Christopher Everett, Oral History

 

Recorded: May 3, 2019

Interviewed by Kathleen Siebert Medicus

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Note: Judith Everett sat in on the interview and contributed some comments]

 

 

[Interviewer]: This is Kathleen Siebert Medicus speaking on May 3, 2019, at Kent State University. We’re in the May 4 Visitors Center as part of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, and I will be talking today with Chris Everett. Welcome Chris, thank you for joining us.  [00:00:21] I’d like to begin with some brief information about your background. Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[Christopher Everett]: I was born in 1948 in Toledo, Ohio. And I stayed there through high school and left for Kent State University in 1967.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you came to Kent State in 1967 as a freshman?



[Christopher Everett]: Yes, I did.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:00:48] And what brought you to Kent State?

[Christopher Everett]: A couple of things. I thought I was clever enough to study architecture and, when I got here, I realized it was perhaps a little over my head. So, then my second choice was to be a teacher and I knew that Kent State was a good school for either one of those. And the third incentive was I really wanted to go someplace else for the next four years of my life rather than staying in Toledo. It had a fine university, but I really didn’t want to go there. Kent, when I came to the campus to visit, looked like a wonderful place to get started.


[Interviewer]: [00:01:34] How would you describe the atmosphere on campus when you first arrived, your freshman year? What was it like?

[Christopher Everett]: A party school. Too much to do and, as far as why I’m here today, the political activism going on at that time was, not real common, as I saw it, and my group of friends and people I associated with tended to not be involved in anything that was particularly anti-war or protesting the war in Vietnam. So, the attitude was, We’re freshmen, and we’re ready to start a new life and experience and, in my mind was, Gee, can I actually get through this and actually get my bachelor’s degree? I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself at the time. But I said, “I’ve got to give it a try.”

[Interviewer]: [00:02:38] Were there protests happening that you were aware of that year? Or maybe into the next year, your sophomore year on campus?

[Christopher Everett]: Yes, there were, but I did not pay that much attention to them. I perhaps encountered something passing by or often the ones that were being held were in The Commons areas around the Student Union. And I might have stopped and looked and listened and tried to understand what I thought was going on. And I had a very neutral position on what they were doing, other than, I’m on a college campus and I think this is the place to be able to do those things. And I, in that sense, supported it. As far as what they were protesting, I was pretty much neutral one way or the other, at that time.

[Interviewer]: [00:03:36] Was your family aware of protests that were taking place on campus? Were they concerned at all? Is that something your family discussed?

[Christopher Everett]: I’m sure they were probably aware there were some things going on here and we didn’t discuss it much because I didn’t say anything about them one way or another and they didn’t necessarily ask. So, no. Back in those days, we didn’t have the communication devices that we have today and we did not make daily or weekly contact with each other. I would maybe make a phone call a couple times a semester, back to Toledo, and if I went home once during the academic semester—or quarters, they were. If I went home once during a quarter, that was a lot. Usually, it was between quarters.

[Interviewer]: It’s very different, probably, than most students’ experiences today in terms of being away from home.

[Christopher Everett]: And/or the amount of contact I am aware of that students of today have with their parents with their mobile devices.

[Interviewer]: [00:04:41] Let’s move forward in time into 1970 and maybe, if you’d like to start with just kind of what you remember seeing? Your experiences leading up to the day of the shootings? Maybe starting on Friday, April 30? [editor’s clarification: April 30 was on a Thursday]. Do you have any memories from that day? Or start wherever you like.

[Christopher Everett]: Oh yes, I certainly do. It would have been in my third year, I was in my third year of studies at Kent. I had struggled academically my first year, did a little better my second year, which I bravely went and joined a fraternity that became Phi Sigma Kappa. They were the fraternity house that was closest to the downtown of any fraternity house. And in 1970, I was living in that fraternity house. So, on the night of, Friday night, we heard of disturbances downtown because we’re practically right there. And we kind of had a safe viewing area, watching a little bit what was going on. I don’t know of too many that went down there to investigate more closely. We stayed away and were a little bit surprised at what was going on in one way but not, since we had heard what Nixon had done about escalating the war in Cambodia. And so, we thought, Well, yep, this is important to these students that are against this, and it got a little out of control. My viewpoint of the actual violence that happened there, in my opinion, is that it was a Friday night, a warm night, students were unwinding, much of the violence might have simply been started by kids who were just having too much to drink. And the activists perhaps jumped on that opportunity to perhaps escalate it a little bit and use it as a vehicle to show how angry they were about what was going on in Vietnam and what Nixon had just done.

