A mother whose 12-year-old son was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer will be the keynote speaker during the 46th annual commemoration of the May 4, 1970, tragedy at Kent State University.
The May 4 ceremony begins at noon on the Kent State Commons and includes a speech by Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir Rice.
Tamir was shot and killed by an officer in a Cleveland park in November 2014 while playing with a pellet gun outside of a recreation center. The city of Cleveland this week reached a $6 million settlement with the family over his death.
The theme of this year’s activities is “Black Lives Matter: Long Live the Memory of Kent State and Jackson State” to include remembrance of students slain or wounded at the Mississippi college 10 days after Kent State.
The annual commemoration is organized by the student-run May 4 Task Force to remember the protest and shooting deaths of four students by the Ohio National Guard on campus in 1970.
“The May 4 Task Force has been talking all year about the significance of police violence to May 4 and of racial oppression to the histories of both the Kent State and Jackson State shootings,” said Alan “Tré” Dufner, president of the May 4 Task Force and a junior philosophy major at Kent State.
He said the choice of Samaria Rice as the keynote speaker was an appropriate, timely tie to the Black Lives Matter commemoration theme.
“It is my hope that attendees will gain a deeper perspective into the ways the lives of black people and protesters for justice are dismissed, degraded and destroyed,” Dufner said. “And I hope those in attendance will have a greater reverence for the lives we lose to police violence every day.”
Kent State’s May 4 Visitors Center, supported by the College of Arts and Sciences, also is hosting a series of events on state violence with the theme “Cambodia After Kent State,” with a focus on the aftermath of the Cambodian Genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime. These programs, held this week on the Kent campus, are free and open to the public.
Events include:
• Wednesday: At 7 p.m. in the University Auditorium at Cartwright Hall, Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father, will provide a powerful address on her childhood experience under the Khmer Rouge. More broadly, Ung will discuss the reality of girls’ education in contemporary Cambodia. Joining Ung is Jamie Amelio, founder and CEO of Caring for Cambodia, a nonprofit organization committed to improving the educational system of Cambodia through the creation of more than 20 model schools.
• Thursday: At 7 p.m. in Schwartz Center, Room 177, Linda Saphan, lead researcher/associate producer and genocide survivor and director John Pirozzi will host a screening of their award-winning film Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll.
• Tuesday: The May 4 Task Force will host presentations by students in the Kent State course May 4, 1970, and its aftermath, starting at 5:30 p.m. in Room 214 of Ritchie Hall. A book discussion will follow at 8 p.m. on Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties by Thomas Grace, one of the nine wounded students shot on May 4, 1970. The annual candlelight walk and vigil will begin at 11 p.m. on the Kent State Commons.
• May 4: The Kent State University Bookstore will host a book signing event from 10-11:30 a.m. with authors Craig Simpson and Greg Wilson, authors of Above the Shots, (released in April); author Grace; Jerry Lewis, Ph.D., and Thomas Hensley, authors of Kent State and May 4th: A Social Science Perspective; Laura Davis and Mark Seeman, authors of This We Know; and David Hassler, author of May 4th Voices: Kent State, 1970.
Kent State’s Honors College and May 4 Visitors Center will host a “Research Uncorked” event at 5:30 p.m. at Venice Café in downtown Kent.
A Kent State Gospel Choir concert also will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the University Auditorium at Cartwright Hall.
For more information about events commemorating May 4, visit the May 4 Task Force Facebook page or contact Dufner, president of the May 4 Task Force, at adufner@kent.edu or Idris “Kabir” Syed, faculty adviser of the May 4 Task Force, at isyed@kent.edu.
For more information about Kent State’s May 4 Visitors Center, visit www.kent.edu/may4.
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.