Michael Braff, Oral History

 

Recorded: February 2, 2017

Interviewed by Kathleen Siebert Medicus

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & 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 Kathleen Medicus speaking on February 2, 2017, at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives. This part of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project. I will be talking with Mr. Michael Braff by telephone. Mr. Braff is out of state in Missouri and is on the line. Good afternoon, Mike. Do you mind if I call you Mike?  

[Michael Braff]: That’s fine. Not a problem, Kathleen.

[Interviewer]: I’d like to begin with a few questions about your background. Could you please tell us where you were born?

[Michael Braff]: Cleveland.

[Interviewer]: And, did you grow up in Cleveland also?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, graduated high school and then went to Kent.

[Interviewer]: What brought you to Kent State University?

[Michael Braff]: You know, I really don’t know. The only thing I could remember, I thought it was a good idea, because it was close to home and I could get my laundry done for nothing.

[Interviewer]: That’s a very practical consideration.

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, I thought so.

[Interviewer]: So, were you—you grew up on the east side?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, east side, South Euclid and Lyndhurst area.

[Interviewer]: In 1969-1970, what class were you in? Were you a freshman, sophomore?

[Michael Braff]: No, in the fall of ’69—what would it have been, what—my sophomore year.

[Interviewer]: Did you have a major? What was your major at that point?

[Michael Braff]: Business administration.

[Interviewer]: So, when the shootings happened in May 1970, you were finishing your sophomore year and you were in business administration?

[Michael Braff]: Correct.

[Interviewer]: Could you—so let’s just kind of open it up now. Could you please talk about your experiences maybe in the few days leading up to May 4?

[Michael Braff]: Well, you know, it was—as I look back at it now, almost fifty years later, it’s just kind of crazy. There were a lot of protests with Nixon and all that and I took part in some of them because of the things that I felt, that this country wasn’t doing what they should have been doing.

[Interviewer]: Do you remember any specific protests that you took part in? There was the rally on Friday, where students buried the Constitution?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, I was—that rings a bell. I believe I was there for that.

[Interviewer]: Okay, that was the day after Nixon announced the expansion, the invasion into Cambodia.

[Michael Braff]: Right.

[Interviewer]: Do you want to maybe then move to your memories of what happened on the day of the shootings? Where you were?

[Michael Braff] I kind of decided, well, I’ll just go to whatever classes I have that day. I don’t really recall. At that time, I was living in a fraternity house on Main Street. I think, if I recall correctly, I was back there—came back from a class and all that. Then, when the shootings took place, and it was like all hell broke loose.

[Interviewer]: So, you were on your way back from class. You weren’t in The Commons?

[Michael Braff]: No. One of my fraternity brothers was at the time. But, myself, I wasn’t.  

[Interviewer]: Do you remember, the first thing that happened that made you realize that something horrible had gone on?

[Michael Braff]: Somebody—very well we could have been on the porch of the fraternity house. Whether it was somebody in the fraternity or just somebody come by and said, “Well, you know they shot four kids on The Commons,” and all that. My basic recollection, of course—that Sunday night before was a little tense because we were out on the fraternity house and we’d had a keg because they closed all the bars. Some of us might had just a tad too much alcohol—and the National Guard came by the line—because the fraternity was next to—it’s not there anymore, but it was a Gas Town. 

[Interviewer]: So you were right on Main Street near Willow? Near campus?

[Michael Braff]: Closer to—oh gosh—don’t ask me these questions! Rockwell, almost across from Rockwell Hall, maybe a little bit of diagonal.

[Interviewer]: So, you were on Main Street very close to campus.

[Michael Braff]: Yes.

[Interviewer]: What did that look like, the Guard coming? Were they on foot?

[Michael Braff]: Yes, oh yeah. They wanted to know what was going on. Some of us said, "Well, it’s none of your damn business, get the hell out of here,” and they took about—I can’t remember—seven to ten of us and lined us up because there was a fence at the Gas Town separating the gas station from the fraternity house and lined us up against it. They’re kind of poking us and all that. Some of us said, “Hey, you know what, back off, we haven’t done anything,” and they really didn’t want to hear that, obviously. And, eventually, I guess they felt things were under control and they left to quite a few uncomplimentary insults.

