The Jackson State Killings took place at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) on May 15, 1970, in Jackson, Mississippi. Around midnight on May 14, city and state police confronted a group of students and opened fire on them, killing two students and injuring twelve. The Jackson State Killings occurred eleven days after the more widely publicized Kent State University Shootings in Kent, Ohio eleven days earlier.
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This plaque on Northwestern's Deering Meadow commemorates the six students who died at Jackson State and Kent State in May 1970:
(photo credit Jeff Rice)
The one and only reason there's a plaque at Northwestern commemorating the deaths at Jackson State is the proximity of them to the killings at Kent State. There were three killings by the police at Orangeburg State in 1968 and eight deaths by police action at Southern University in 1972 that went completely unnoticed and now unremembered by university faculty and students at predominantly white colleges.
Posted by: PaulB | May 15, 2020 at 10:30 AM
To a degree I can agree. That Kent State students were white and middle class made it easier for Northwestern and the nation’s students to identify with and protest. That Northwestern students at the time also protester Jackson State begins to undermine your narrative. Apartheid has long been a theme ay Northwestern, ultimately leading to many arrests in the 80s. More can be said on the issue of global consciousness informing the American left since the 60s. But let’s not make it a one sided view
Posted by: Jeff Rice | May 15, 2020 at 10:31 PM