Rick Felber, Oral History

Recorded: September 15, 2016

Interviewed by: Lae'l Hughes-Watkins

Transcribed by: Kent State University Research and Evaluation Bureau

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]: This is Lae’l Hughes-Watkins speaking on September 15th, 2016, at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives as part of the May 4 Oral History Project. I will be talking with Richard Felber. I would like to begin with a few biographical questions.

[Rick Felber]: Okay.

[Interviewer]: First, where were you born?

[Rick Felber]: Akron, Ohio.

[Interviewer]: Where did you grow up?

[Rick Felber]: Akron, Ohio.

[Interviewer]: Ok, didn’t stray too far. When did you first come to Kent State?

[Rick Felber]: 1967, yeah, right after I graduated from high school.

[Interviewer]: And what brought you to Kent State University?

[Rick Felber]: Well, the first time it was the bars, I guess, on Water Street and then I enrolled-- I eventually enrolled in the university there.

[Interviewer]: What was your major?

[Rick Felber]: Art.

[Interviewer]: Okay. How would you describe the atmosphere on campus when you first arrived?

[Rick Felber]: It was pretty calm, you know, it was a lot of young people. There was more going on in Akron because there was a lot of racial things going on. There were riots in Akron and in other places, but more oriented towards race than the war at that point in time. So Kent was pretty quiet actually.

[Interviewer]: And do you remember when the first protest that you can recall on campus?

[Rick Felber]: That I attended or-- ?

[Interviewer]: Or even was aware of.

[Rick Felber]: There was one, it must’ve been early, it must’ve been 1968 at that point in time. There was one on the-- there’s like a road that runs around-- they had like a small protest there and I forget the name of it, so I drove up there just to see what was going on. At that time, I wasn’t a student there at that point in time.

[Interviewer]: Can you tell me about your experiences during the period April 30th to May 4th?

[Rick Felber]: I lived in Kent up on Mantua Street at that time. I had three roommates, three or four roommates. I moved in there probably in ‘68 so I was living there ‘68 or ‘69. I was living there during the Kent thing, so I was downtown on the 1st, Friday night, because I hung out down there. And that's when the first-- you know-- people were protesting down there. Mainly there was just people on the street, I was standing outside Walter’s Café and just watching what was going on. The police would go by and they would throw firecrackers at them and that kind of stuff and I really was more observing at that point in time and then I was present on May 1st, May 2nd, May 3rd, and, on May 4th, I arrived on campus after the shootings had taken place, about a half hour after the shootings had taken place.  

[Interviewer]: Can you--

[Rick Felber]: I wasn’t an active participant in each of those dates. Friday night, when they started going down Main Street and headed up to campus we went home, my roommate and I went home. We didn’t participate in that night.

[Interviewer]: On May 1st, you didn’t participate?

[Rick Felber]: Yeah, Friday night.

[Interviewer]: So do you recall what you saw May 2nd or 3rd?

[Rick Felber]: Well, May 2nd, Jerry Rupe and I, Jerry Rupe was my roommate. Jim Harrington was also my roommate. We went up to campus, we had heard there was an antiwar rally on The Commons at about seven o’clock and so that was the night that we got up there, there were a few hundred people there. Nobody really quite knew what to do, but it was like, "Well, what’s going on here?" And it was at that time that someone started-- someone set fire to a small flag and we took the flag away from him and took away his camera too and took his film out of his camera. I think that was-- that was my roommate that did that, it wasn’t me, but that was kind of the beginning of people getting a little rowdy. Then, someone suggested that we needed more people so I climbed onto the bell tower and the bell was ringing and we drew the people around that bell tower and I stood up on the bell tower and told people that we needed to go around campus and get more people to this rally.

So, at that point in time, we marched around the campus, and around especially around Tri-Towers, and the dormitories and that drew more people so, by the time we got back to The Commons, there were probably a thousand people there or so-- if that many. So that was when people started suggesting that they attack the ROTC building. So, at that point in time, people started attacking the ROTC building. They were trying-- they were throwing rocks at it, some people were trying to set it on fire. I’m trying to avoid being specific about who did what, but there were attempts to set the building on fire and then the firemen arrived. There weren’t that many police there. The police arrived, but there weren’t that many, there must’ve been like maybe ten standing at one end of the ROTC building and we were standing at the other end of the ROTC building. So, when the firemen tried to come in and put out the fire, the building was on fire at that point in time, we grabbed the fire hoses and pulled them away and one of the demonstrators literally flew through the air and knocked a fireman down and, at that point in time, he got up and ran away and they attempted to stop putting the fire out at that point in time.