[Interviewer]: And you were just at your fraternity house at that point?

[Michael Braff]: No, I was out on the front porch and I was lined up. I felt like I was in a line-up or something.

[Interviewer]: But my question is more, you weren’t participating in the confrontation that was going on Main Street with demonstrators or anything?

[Michael Braff]: Well, some of us were. Again, some of it was because of what was going on and some of it was the effect of alcohol.

[Interviewer]: Could you see crowds of people on Main Street?

[Michael Braff]: Oh yeah, like I said, the street you live on, if you visualize it, there’s tons of people for whatever reason clogging the street. We were up close there. 

[Interviewer]: Do you remember any other visual memories of what happened with that crowd and the National Guard? Anything else you saw on Sunday night?

[Michael Braff]: No, the biggest one was when they came over and started giving the people in the fraternity, giving us a hard time because, for the most part, we were just throwing insults out. And they took a real hard-ass attitude towards that. But then, things just seemed to have calmed down and they said, “Well, we got better things to do,” or whatever. So, that pretty much ended that.

[Interviewer]: It wasn’t dark yet, when that happened? It was still early in the evening?

[Michael Braff]: It was more twilight, I think.

[Interviewer]: Maybe, going back to Monday, the day of the shootings. Do you remember kind of what happened next, after you first heard about it at your fraternity house?

[Michael Braff]: We’re all—figure out what the hell is going on. My dad—to this day, I don’t know how in the world he—they had it all blocked off that you couldn’t get into Kent. The Highway Patrol, the Sheriff’s Department, whatever, you just couldn’t get into Kent and my dad somehow made it to the fraternity house and I have no idea because he picked me and my brother up and my cousin. Then there were two guys that needed to get to Hopkins Airport because they were flying back to Philadelphia. Like I said, though, to this day, I have no idea how my dad managed to pull that off, but he did.

[Interviewer]: He didn’t talk about his adventures trying to get to you?

[Michael Braff]: No, he very well might have, but I’ll be darned if I can recall what was involved.

[Interviewer]: Were they all fraternity brothers, your cousin, your brother?

[Michael Braff]: No, everybody except my cousin.

[Interviewer]: And I didn’t ask what your fraternity is?

[Michael Braff]: It was TKE.

[Interviewer]: Sorry, repeat that, sorry.

[Michael Braff]: TKE, T-K-E [Tau Kappa Epsilon].

[Interviewer]: How much time—when did your father get there about? Afternoon?

[Michael Braff]: Probably, I’m gonna say somewhere around three or four o’clock in the afternoon.

[Interviewer]: Do you have any other memories from the afternoon before he got there? You had to quickly pack up some things?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, figured okay, just took clothes. I can’t even recall if I took any of my textbooks for the classes I had. I think like a week or so later, I was able to get back into Kent and get to the fraternity house and get my textbooks. They were going to do it somehow by mail. I can’t recall, but to this day, how they managed to pull that off.

[Interviewer]: A lot of professors did do it by mail.

[Michael Braff]: In fact, it was quite coincidental because that was the first quarter that I made the Dean’s List that way. And I’m going, “Maybe I should just do everything by mail—approaching this all wrong!”

[Interviewer]: Well good for you, that’s good. That’s one silver lining, right?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, like you said, one silver lining from the whole ordeal.

[Interviewer]: When you were packing up and your dad was coming then, you didn’t necessarily have a sense that that was it for the semester or the quarter?

[Michael Braff]: Kathleen, as best as I can recall, that happened a couple days later, once the powers that be at the university figured okay, which end is up here, and now what do we do? That happened after the shootings and after they closed the campus down and said okay, well, that’s it for spring quarter.

[Interviewer]: Do you have any other memories from that day that you would want to share?

[Michael Braff]: Just a feeling—that it was insanity. I was a little upset because I knew Allison, just as a “Hi, how you doing,” type of thing. And I’m going, “This is so senseless.” It just—defied logic.

[Interviewer]: When did you first hear that she had been killed? Do you remember?

[Michael Braff]: I can’t really recall. Obviously, I don’t think that they knew the identity of the four students that were killed because they had to go through a, “Okay, like, does this person have any identification on them?” I knew a couple of the folks that got wounded and that was pretty much, like I said, one of fraternity brothers was, and fellow that I went to high school with that was attending Kent. 