[Interviewer]: [00:07:16] So, you were—you could see downtown from inside your fraternity house? Or even from the front lawn, the front porch?

[Christopher Everett]: On the front lawn. We called it the wall, which was up by the sidewalk that everybody walked by on their way downtown. And got stories of what was going on from students passing by. And I and most of us that were there elected to kind of stay and watch and not get any closer than we were. Of course, the sirens and the noise, we could hear what was going on. Heard there were windows being broken out and there was a fire, I guess, in the North Water Street. We couldn’t see that from our viewpoint.

[Interviewer]: [00:07:59] And had you been—was that your first year to live in the fraternity house? You were there that year?

[Christopher Everett]: Yes. I had started living there that spring quarter, or that fall quarter. So that was actually my—would have been my third quarter there.

[Interviewer]: And do you remember seeing any other times where there was unrest downtown? Windows being broken? Or was—

[Christopher Everett]: No.

[Interviewer]: Nothing like May 1, 1970?

 

[Christopher Everett]: No. No, I don’t recall any major violence. So, on—we can move to Saturday, gosh, what happened Saturday? Saturday was the night that the fire had been set on the ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps] Building. I had just met a new girl, a few weeks prior, and we had a date scheduled for Saturday night at the Kent movie theater. It was a double feature and it was supposed to be Alice’s Restaurant and Easy Rider, and they, of course, closed the theater down, put the curfew on, trying to avoid further violence. And we ended up, I think, just hanging out at the fraternity house. I don’t remember what we did. Memory of Saturday night, and I think the following Sunday, we’re hearing, at that time, they were beginning to send the helicopters around, and the helicopters buzzing overhead, and that I have a strong memory of.  Disturbing to hear the noise.

[Judith Everett]: And the lights.

 

[Christopher Everett]: Yeah.

[Judith Everett]: Lights from the helicopter; they were shining the lights.

[Christopher Everett]: When they would shine the [unintelligible] lights down. Yeah, and right on, actually on our fraternity house. Because we’re so close to the activities that were going on. And first at front campus, wasn’t it? And then later toward the campus by the symbolic Army ROTC Buildings.

[Interviewer]: Were you, on Saturday night, you had to change your plans for your date because the movie theater was closed.

[Christopher Everett]: Yep. We improvised. I don’t remember exactly what—I think we just hung out.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:10:45] Did you go on campus? Or, probably hung out at your fraternity?

 

[Christopher Everett]: No, not on Saturday. We, I guess were sort of cautiously staying away. I think I, I know I was, I guess I would say, and maybe I’ll say this again, a sympathetic observer of what I could see. And I kind of was hoping, you need to make your statement, students who are against this: try not to be violent with it. I support you a hundred percent under those circumstances.

 

And so, Saturday—or on Sunday, we managed to borrow a car and I remember driving around campus on Sunday. And at that point, the National Guard had been assigned to Kent. They were parked at various strategic places across campus with their personnel vehicles and soldiers in uniform and with weapons of which we really didn’t think were loaded. And we walked around just seeing what the situation looked like and I remember making a few photographs here and there. We walked around, went over to see the remains of the ROTC Building.

 

And I have a little statement I sometimes make about that building, about that incident. Certainly, it’s wrong to destroy the state property in that much violence. But in one hand, I believe that students perhaps did the state a favor in the fact that, when I was a freshman, the word I got on those old wooden buildings was they would be torn down before the end of my sophomore year, and there they were still standing. So perhaps they did them a favor by taking that building down. Rumor—the information we heard about Governor Rhodes sending the National Guard into our campus. He was so angry at the students, that they’re burning down buildings here on campus and, you know, that building was nothing much more than a wooden storage facility. I believe it was used by the ROTC, and that’s, I’m sure, is somewhat why symbolically that building might have been targeted. But the—his speech made it sound like they’d just burned down an eight-million-dollar building or something of that nature, when it was really, it was really nothing. In my opinion it was. Now, other people might have said differently but I don’t see that that building was worth—the violence caused to take that building down wasn’t worth sending in the National Guard with loaded weapons.  

