But it was just more of an observation from my standpoint, a detached observation, because it didn't personally affect me. Did you ever hear the lecture by Dick Gregory?

[Interviewer]: I heard some of it. We have a copy of it, of the audio recording.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Okay.

[Interviewer]: That was in 1971?

[E. Timothy Moore]: That was. That's correct. And what he referred to those students as the "new niggers," and tied it in with a story that was in some ways accurate and in some ways very symbolic about the need [for] and the kind of violence that is a part of America. The need to always have an underdog that can be abused and shot and killed. So, in that context, he tied it into the students. He did a masterful job of how he weaved it together in his story that he told to us. I don't know if I've fully answered your question?

[Interviewer]: You have. Yes. And, today, kind of where you are now, the last ten years or so roughly, do you think the university has responded to these events better now than it did then?

[E. Timothy Moore]: Yes and no. As an artist, when I do artwork, I like to do artwork that is either self-explanatory or can become explained by the creator, so that I as the observer understand what was trying to be communicated. I think it, again, it was indicative of "Chaos U.", the way that for so long they tried to act like this thing would go away from the administration's vantage-point; and this was pre-Schwartz and then through Schwartz's administration. Then they come up with this contest which became a national embarrassment when the winner was a Canadian.

[Interviewer]: The Memorial Design Competition.

[E. Timothy Moore]: Right, the Memorial Design.The Memorial that is up there--help me understand what it represents. What it symbolizes in common-sense terms. For me, art should be able to communicate to most people when they see it. I see some interesting structures, but I don't know what the artist was thinking. I see this little brochure and, it's amazing, I don't even think I've ever read this brochure to see if it adequately explains it. But that's just my own personal view. It was an attempt. I think the university has been trying to do better, and I think over time they had to, when eventually you see that you can't sweep this under the rug. This is something that's national, international, and it's always going to be associated with Kent. I think this most recent thing on College Street helped to remind everybody of student violence and the potential for problems among college students, and it wasn't good for the university either.

[Interviewer]: Just to get a context for what you're saying, you're talking about the--

[E. Timothy Moore]: The College Street fires.

[Interviewer]: The protests that happened a couple weeks ago.

[E. Timothy Moore]: I don't think it was so much of a protest as much as it was just students having fun.

[Interviewer]: Right, right.

[E. Timothy Moore]: But most people seeing the students set some bonfires and were burning furniture could attribute it to protests just like May 4th.

[Interviewer]: I said "protests" automatically [both laugh], but I absolutely don't think that was the case.

[E. Timothy Moore]: And I think that most people will make that same case.

[Interviewer]: But the police shot pepper-spray, pepper-whatever--

[E. Timothy Moore]: It was just a little too May 4th. At least it wasn't bullets this time.

[Interviewer]: Right, right.

[E. Timothy Moore]: That same series of principles and phenomena is going on. There are still some unanswered questions and the university has done much, much better at trying to address these things in a straightforward way. But I think there will always be a level of unclarity as to what all happened and how it was all resolved. And another thing I keep hearing over and over again, and I'm hopeful I can communicate it to the powers-that-be: Nobody has ever--now, Sandy [Halem] might have, in her interviews--nobody has really talked to people in the community to see what they felt, what they feel now. That's a travesty. Here we are coming up on the 40th anniversary and we never paid attention to the people that live here, that this happened to. We only pay attention to what the students think and what the faculty thinks and what the staff and the Kent-KSU people think. But these people were on the streets living in those houses when this stuff was going down, and these jeeps and tanks are coming into their town and nobody talked to them, and that is a serious travesty. So I would hope that would get rectified at least by the 40th, you know? That's a big gap in the whole May 4th thing. That is untouched, untapped.

I mentioned it to President Cartwright. I said, "President Cartwright, why don't we interview the people in the community?" She didn't want to touch it. I hope maybe President Lefton might be a little more open to that; or some committee be established to set up some process to get their point of view, while they're still around. Because I know a person who's on my staff who brought it up to me last week. So they still have bitterness because of the fact that they're still here but this void is there. But we talk about having a town-gown relationship again, and we still haven't done the human thing to get a discussion. Now, yes, some people are going to go off on tangents and get political and say, blah blah blah, this should have happened. But at least let these people vent, and let them get it out, too.

That's enough on that, I think. The point, I think, is made.

[Interviewer]: Are there any other thoughts you would like to share?

[E. Timothy Moore]: Since it is coming up on the 40th, again, it is going to be a big scenario, so they'll probably convene another committee to prepare and plan for it. It would be nice if on the 40th we should have real understanding of what did happen and what has been done since then to rectify this injustice. I'll just leave it at that. Because I heard that there were some documents that were secure within the government that couldn't be released until maybe fifty years later, or something like that. I don't know, it could be rumor. But if that's true, it would be nice to know what other documents and details are on the record that haven't become public, so that we could finally move to some true closure and move forward with an understanding never again should this happen on any college campus. That's what I would say.

[Interviewer]: Tim, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me.

[E. Timothy Moore]: My pleasure, Craig.

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