Daily Photo #15

John Paul Filo - 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Photography

John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was fatally shot by the Ohio National Guard

The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)[3][4][5] occurred at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, in the United States and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. There were 28 soldiers who admitted to firing on top of the hill, 25 of these soldiers fired 55 rounds into the air and into the ground, two of the soldiers fired .45cal pistol shots, three into the crowd, and three into the air, one soldier fired birdshot into the air (James Russell was also hit with a shotgun's birdshot, some believe that some of the shot may have ricocheted off a tree and hit him).[6] The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[7][8]
Some of the students who were shot had been protesting the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.[9][10]
There was a significant national response to the shootings: Hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of 4 million students,[11] and the event further affected public opinion, at an already socially contentious time, over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.[12]

Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.