Then, when the building looked like it was on fire, we started to march around the campus. We went up around, once again, around the dorms and down Main Street and that is when the National Guard started to arrive in town. We saw them, they came in on a convoy and we pelted them with whatever we could find-- rocks, whatever, but they weren’t on campus at that point in time, they were just coming into town. So, after they passed by, we went back to The Commons. When we were at The Commons, the building, we sat around, we didn’t-- there were enough police there by that time that we weren’t doing anything more. We were just watching what was going on and, at that point in time, the building appeared to be going out, the fire appeared to be going out, and then abruptly it erupted into flames again. So, at that point in time, my roommate and I just decided well there’s no point in staying here, we went home again.
On Sunday, we came back because we heard there was yet another rally. So we came back again and that night we did the same thing. Like climbed on the bell tower, rang the bell, we marched around, got more people from the dorms, when we headed down Main Street this time there were police at the corner of Main and I forget what street that is-- at the main entrance of the campus there-- and there were also National Guard there. So we didn’t have that many people at that point in time, we’ll say 300 maybe, if that many, and people realized that we were not going to get into downtown. We were not going to march downtown, so everybody decided that they were going to all of a sudden turn peaceful and sit down and so we all sat down in the intersection.  There was like an APC, an Armored Personnel Carrier, there and we were surrounded centrally by National Guard troops at that point in time.

There were some negotiations going on about what to do between the police and the demonstrators. The National Guard had us surrounded in the back and that’s where some people said somebody was stabbed with a bayonet by a National Guardsman. Well, it came to a point where apparently they decided that it was enough of this so they tear gassed us, but instead of arresting us they opened up a-- a hole opened up in the National Guard line and everybody bolted out of that line and headed across campus. I mean literally ran away and we were being chased by the Guardsmen and the police. They chased us all the way to the different dormitories. We got to Tri-Towers and when we got to Tri-Towers the doors were locked and so we couldn’t get in the building but the National Guard were coming so we frantically-- people inside were able to open the doors for us and we ran inside the dormitory. Tri-Towers was really kind of where I met all my friends in Kent, it was like a rotunda in the center of the building where students would go down and hang out down there and even though we didn’t live there or go to school there at that point in time, we used to go there after the bar closed and we’d hang out down there. I met most of my best friends from Kent there.   

[Interviewer]: Okay.

[Rick Felber]: So, we would go there practically every night for a while, that was kind of where we hung out at. So we got into the dormitory there on Sunday night and there was rumors that the National Guard were going to come into the building and try and arrest people, and people were really kind of in a panic at that point in time, but the residents hall’s managers managed to negotiate with the National Guard at that point and I think it was about two or three in the morning. They said there would be a truce and we could leave the building if we wanted to leave.

[Interviewer]: So they were trying to come in just Tri-Towers or all of the-- ?

[Rick Felber]: Well since I was only in Tri-Towers at that time, the rumor was they were trying to come into Tri-Towers, yeah.

[Interviewer]: Okay.

[Rick Felber]: I know in the book they said they went to other dorms but I only went to Tri-Towers. That’s where we got most of our people to join the demonstration anyway, because there were a lot of people living in that building. So, after they called kind of a truce and wanted us to go home, we went home. We just got out of there. There was no point in staying in the dormitory. So the next morning-- ironically, the next morning I had to be somewhere in the morning at like eight o’clock in the morning, I had to take my mother to the doctor, so I wasn’t able to attend the demonstration on campus at eleven o’clock, but at eleven o’clock-- it must’ve been twelve o’clock or so, I was awakened by sirens going past the Mantua street, my house on Mantua Street. So, I got dressed and I went up to campus at that point in time. When I got up to campus, the bodies had already been removed and I had no idea what had happened. So, I was walking across the parking lot and that’s where I saw a pool of blood which was Jeffrey Miller’s blood, but his body had been removed by that point in time. So, I went up to by Taylor Hall and, at that point in time, that’s where the professor was using a bullhorn and telling-- begging people to disperse and just to go home because there was really a point-- at that point that I could see that people were prepared to demonstrate again against them. They were really angry at the National Guard at that point. They had the potential to become even more violent at that point in time, but everybody decided to listen to him and they all went back to wherever they came from. We went back to-- they went back to Tri-Towers primarily, where I went-- I followed them to Tri-Towers. While I was at Tri-Towers that’s where I met that woman that was in the famous photo.