[Interviewer]: [00:13:58] What did that scene look like on Sunday when you saw the building? Was part of it cordoned off, I assume? Were there a lot of people there?

[Christopher Everett]: It was roped off. There were some Guardsmen that were standing around it. Maybe some jeeps or personnel carriers, and it was still smoldering a bit, as I recall. And certainly, there were other observers watching and looking at it, as we were. As my girlfriend and I were—my girlfriend Judy, yes, who became my wife and is with us here in this interview today.

 

[Judith Everett]: You could also smell the smoke from when they burned down the ROTC Building.

 

[Christopher Everett]: You remember the smell?

 

[Judith Everett]: I remember the smell.

 

[Christopher Everett]: Yeah, that’s good, yeah.

[Interviewer]: [00:14:48] Do you remember seeing anything from your fraternity house of crowds being pushed from downtown back toward campus?

[Christopher Everett]: No, there were reports of some of my friends and fraternity brothers who were close to the front corner of campus, near Lincoln and Main, in front of Rockwell Hall, who were somewhat present and they got—they were trying to pass through the crowd. They remember being pushed and shoved a bit, threatened by Guardsmen during that particular portion of the demonstration and I think a few of them did get a whiff of some tear gas on that night too. That would have been, I believe, Sunday night.

[Interviewer]: But you didn’t have any trouble, and you also had a car, getting from when you were seeing things on campus, getting back off campus?

[Christopher Everett]: Yeah, we had, we borrowed the car during the day, and we had to give that back at night and then we did not spend Sunday night together. We were ready, I was preparing to go back to class on Monday morning. And then Sunday night, it was perhaps, even more—the helicopters, I remember, pretty much all night long, flying overhead. I guess I did get some sleep. It went on for quite some time, maybe it let up after midnight. I can’t say that one for sure, but no, the helicopters are a distinct memory of that weekend.

[Interviewer]: Yeah, many people have reported that, absolutely. [00:16:25] Is there anything else from the weekend that you recall or that you want to mention?

[Christopher Everett]: I don’t have much to add to that. The mood on Sunday on campus was pretty upbeat. And students and the Guards—when students did try to interact with the National Guard when they were on campus, seemed to be friendly to each other. I don’t remember speaking with any of the Guard, but they did not seem to be threatened or angry by me when I walked through. Perhaps they might have even, if I looked and made eye contact, they might have smiled and just, we both just went about our business. But I don’t recall it being—even though they were there and I felt a little uncomfortable that they were there, I don’t recall that it was a hostile situation at that point. So, Monday. Should we just skip to that part?

[Interviewer]: [00:17:36] Ready to move to, yeah, let’s move to your memories of what happened on Monday.

[Christopher Everett]: Like so many other students, I went to class as scheduled. It was midterm time, I believe I was finishing a final in Van Deusen Hall, which is very close to The Commons. At that time, the current Art Building that is now being gutted and rebuilt right now, as we speak, that wasn’t even there. So, it was pretty open, that area, the back side there of Van Deusen to The Commons area. After my exam, at approximately eleven thirty or so, I, like anybody else, I was walking past The Commons and saw what was going on and, at that point, I was really becoming a bit of a sympathetic observer—I would call myself—that I wanted to see what the students had to say and I was, of course, curious just to see what’s going to happen here, and I was hoping it would not turn violent. I was hoping the students could have their say. I was hoping that the students that were gathering for a scheduled, peaceful demonstration would be able to exercise their First Amendment rights. And as I observed, it appeared that the National Guard didn’t want that to happen, of course.