[Interviewer]: Who were they? Those two wounded people?

[Michael Braff]: Jim Russell and Robby Stamps. It’s so—that was—

[Interviewer]: That’s really close to home, two of your brothers and an acquaintance on campus.

[Michael Braff]: Like I said, I knew that before the names of the four kids that got killed were released. I want tell—believe—it was on the evening news that night. The national news in fact, not just WKYC or WGAW or one of the local Cleveland stations.

[Interviewer]: So, after you got back home with your dad?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah.

[Interviewer]: Was your family aware of the protests that had been taking place on campus? Did they talk about it?

[Michael Braff]: Afterwards, we talked about it. My parents, obviously, didn’t understand the whole thing because difference from the generations and all that.

[Interviewer] Was it something that you discussed prior to the shootings?

[Michael Braff] Yeah, we discussed this and there were, shall we say—disagreements. Like I said, after I got back and found out they said what was going on and how they were going to handle the end of a quarter and all that. Whatever the assignments were, you know and I can’t even remember how they would have done it. You know if they would have given you a test, it would have been a little hard to know if somebody was using a textbook or not. Now, something that was so meaningful back then, just seems to be a little bizarre right now, trying to compare things.

[Interviewer]: You were a sophomore. You still had two more years?

[Michael Braff]: Correct.

[Interviewer]: You came back in the fall as a junior?

[Michael Braff]: Yes, yeah.

[Interviewer]: And then you graduated two years later?

[Michael Braff]: Well actually, I graduated in the summer quarter of ’72.

[Interviewer]: What were the days and weeks following the shootings like for you? For example, finishing your class and then that summer?

[Michael Braff]: It was my brother and my cousin doing a lot of talking because my mom and my aunt and uncle lived in the same apartment building complex. So, you know, how can I put this? Back then, at that time, there were a lot of drugs involved. I would gather—am probably not telling you anything you didn’t probably already know. Between a lot of drugs and trying to figure the whole thing out, it’s just something that, unfortunately, there was no answers to. 

[Interviewer]: But you had your brother and your cousin to talk it through?

[Michael Braff]: We talked about it. Even though, going back to fall quarter of ’70, things had calmed down and even to the standpoint that in the spring of ’71, I remember the one-year anniversary coming up—the big thing that they were pushing on campus was KSU, Kent Stay United. I think for some people, it brought back wounds that hadn’t healed yet, so to speak, and I want to say back then too, Kathleen, if you go back to fall quarter of ’70, it was just a very bizarre atmosphere on campus.

[Interviewer]: Coming back the summer after the shootings?

[Michael Braff]: Yes. You’d sit there and wonder, “Okay, when’s something going to happen here?” Like a fuse lighting or something that was going to start things, and a tilt in the same direction that took place at spring quarter.

[Interviewer]: So, you felt like things were calm on the surface, but it wouldn’t take much for something—

[Michael Braff]: Yes. Yeah, that’s probably a good way to put it.

[Interviewer]: You were still in the same major? Same professors and classmates?

[Michael Braff]: I graduated with a Business Administration with Marketing as my major. So that didn’t have an effect.

[Interviewer]: Was the mood in your fraternity different? Were you living in the house again? 

[Michael Braff]: Yes, I was and the fraternity, after spring quarter of ’71, kind of just dissolved. Until back—till it got brought back on campus back mid ‘80s, early ‘80s, something like that. That happened and my feeling was that was a shame because I personally felt that I got a lot out from the fraternity, and just to see it evaporate into nothing. 

[Interviewer]: Did you have a sense of why that happened?

[Michael Braff]: I think, if I really look at it or think about it, Kathleen, If I look back then, starting in the fall of ’70, I think the whole Greek organization, whether it was sororities or fraternities, all suffered to a degree. Unfortunately, with us, it was a real deterrent. Others it was not the effect—the effect was there but it wasn’t as destructive as it was with us. There was just an atmosphere of like, “Who cares?”

[Interviewer]: In your junior and senior year, were you politically active?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, I’d say so.