[Interviewer]: Vecchio?

[Rick Felber]: Yeah, Vecchio, and so I met her there and we found out at that point in time she was homeless and she had really nowhere to go. So I went home and I got my roommate, Rupe, and we came back to the dormitories again and, at that point in time, she was gone but, at that point in time-- the dormitories, there was a declaration that the school was closed. It was total panic. They’re bringing buses in and just getting people out of the dormitories, they told them they had to evacuate the dormitories. So, at that point in time, we stayed there for a while and then we went back to our house and that’s when they declared a curfew at that point. I think it was two o’clock in the afternoon and you were not supposed to be outside and so that was the way the 4th ended. We were kind of confined to our house and we watched the helicopters fly overnight. The only thing on the street were Jeeps and police cars. So, that’s how those four days ended. Eventually over that week things got-- the tension in the city was getting to the point where we decided to go to Oberlin, what they called Kent-in-Exile, and we went up there and I think we stayed there for about a week.

[Interviewer]: So when you went to Oberlin it was called Kent-in-Exile?  

[Rick Felber]: Yeah, that’s what is was called.

[Interviewer]: Can you share some more information about that?

[Rick Felber]: I don’t remember specifically where we heard about it, but we were told that basically you could go there because people were really afraid that there were vigilantes in town and so we were-- we just needed to get out of town, because you couldn’t go outside. Even though we did go to Perkins on May 5th for breakfast that morning and you could just sense the tension. It was full of National Guardsmen and the four of us went and my roommate Harrington, and Rupe and Mary Nicholas was another one of my roommates and George Harrington, all the-- they knew the "Kent 25." Out of our household of five people, four of us were indicted for "Kent 25"-- the "Kent 25."  

[Interviewer]: So can you share information how the "Kent 25" unfolded?

[Rick Felber]: I’m sorry?

[Interviewer]: I’m sorry, can you share how-- information on how the "Kent 25" situation unfolded?

[Rick Felber]: Well, over the summer, police came to our house. The FBI came to my house. We were renting a duplex there so we were living upstairs and, twice over the summer, the FBI came over and interviewed me. One time the Arson Bureau from the State of Ohio came and, at one point in time, they took me up to the campus and interviewed me and asked me about what I knew about what happened and, at that point in time, I just-- being young and stupid I just told them yeah I was there. I was there during the demonstrations and so, after they got done interviewing us, and they closed the campus we stayed in town until we went up to-- I think we went  to Washington D.C. that summer for a demonstration right after the Kent State and then we spent the summer in town and in the fall, in September, I was arrested and indicted for drug dealing. I had four counts-- five count of sales, sales of drugs and, while I was in the county jail, I was also indicted on the Kent State charges, the "Kent 25" charges. So, they came as a-- actually they were going to-- apparently, they were going to indict us for the drug thing in May, then the Kent State riots jumped off and they were put aside. So, after I was arrested, I was in the Portage County Jail, they indicted me for four counts as one of the "Kent 25."  

[Interviewer]: Do you know how those twenty-five students were specifically identified? Why was it those specific students?

[Rick Felber]: No I don’t. I haven’t read all the grand jury testimony. I think they were just-- like in our household, they knew who we were, they knew we were drug dealers in that town, I was an ex-student, and I think people just knew by word of mouth and, like I said, I was dumb enough to tell them that I had been at the demonstrations on those nights. I didn’t say that I did anything, I just said I was there and despite-- I don’t really think they ever had any real evidence to prove who was there, especially on Saturday and Sunday nights. If they didn’t talk to them specifically-- because the photographs they had, they didn’t have any photographs of Saturday night. So, I just think basically through the grapevine, people knew who I was and they knew who Rupe was and so I think just generally they just-- you know, and they knew who people were there on the 4th, like Alan Canfora and Tom Grace, and I think they just kind of came up with a list. I think that’s why they had such a difficult time getting convictions on that.  

[Interviewer]: Okay.