 

Some shouting from the students to the Guard, they really wanted them off campus, “Why are you here?” The General, I think it was Canterbury, he or somebody was on the megaphone trying to tell the students that their gathering was illegal. And when the students demonstrating didn’t leave, I saw the tear gas begin to fly as the Guard approached the students that are gathered by the Victory Bell.

 

The Guard started in the area of the burned down ROTC Building and headed toward them at Taylor Hall, and I was observing this from the small parking area that was near, at that time, near Johnson Hall. Sort of to the south of where the Guard was overlooking The Commons. And my impression of what I saw during that first half hour was, This is not a riot, this is a demonstration, and it didn’t turn violent until the tear gas came from the National Guard. That’s when the violence began, if you would call that violence, but I guess I would. And at that point, of course, that angered the students even more. I saw the students retreat around Taylor Hall, and the Guard went up on both sides of Taylor Hall to meet them around the east side of the building. And, I remained in that position, wondering what’s going to happen next, and I remember hearing a round of, what I thought, as everybody around me thought, were a round of firecrackers. And we looked at each other and saying, “That’s pretty stupid, that’s going to get somebody trigger-happy.” And of course then, within a few minutes there were students coming over the hill screaming to get the ambulances up to the east side of Taylor Hall, there’s students dying up there.

 

And at that point, I wanted to go over and see if there was something I could do or just observe further what was going on and a friend of mine said, “We better not.” And had he not been there perhaps I would have gone over there and been able to get involved in that. But, at that point, we were all pretty much in shock and I said, “This is pretty crazy; this can’t be happening.” And, like most students, what do you do? We didn’t know how they were going to react. Saw a little bit, I think, of Dr. Frank trying to organize a meeting with the students, calm them down, saying, “You need to go away and disperse or the Guard’s going to continue to chase you and maybe more bullets will fly.” And I admire him for being able to accomplish that eventually, or to help accomplish that. Shortly after all that, I returned to the fraternity house and said, “What are we going to do next?” And then we heard that the campus was going to be closed down, not just shut down for the day, but shut down indefinitely.

 

And the next thing we all had to try to do was to figure out a way to leave campus. I didn’t need to immediately because I was living off campus. All my things were there and, off campus, we were under no jurisdiction to leave from where we were, but I knew people who lived in dormitories who had a problem and they needed to figure out a way to get off campus. They had to and, of course, they left all their stuff.

 

Anyway, eventually one of my fraternity brothers offered me a ride to Rocky River, where he lived. He had a full car of people that are all going into the Cleveland area. I was from Toledo, of course, and he said, “Well, we’ll go up and stay with my parents for a couple of days and then I’ll take you to Toledo. It’s not that far.” And then, in the meantime, we planned a trip further to go visit a friend of mine who was going to school at Ferris State College in Michigan, and the plan was to go visit just as a friendly visit and then go, to some degree, as representatives from Kent State. We were both eyewitnesses, my friend Ray who drove me, he was in Taylor Hall, he saw both sides of the events leading up to the shootings and, as I indicated a minute ago, I didn’t actually see the shootings, I saw all of the events that led up to it. I guess I’m, at this stage in my life, kind of glad I didn’t see the shootings. But I heard them, and I saw the aftermath, and I saw what went on before.

 

Ray and I wanted to join my friends, or my friend, in Michigan and so a couple days after he took me back to Toledo, we drove to Michigan and we visited a campus and stayed with—wherever we could, sleeping on the floor of fraternity houses, dormitories, I can’t recall exactly where we were. My friend got us into some parties, but the parties also turned into a session where people were very much interested in hearing our story, what we saw and what happened there, and so we gave them, as best we could, our accounts of what we saw and most of them were pretty—my memory is that they were quite a bit shocked and a little bit frightened that something like that could happen there. I don’t believe that Ferris State College did have to close down like all the Ohio schools did. But I felt like we were, to some degree, a little bit of an ambassador, we were probably the only ones at Ferris State College that weekend that had been in Kent State five days earlier. Ray went home and left me with my family in Toledo and I eventually returned to campus part-time to finish up the coursework that we were allowed to complete either by correspondence or meeting with our professors off campus.   

[Interviewer]: [00:26:44] So, you were able to come back relatively sooner because you could stay in the fraternity house?

