Kent State Shooting Site as a National Historic Site?

Type in "Kent State" in Google images, and the first picture to come up is this one:

I have used this image in several courses when talking about the concept of collective memory, as well as postmemory. Most of my students have seen this photograph, but many aren't sure of the historical period or the place. And though I myself was not even born when this photo was taken, it has a certain significance for me because I hold two degrees from Kent State University, and my uncle was a student here when the shootings occurred. In fact, not only was he a student, but he witnessed many of the events that took place. From my grandmother, I learned about the craziness and anxiety of the weekend of May 4, 1970, and how she and my grandfather struggled to get in touch with their son, hoping he was okay. My uncle was a journalism student, and the journalism building was (I think it still is) located very near to where some of the (fatal) shootings took place -- in an area that is now a parking lot. In 1995, I attended a vigil to mark the 25th anniversary of the shootings; Mary Ann Vecchio, the woman in this photograph -- who, at the time, was a runaway from Florida, not a student on the campus -- was one of the speakers.

Looking back, it seems that every year the campus became divided over whether or not this event ought to "be forgotten" or "be remembered." Letters to the editor of the Daily Kent Stater and the Record Courier complained that the campus and town were stuck in the past or only affiliated with the shootings. Others spoke of the importance of continuing to preserve the memory of those who were wounded and killed so as to prevent something similar from happening again. Still others juxtaposed the tragic loss of life in Vietnam with the "four dead in Ohio." Personally, I never understood why the debate had to be so confined to the "forget/remember" dichotomy. I often think that it was at Kent State that my interest in memory began -- long before I began to study it in graduate school, and in the Spanish context.

My mother just sent me an article regarding putting the Kent State shooting site on the National Register of Historic Places.

From: Cleveland.com (AP)

Kent State shooting site recommended for place on historic register

By Associated Press

December 04, 2009, 2:40PM

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio is asking that the site of the 1970 Kent State University shootings be added to the National Register of Historic Places.

A state panel on Friday formally nominated 17 acres of the Kent State campus where Ohio National Guard members opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War. Four students at the northeast Ohio school were killed and nine were wounded.

State historians say the area where the shootings occurred has national significance and should be preserved.

Ohio's recommendation goes to the National Park Service for review and a final decision on whether the Kent State site is put on the historic places register. Ohio Historical Society spokeswoman Kim Schuette (SHOO'-tee) says that process is expected to take 90 days.

To me, what is more interesting than the article itself are the comments left by readers following the article -- "they need to give it up and move on" versus "After reading several of these shallow comments, Ohio needs more than ever to guarantee that this site is guaranteed a place on the National Register of Historic Places if only to make us all THINK!" Many of the comments are politically-charged, mostly railing against "leftist" or "communist" college professors and students, implying that the National Guard was right in firing upon the crowd. There are also remarks on Vietnam and Cambodia and George Bush and Iraq.

The debate stirred up every time one mentions Kent State reveals how entrenched the memory of a traumatic event can become, on both a personal and a collective level. It also highlights the place where politics and memory meet and how one historical period can become conflated with another. Does "remembering" Kent State imply, for some, the promotion of a particular political agenda, which they still associate with 60s-era movements? Is this debate over ownership of the past and the narratives created about that past? Who gets to decide who remembers and why?