[Rick Felber]: And my understanding, I was in Ohio State Reformatory at that point in time-- I had pled guilty to one of the drug charges-- so when I came back from my trial and the "Kent 25," I think one, I think Rupe and somebody else had pled guilty to a misdemeanor, but they weren’t getting any convictions. And Mary Nicholas-- "Nicki"-- was apparently what had happened was they didn’t inform her that her testimony would be used against her in a trial during a grand jury testimony and, at that point in time, they weren’t getting convictions and they dismissed all the charges. The only thing that saved me from going to trial was when I got back to the county jail I fired my attorney, George Martin, because somebody convinced me that I should have this other attorney. Well, that delayed my trial so, eventually I hired the guy back anyway, because someone said you need a local attorney anyway, you don’t need-- David, I forget his name, he was kind of heading the legal defense team for Kent State. And so, by postponing my trial, by the time I was rescheduled to go back to trial, the trials were all dismissed. I’m convinced that if I would have gone to trial I would have been convicted, despite the fact that I was present at Kent State and had admitted that. I was charged with arson and I was charged with interfering with a fireman, first degree riot, and I think second degree riot. Well, by virtue of the fact that I was present, I was guilty of being at the demonstration. I had nothing really-- I did not set the building on fire. I was not someone who did that. I don’t really know who exactly set that building on fire, but, so I was lucky enough at that point in time to have those charges dismissed.

[Interviewer]: Were there any additional circumstances that followed as being in part-- due to being part of the "Kent 25"?

[Rick Felber]: Well, when they dismissed my charges at-- as "Kent 25," part of the reason I went to prison was I pled guilty to the charges, but part of the reason was the atmosphere was that I was not going to get probation on that situation. So, I pled guilty to two counts of selling hallucinogens, so it was twenty to forty years. I was sentenced to twenty to forty years in prison and I was doing my time, I had been in prison maybe eight months at that point in time, but when those charges were dismissed, a lawyer showed up to prison one day and said well, we know that these-- it was actually John Gilligan’s campaign manager, Robert Millbal, and he said, "Well, you know we got these charges dismissed, now we know that politically you went to prison partially because of this..." and he was going to try and get my charges reduced or dismissed and he was successful. He petitioned the court and they reduced my sentence from twenty to forty years, which means I was doing the minimum of thirty-eight months in prison to two to fifteen.

[Interviewer]: Okay.

[Rick Felber]: So it was-- the direct response of that was since I was no longer a part of the "Kent 25," and that was part of the motivation to sentence me to prison for so long that that was an argument to reduce my sentence and, by reducing my sentence, I was immediately eligible for parole and I got a parole.

[Interviewer]: Well, since May 4, have your views changed about what happened? And in what ways have they changed if at all?

[Rick Felber]: Well, you know, I’ve thought a lot, I’m certainly not as idealistic as I used to be, of course, but I was twenty at that time. I think in hindsight, violence-- the violence that went on there, the burning of the ROTC building really doesn’t accomplish anything. Attacking the ROTC building was certainly a symbolic attack, but, in the end, it was counterproductive. I think in hindsight, I think most of the time when any kind of riot, whether it’s social or antiwar that reverts to violence, it becomes counterproductive. It really kind of undermines your whole point of what you’re trying to accomplish. So I think in hindsight-- but at that time, at twenty, it was just like my personal opinion of crowds, is crowds will follow who’s ever doing whatever. People get caught up in their frenzy of the violence or the activity and that’s kind of what you-- people get caught up in the Kent State thing and I think a lot of people don’t understand that when you get a mass of people together you-- it doesn’t take much to control them to do things. So, generally, I think social activism and protest are effective. I generally believe that, even though the antiwar movement didn’t end the war, without the antiwar movement, the war would never have ended because-- well not never, but because that put the pressure on society to realize what this war was about and bring an end to it. So, I think social activism is important, I don’t necessarily agree with the violence that had took place at Kent State, but generally-- and I certainly can’t condone the use of force by the National Guard. I think it was excessive, if not murder, and there was no justification for that level of violence against the students.

[Interviewer]: Does May 4 continue to impact you in any specific way?