[Christopher Everett]: Yeah. And, so the mood was, I guess I don’t know how to describe what the mood was.

[Interviewer]: When you got back?

[Christopher Everett]: Yeah. There weren’t a lot of people around. There weren’t a lot of students around.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:27:17] Did you—when you got back, how were you working with your various professors? Did you meet with any of them in person? Or was it all by correspondence? Do you remember?

 

[Christopher Everett]: We met at, I think, a meeting room in a church for one class with whatever—whoever was able to come. It was not required, as I recall, for us to come to Kent to meet with the professor, but if we could it would be helpful to get something out of the class beyond what you can get by simply doing worksheets, reading books, and taking take-home examinations to finish up the courses. So, I did, when I could, and I think all but maybe one of my courses, I was able to meet with the professor at least once, somewhere here in Kent. I think we went to somebody’s house. I can’t specifically say which course that was, or professor, but I thought they did a remarkable job, the professors at Kent, to try to accommodate the situation as it was. To figure out a way to salvage something out of the semester academically.

[Interviewer]: [00:28:39] I’m curious, on Monday, your parents obviously must have been very worried, when were you first able to get in touch with your parents? Do you remember?

 

[Christopher Everett]: When I got to Rocky River and my friend’s house, at his parents’. We stayed with him and his parents, and I was able to call them from there without any problem, and said, “Hey, I’m fine, and this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to stay in Cleveland for another day or so and then we’re going to come to Toledo and you’re going to meet my friend, Ray.” Ray was an incredibly charming person, so he was all for it, and they liked him immediately. As he did. Anyway, that’s—

 

[Interviewer]: Well, he brought you home so that was—

 

[Christopher Everett]: Yes, he did. And I think they were very grateful to him for doing that. So no, they were made aware and—

 

[Interviewer]: Had you tried to call them sooner and couldn’t get through? Or, because I’ve heard—

 

[Christopher Everett]: No, I knew it wouldn’t have been, I knew it was futile. We had one phone in the fraternity house. One phone, and it didn’t work because of the situation, the lines were all jammed. But we had transportation, so that’s what we did until we got to where we could get to a telephone. I don’t know whether Ray got ahold of his parents before he came up, and I don’t recall stopping anywhere to make a phone call, I think we just went.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:30:10] Another thing I’m curious about on Monday, you mentioned Dr. Frank pleading with students to be peaceful and to disperse for their safety. Did you know Dr. Frank at that point? Had you had a class with him?

 

[Christopher Everett]: No.

 

[Interviewer]: Was he such a famous professor, everyone just knew who he was?

 

[Christopher Everett]: No, I didn’t know who he was at the time.

[Interviewer]: You didn’t know at the time? Okay.

 

[Christopher Everett]: But I knew he was sensible in his pleading. I knew he was—I sensed his sympathy for the students and felt he understood that they felt they had a right to protest and not be shot at by the military. And they were angry and he was more concerned about their lives, I think, than what their beliefs were. But I think he was very sympathetic to what they were trying to do. I, in part, was in—I was not unhappy that I was in school and being able to use that as a means, in part to, for the time being, to stay ineligible for the draft. I had draft deferment and certainly that was an incentive to stay in school at the time. I had plans maybe to stay in longer until they changed those rules, where you could only stay for four years. I knew students who were avoiding the draft because we didn’t believe in the war. I was sort of indifferent, but I sure didn’t want to be a soldier. I sure didn’t want to waste a portion of my life on an activity the government was involved in that I was really opposed to. I wasn’t violently opposed to, I wasn’t ambitious enough to become part of the demonstrations but, in a way, I’m glad there were some that were brave enough to do that. They were risking their lives, as it turned out, to do that. So, my neutral stance on the politics of the war at that time went from neutral to being far more sympathetic to the fact that that war was not right. I began to believe, as others were telling us, that we were being lied to by the government, and yes, I was opposed to the war, but I was not an activist. But I was very sympathetic to the activists and May 4th changed me even more in that direction.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:33:28] I’d kind of like to just recap what you saw on Monday, because in some ways you had this vantage point that was almost like in the audience of this big stage, kind of out in front of you.

