There is a photo on the final page of the 1969-1970 edition of the Ohio University Athena yearbook that features a group of Ohio National Guard troops marching single-file past the Athena Cinema like armed ducklings below a marquee that reads simply "Z." The "Z" isn't just a placeholder. It's the title of a 1969 satirical French-language film about a rebellion against an oppressive Greek government. The troops don't seem aware of the irony, but the photographer probably was.
The Ohio National Guard came to Athens on May 15 1970, 11 days after members of the National Guard shot four students dead at Kent State University, to quell increasingly violent protests of the Vietnam War and ROTC presence on campus. OU President Claude R. Sowle closed down the university for the rest of the year on the same day.
Many students on campus had been protesting the war for the entirety of the year. Current OU journalism professor Andy Alexander was editor of The Post at the time and recalls the nature of the protests.
"Large crowds would gather on College Green debate the issues of the day," he said. "A lot of professors would say 'we're going to go out and debate issues on the green today' instead of class. We (at the Post) encouraged this as an outlet. We could sense that we were on the brink of an outbreak of violence."
Frustration began to mount in October of 1969 when students organized a Vietnam war moratorium, which the administration argued against. In April, a group of 50 students also demanded a meeting with President Sowle to discuss the university's ROTC program.
"I have arranged this meeting against the advice of a number of persons whose judgment I respect," the late President Sowle wrote in a memo to the rest of the university community. "I did so, however, in the hope that reasoned and courteous discussion will contribute to a better understanding of this complex and difficult issue."
The protests began to turn violent after the Kent State shootings.
"It would start at night," recalled Alexander, who's a Scripps Howard visiting professional in the OU journalism school. "People would show up on College Green as darkness fell and someone would heave over a brick and break a window of one of the stores. Logan's bookstore (now Follett's) had its windows broken a lot."
On May 15, OU took aggressive actions to combat the rioting. A security report compiled by four university officials and addressed to the president's office on May 15, details the escalation:
"12:10 a.m. Chubb is getting pounded. Group is 250 strong."
"12:15 a.m. Situation is totally out of hand"
"12:30 a.m. Car still reported smoldering. A student has a bottle of gas found in that area instructed to hold and turn into the Security Office Friday. (OU Security chief) Kane reports some outside help coming in."
Athens Police reported a new incident nearly every 10 minutes on the night of May 14. One note read simply, "bomb under south bridge" while another was more descriptive: "Three hippie subjects coming down (Rt.) 33 on motorcycle, gas can in one hand and the othere (sic) a gas mask."
By 1 a.m. the National Guard had been called and troops were expected to arrive at 6 a.m.
Alexander and the rest of The Post staff received word of the school's closing via a phone call at 3 a.m.
"There was a large National Guard presence," he said. "There was a national guardsmen standing in every parking place. Students had 24 hours to gather up their stuff and get out of town."
The class of 1970 didn't officially graduate from the university due to the closing. In 2010, over 125 former students came to Athens for their very belated commencement.
Editor's note: Much of the information in this article came from the OU Athena Yearbook from that year. All of the university's yearbooks are available in digital format in the Digital Initiatives section of the OU Libraries website. Go to www.media.library.ohio.edu to find them (the fourth link from the top in the left-hand column).