[Interviewer]: Were there any particular groups that you participated in?

[Michael Braff]: Oh, gosh—too long ago to remember. It was either that or too much alcohol, I’m not sure which.

[Interviewer]: But, you were active, you were participating in activities and protests on campus. Another question, I’m curious about, do you have any sense of how you felt at the time that the residents of the City of Kent looked at—perceived Kent State students? Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Michael Braff]: I didn’t experience any hostility or anything like that. I’m sure it was there, but I didn’t, myself, experience it.

[Interviewer]: And where you were living, you were near a neighborhood in Kent, a little.

[Michael Braff]: Well, not really because there was, let’s see, there was the Robin Hood and then there was what—three houses and then our house and—I guess the only thing we had a problem with, but we had that before the shootings and all that, was the landlord because he basically was a real ass.

[Interviewer]: The landlord for your house?

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, he lived next door. There were numerous parties—kind of went on till, shall we say, early morning?

[Interviewer]: So, he had some complaints there.

[Michael Braff]: Yeah.

[Interviewer]: I guess I wanted to ask again about your acquaintanceship with Allison Krause? And how that must have really affected you?

[Michael Braff]: I would try and look at it and come up with an answer to the question of how does a parent send their kid to school and the kid takes a bullet in the brain for no reason? That’s some of the things I said to my parents. I said, “What if it would have been me or my brother, how would you guys have felt?” They kind of got, shall we say, a little quiet on that point.

[Interviewer]: Sure. Do you think they were scared when you came back?

[Michael Braff]: No. I think a better way—is they were concerned. They heard of—there were shootings and that. Let’s face it, the means of communications back then was a payphone or something and we hadn’t thought to call them. I know my mom was freaking out until we got back to Mayfield Heights, where we were living at that time. She just wanted to know that, hey, that “My two sons are still alive and weren’t hurt.”  

[Interviewer]: So, you hadn’t talked to your parents. Your dad jumped in the car, made his way to your fraternity house?

[Michael Braff]: Yes.

[Interviewer]: You must have been happy to see him when he arrived.

[Michael Braff]: Yeah, well, it answered the one question is, “How am I going to get back to Cleveland?”

[Interviewer]: Do you remember how some of your other fraternity brothers were able to get out, get home, get off campus?

[Michael Braff]: Not really.

[Interviewer]: Must have been pretty chaotic.

[Michael Braff]: Some of them had cars. I would have to say there were probably people at least giving people rides part- way. Some of them that were in the same vicinity.

[Interviewer]: Do you have any other memories from those days?

[Michael Braff]: I’m sorry, what—you kind of cut out on me there.

[Interviewer]: Oh sorry, do you have any other memories from those days that you’d like to share? Anything else we haven’t touched on?

[Michael Braff]: No. I think we pretty well covered it—nothing just really pops into my head.

[Interviewer]: We can always add to this if you think of something tomorrow.

[Michael Braff]: Well, that’s good to know.

[Interviewer]: Keep that in mind. One thing I just thought of—that summer after the shootings, were you working a summer job at home?

[Michael Braff]: Oh yeah, what was—I was working—give me second—it was right off of Mayfield and SOM Center Road—oh, Kop’s! [spelling?] Kop’s, it was like—

[Interviewer] Oh, the grocery store?

[Michael Braff]: No, it wasn’t groceries, it was a clothing store, it was a chain of clothing stores. I worked there doing something—occupying space, I guess.

[Interviewer]: Do you remember if there were any encounters you had with people or people asking you about being a Kent State student during that summer?

[Michael Braff]: Not really, no.

[Interviewer]: I was just curious about that. Any other thoughts or anything you’d like to close with?

[Michael Braff]: The only thing I can do is—I mentioned to a couple people that I was doing this and if they had any interest and I can give you a couple names and telephone numbers. Hang on a second. 

[Interviewer]: Great, we can do that, let’s do that off the recording. 

[Michael Braff]: Okay, whatever works for you.

[Interviewer]: Let’s close there, unless you have any last-second memories?

[Michael Braff]: No, I think we pretty well covered it, Kathleen.

[Interviewer]: Well, thank you so much, Mr. Braff. Thanks again.

[Michael Braff]: You’re quite welcome.

 

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