[Christopher Everett]: Exactly.

 

[Interviewer]: The Commons, Blanket Hill, Taylor Hall. So, could you just talk us through that one more time, visually, kind of what you saw, where the Guard—when the tear gas started, they were still in The Commons? On the low part?

 

[Christopher Everett]: They began approaching the students from, what was it, one hundred yards away from the area where the ROTC Building was, on my left—

 

[Interviewer]: So close to you?

 

[Christopher Everett]: —slightly downhill from me. And as they moved forward, they fired tear gas arching into the air, to have them come land—I watched the students, some of them, pick up the canisters and throw them back. And, thought that’s—almost cheered them on for doing that, being brave enough to do that. No, they advanced slowly. The students couldn’t stand up against them there, and so they retreated up and over the hill to the other side, to my right. Around that corner of Taylor Hall, between Taylor and Johnson [Hall]. And I could not quite see over the hill from my vantage point, and wondered, Well—at first I thought, Well it’s all over, they dispersed them over on the other side and we’ll be seeing them come back. And we, of course, never did until we heard the firecrackers, which clearly wasn’t firecrackers.

 

I never sensed that these students were from off campus. My opinion was they were registered students at Kent State University. I know that even at the time, there was talk that there were people from off campus involved in this. And while I can’t say for sure that there was or there wasn’t, even at that time, the majority of them were legitimate students here at Kent State University, as I viewed it. So that, I think, is a non-excuse for feeling threatened.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:36:01] The people in the crowd looked generally familiar to you. Did you recognize anybody? Were you worried about where your girlfriend might be at that point, or your fraternity brothers?

 

[Christopher Everett]: No. I knew very few people who were activists. And my new girlfriend, Judy, I think I knew that perhaps she had decided not to go to campus that day, feeling a little bit threatened by what was going on. So no, I was not worried, there. And most of my immediate friends I knew weren’t activists. But we didn’t think in terms of just being an observer that we should’ve been threatened, or just being somebody walking to and from class around The Commons, we didn’t feel threatened. We thought, Well, if they’re going to get violent, they’re going to get violent with—if the Guard’s going to get violent, they’re going to get violent with the clear demonstrators. And as we know now, their bullets didn’t discriminate against those who were just observers versus those who were actively involved.

 

[Interviewer]: [telephone rang] Sorry.

 

[Christopher Everett]: Those things happen.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:37:33] I’m also curious, at what point did you feel afraid? You said maybe you were relieved when the students had gone up over the hill, and you thought maybe that was the end of it. Did you—

 

[Christopher Everett]: I wouldn’t say I was relieved, but I was thinking, Well, maybe this is all over now and maybe classes will still go on this afternoon. And they’ll go away. And clearly the Guard still felt they were being threatened. My overall thoughts of the whole event of the weekend was I, after analyzing it a little bit, I believe if I were to hold one person responsible most for what happened, would be the overreaction of Governor Rhodes. And he should never have overreacted and sent the Guard in. There was other choices that he should have used and had—loaded weapons, that’s wrong. Military or not, they were not the right choice for trying to control this situation that was going on here.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:38:52] What was it like when you got to your fraternity house on Monday, after you realized that it was gunfire, students were injured? You went back with your fraternity brother, what was it like at the house? Were people scrambling, didn’t know what to do?

 

[Christopher Everett]: We were concerned about what had happened and we were quite a mixed bag of brothers; there were some who were less sympathetic to the demonstrators and perhaps more supportive of the law enforcement. But we were still respectful of each other. Probably most of them were a little bit more sympathetic. They were like me, they didn’t want to be activists, but they didn’t disapprove of their right to do that. And I think, disappointed that people were killed, and people were wounded, for doing that.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:39:54] When you came back, were most of the fraternity members back as well? When you came back and were finishing your classes, was the house full?

