The Story

Fire in the Heartland: THE KENT STATE STORY is a documentary film about a generation of young people, who stood up to speak their minds against social injustice in some of our nation’s most turbulent and transformative years, the 1960s through the 1970s. On May 4th, 1970, thirteen of these young Americans were shot down by the National Guard in a shocking act of violence against unarmed students.  Four, Jeffery Miller, Sandy Scheuer, Bill Schroeder and Allison Krause, were killed. Immediately afterward the largest student strikes and protests in history swept across 3,000 campuses nationwide, punctuated ten days later by the shooting of African American students at Jackson State University. There, authorities fired on unarmed black student protestors and twelve were wounded and two, James Earl Green and Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, were killed. This student protest in America did not arise from nowhere. It represented state violence against the student voices of protest against the continuing racist violence against African Americans in the United States and the perpetration of one of the most corrupt, terrible, and violent wars in US history waged against the Vietnamese people where 58,000 US Soldiers and over 3 million Vietnamese were killed.

The story is a personal story for those who tell it and for every viewer who lived through these times, but also for their sons and daughters, and for all Americans. This is not just the story of a violent turning point, but also of a hoped-for new day for a generation and the music, art, literature, and politics that accompanied it. It is told by over 20 voices of those people at Kent who lived through civil rights and anti-war movement alliances of black and white students that began in 1960 with sit-ins and protests over segregated lunch counters and unfair housing, continued with education and voter registration protests into the heart of the South, continued with a nascent anti-war movement that held silent vigils against the racist war in Vietnam that then grew into massive demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes, and activist protests, and leading up to the tragic and heroic events of May 4. And Kent State students were there on campus and off at every civil rights and anti-war protest, sit-in, march, and rally throughout the 1960s.  Those from Kent State included black and white students, men and women, activists, musicians, attorneys, teachers, historians, journalists, photographers, veterans, musicians, poets and artists.  This is their story and a story of all times when human beings are faced with injustice and are asked to choose—to stand by or to stand up, to stay silent or to raise a voice, to stay safe or to put themselves at risk, sometimes at very great risk. This is a story that resonates as much today as it did in the 1960s and 1970s.  

On May 4, 2010 Congressman John Lewis came to Kent State to present the keynote speech for the 40th anniversary Commemoration of the shootings at Kent State.  He saw a work-in-progress version of the film at request of Black United Students whose story was told in the film. Congress Lewis then joined the chorus of voices of the film, citing the Kent State Shootings as one of the most important Civil Rights Movement events in History.  In 1967 he had stood by Martin Luther King Jr when he presented his Beyond Vietnam speech at the United Nations.  Kent State Students were there.

Fire in the Heartland: The Kent State Story is not just another documentary about the tragedy of the events of May 4, 1970. Forget what you think you know and discover the larger truth of a generation.

A National Landmark

Kent State is now a National Historic Landmark Site.  It is specifically the only National Landmark Site in the nation devoted to Student Protest in America for Anti-war and Civil Rights protest. 

The site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 as a property associated with events that made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of U.S. history and as a property achieving exceptional significance within the last 50 years.