[Rick Felber]: I don’t live for it like Alan and Tom Grace do, but every May 4th, I think about it. My values-- many of my social and political values were set during that period of time. I consider myself a liberal Democrat and a lot of my-- prior to that I was basically a blue collar kid. I was facing the draft and not really thinking all that much about my place in society and how I even felt about the war at the time. But I got involved with it, I kind of got caught up in the excitement of it and those values still apply to me today. When I got out of prison, I pretty much had been done, I was done with that stuff. I figured I paid my price, I paid my dues for whatever happened to Kent State or the antiwar issues and I wasn’t going to participate in them anymore and I still do. I will not-- I don’t go to demonstrations, I’m not politically active in any way but Kent State is-- on May 4th, I contact a few friends that are the friends I made there and we talk about it and it was a big time in my life. I don’t live for it, but it certainly was a significant part of my life.

[Interviewer]: Well, Mr. Felber, is there anything else you would like to add that I didn’t get to ask you?

[Rick Felber]: I think there’s a lot of debate about whether the-- on May 4th, I mean May 2nd, on Saturday night, when the ROTC building was burned. I think there’s still a lot of controversy about whether the police set the fire or the students set the fire. I know there was a point in that night of demonstrations that someone actually approached me and said I "should take gasoline out of a parked motorcycle and use it to set the building on fire,” because we weren’t having any luck getting the building on fire and some people say that was a provocateur. I don’t know if that was-- I find it hard to believe that someone would set that-- that the police would try to set that fire just to cast a negative image on the antiwar movement. Like I said, in Tom Grace’s book, I said, “We were sitting there watching the fire, it looked like it was going to go out and all of a sudden the fire re-erupted.” Now, whether that was because there was something inside of it that just reignited or whether someone from the side I couldn’t see set it on fire, I don’t really know. We just figured, at that point in time, there was nothing we could do, so we left. I personally was never that politically active as far as planning any of this stuff, but I participated in it and I think in the end that participation, that event in my life, helped set some-– many of the values I have as a political person. So, it was a big part of my life, but it once again it doesn’t dominate my life. Prison dominates my life more than that ever did, but I’m proud of being one of the "Kent 25" and I still retain those friendships from those days.  

[Interviewer]: Well, if there’s nothing else you would like to add, I would like to conclude the interview at this time and tell you thank you so much for participating in our Oral History Project on May 4.

[Rick Felber]: Okay, do you have any questions? Did I miss anything?

[Interviewer]: No, I think you hit everything.

[Rick Felber]: You know, it’s kind of-- I guess on Saturday and Sunday night and that if you weren’t there at the moment of the shooting, you’re kind of not part of the "Kent 25," know what I mean? If you were there at the shootings like Tom Grace and Alan Canfora, that’s where the significance comes from and the fact that I missed that thirty minutes of time makes you sometimes feel like I’m not really part of what happened there and that does leave me kind of sad at times, but generally I was-- it was a significant part of my life.

[Interviewer]: That’s interesting, that’s the first time I’ve heard that.

[Rick Felber]: That if you weren’t there, you missed it?

[Interviewer]: Yeah, yeah.

[Rick Felber]: Well, my brother was in Vietnam and he said the same thing. He wasn’t in combat in Vietnam, he was in-- supply guy, and he said, “You know, since I didn’t do any fighting," he says, "it’s like I was never there,” and it’s only that history has a tendency to focus on that singular moment and it rightfully should. Alan got shot and Tom Grace got shot, but, in some ways, I feel like I was an active participant in those events and that I shouldn’t-- I sometimes feel like I was relegated to just being a common criminal and I don’t really feel like-- I don’t necessarily feel that's accurate. But, a lot of people that were a part of the "Kent 25" were involved with those days so Jerry [Rupe] and Mary Nicholas and those guys all missed the shootings, but out of our household, once again, four of us got indicted for the events there, so that’s about all I have to say about it. Like I say, it’s something I don’t think that much about. When I got the book, it was interesting to read it again, because I had wanted to go through my memory on the issue and so generally I-- once again I don’t dwell on the topic, but on May 4th I always give it some attention.  

[Interviewer]: Well, we again we do appreciate your story and it will be added to May 4th, to that history.

[Rick Felber]: Okay, one of these days I’ll probably be back in Ohio next year and I have to stop at the archives, I’ve never stopped there.

[Interviewer]: Well, we hope to see you.

[Rick Felber]: Pardon?

[Interviewer]: We hope to see you.

[Rick Felber]: Yeah, I always stop at Taylor Hall and--

*End of Interview* ×