 

[Christopher Everett]: Was it full? People came in and out and began to leave. There were, I’m going to guess sixteen, eighteen of us that were living there and, one by one, people figured out a way to do something. Some, I’m sure spent that night and maybe several nights afterwards, there. I took advantage of the opportunity when it was offered me, “Well, I can take you home, if you want to.” I could have stayed, and I might have had I not had that opportunity. And waited until something else came around where I could actually get some transportation. I had actually been a hitchhiker back and forth to Toledo on certain occasions, but not that year. And I guess I didn’t look forward to trying to do that at that time, as you have since now told me that there was a lot of that going on. And that’s something I don’t remember, all the kids trying to hitchhike to get out of Kent. But I’m certain—it certainly makes sense now. Just one of those things that kind of left my memory.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:41:14] What did you do that following summer? Were you in school in the summer or were you working?

 

[Christopher Everett]: That following summer? I had planned on this earlier, along with my new girlfriend, that we were both going to take summer classes. We were going to live in Kent and take classes. She was able to secure an apartment with some friends and I lived in the fraternity house. And we did take classes that summer. And I remember when the campus opened and you had to be sure that you had your ID with you. And that we had plenty of conversations in the classes about what to do should violence reoccur, should demonstrations reoccur. And they were trying their best to keep things calm and sensible.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:42:17] Did you have a sense that summer of how members of the community felt about Kent State students? Especially since you lived kind of right off the edge of campus. You were in a neighborhood almost.

 

[Christopher Everett]: I was unaware that the community members were probably feeling a bit threatened by the students. I was aware that a lot of the professors on campus were understanding and sympathetic of what the students were doing and, of course, they were community members. And so, I wanted to believe that, while the community and the professors wouldn’t condone violence, I believe, though, that they would approve of the right of the students to demonstrate on a college campus. And knowing they were community members, I guess I had an idealistic view that many community members shouldn’t have felt threatened because the demonstrations started out, for the most part, as being peaceful. And I didn’t see them as being threatening until, of course, the violence occurred on Friday night, May 1st. And then I could understand why they might be getting a little concerned about the violence. But the students were really not angry at the community. And I’m sorry that they felt threatened, but I don’t believe that they had any—I don’t believe they were angry at the community. That wasn’t their point.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:44:01] Did you go out downtown at all during that summer, go to the bars? What was it like? Was the mood different?

 

[Christopher Everett]: I don’t remember it being much different. Discussions about, yes, everybody talked about where they were and what they did after and during. We were all shocked at what happened. One of the things we did do, my new girlfriend and I, along with another fraternity brother, we took a trip one weekend to just go to the beach. We drove all the way to Virginia Beach for a weekend. We took a long weekend. We might have even skipped one class that summer, a week.

 

[Interviewer]: It’s okay, you’ve graduated now.

 

[Christopher Everett]: Sure! And it was two or three nights that we spent there. And on the way from Virginia Beach, we took a detour and drove through Washington, D.C., and made a stop to see the monuments, just to take a look. And I do remember we stopped in front of the Lincoln Memorial and got out and walked up the steps and looked around. And I had this, kind of this eerie feeling that here I am from the Kent campus and I’m visiting Washington, D.C., perhaps the center of all of the issues that were going on at Kent State. The federal government being involved in supporting the Vietnam War. I’m sorry, I’m having a little trouble clearing all my thoughts here.

 

[Interviewer]: It’s fine. Would you like to take a break?

 

[Christopher Everett]: It’s not going as smoothly. Sure. We can take a short break.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:46:08] This is Kathleen Siebert Medicus, picking up again with Chris Everett after our pause. And I just wanted to ask Chris if there’s anything else that you’d like to say or anything else we haven’t covered, or anything you want to wrap up with?

 

[Christopher Everett]: I guess I’m here in 2019, I’m pretty pleased with what I see that Kent State University has done commemorating this event and their role in trying to use it as an educational tool to try to learn from what happened—not take sides as to who’s at fault and who should have done, or who shouldn’t have done—and using it, since it’s an event that happened, using it as an important learning tool to avoid future conflicts that could lead to such tragedy.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, thank you so much. Thank you for participating in the Oral History Project. I’m very grateful. I think your story is a really important part of this resource now. Thank you so much.

 

[Christopher Everett]: And thank you for listening.

 

[End of interview]

 

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