Strikes hit area campuses
Kent State tragedy prompts protests
The shots that rang out at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, reverberated on Milwaukee campuses, resulting in two weeks of protests — and even a couple of bombings.
On May 4, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State students who were protesting President Richard Nixon’s expanding the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Four students were killed, and nine others were wounded.
Galvanized by the tragedy, antiwar and student organizations called for a nationwide strike, and students across the country responded.
Student committees at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette University met on May 5 and called for strikes the next day.
The Milwaukee Journal reported on May 6 that picketing of classroom buildings at UWM began that day at 7:30 a.m. By afternoon, the crowds on campus had intensified — and so had the clashes with police.
“More than 100 Milwaukee policemen, armed with riot sticks, Wednesday afternoon dispersed a crowd of striking University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students during a day in which student activists engaged in disruption across the campus,” the Milwaukee Sentinel reported on its front page on May 7, 1970. Two people were arrested.
At Marquette, about 1,000 people picketed along W. Wisconsin Ave. Later, at a “peace Mass” at Schroeder Hall, the Sentinel reported, Marquette President Father John P. Raynor told students: “The concern you feel is also shared by the rest of us in the Marquette community,” stopping short of saying the university endorsed the strike.
The student strike was felt beyond the city’s two biggest universities. The Sentinel reported that 40 to 50 people “rampaged” through two buildings at Milwaukee Area Technical College, and about 250 students from Carroll College, Mount St. Paul College and UW-Waukesha marched to the National Guard armory in Waukesha and had a prayer vigil. Students also walked out of several area high schools.
On May 7, to rein in the protesters at UWM, Chancellor J. Martin Klotsche declared a “state of emergency” “to prevent violence, injury to persons or damage to property,” the Sentinel reported in the next day’s editions. The protests continued.
At Marquette, more than 350 “young people” staged a mock funeral procession down Wisconsin Ave., the Sentinel reported. After demonstrators announced plans to “occupy” Marquette’s student union, university officials gave permission for the union to stay open all night.
At Nicolet High School in Glendale, The Journal reported on May 7, about 200 students gathered in a student lounge for a peace rally. When a Journal reporter entered the school, the reporter “was grabbed by the arm by an official and led into the office of the principal, James Reiels.” “We don’t want any coverage of this,” Reiels told the reporter. “It would just make the situation worse. Would you please leave?”
The Journal reported on May 11 that of the 200 student protesters, 170 had been suspended the day after the rally. In a May 10 meeting at Nicolet, parents and students booed school officials when the latter “refused to answer questions” about the suspensions.
In the early-morning hours of May 8, at Marquette, a pair of fire bombs were tossed into Marquette Hall, 1217 W. Wisconsin Ave., and a third hit the Speech Building, 625 N. 125th St. No one was injured; the damage was estimated at $8,200, and strike organizers denounced the bombings.
Although protesters called for campuses to be shut down, the Sentinel reported on May 11 that the leaders of Marquette and UWM vowed to remain open. The Sentinel reported that 400 to 500 protesters “went on a windowsmashing spree” after Raynor rejected their call to shut down campus. Instead, he gave students the option of skipping final exams, which were being given that week, provided they left campus.
By May 17, the strike at Marquette had all but petered out. At UWM, where students had occupied the student union for nearly a week, the strike formally ended on May 18.
“The on-campus phase of the peace movement is pretty much over,” a UWM professor told The Journal, in a story published May 20, 1970. “The campus now will be a base for going into the community to work for peace.”