On May 4, 1970 a platoon of Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed Kent State students protesting America’s invasion of Cambodia. Four students were shot dead and nine others wounded. Ten days later, also in a student protest against the Vietnam War, two Jackson State College students were killed and 12 were wounded by Mississippi police.
The Kent State and Jackson State student killings seized headlines at a watershed moment in American history, bringing the war home and distressing a country already divided over the Vietnam War. In the days that followed the 1970 campus massacres, more than four million students rose up in dissent across 900 university campuses, generating the largest nationwide student protest in U.S. history.
The Kent State massacre has never been credibly or impartially investigated, and no person or group has been held accountable for wrongdoing. Through the courts, families of those who were killed or injured in the Kent State massacre received paltry sums of compensation and a statement of regret. As a result, there has been little healing.
Forty years after Kent State in 2010, new audio, digital, forensic evidence emerged in a tape recording exposing the Kent State Commands-to-Fire and gunfire from a pistol. Still, the U.S. Dept of Justice refused a credible inquiry into the new audio evidence containing the sounds of shooting and killing of the student protesters exercising their fundamental right to political expression. There remains no admission of responsibility on the part of the state.
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The Kent State Truth Tribunal opened its doors in Kent, Ohio on the 40th anniversary of the May 4, 1970 campus massacre. We set out to gather and record the personal narratives of original 1970 Kent State witnesses and participants, many of whom had never before shared their accounts. In 2010 the Truth Tribunal recorded the first-person narratives of more than 70 original witnesses and participants of the May 4, 1970 Kent State killings.
Our initiative is led by Laurel Krause, whose sister Allison Krause was killed at Kent State, and social justice filmmaker Emily Kunstler, daughter of civil rights and criminal justice attorney William Kunstler who defended Kent State survivors in subsequent legal cases.
Michael Moore broadcast the Truth Tribunal testimonials on his website over the first four days of May 2010, live streaming all three tribunals held at Kent, Ohio, San Francisco and New York City.
Background
The May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre remains a seminal event in American history yet those responsible for the shootings have refused to credibly investigate or account for any of what took place that day.
At the heart of the Kent State killings is the right to safely and peacefully protest as an exercise of civil liberties. The United States is a signatory to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which additionally enshrines this right to protest into international human rights law. The Treaty dictates when a state militia takes aim, shoots and kills protesters, a government must endeavor to conduct a credible investigation, deliver accountability and make amends for the injury against its citizens.
A History of Impunity
In the Kent State massacre, the U.S. government target assassinated and wounded unarmed student protesters against the Vietnam War. Ever since and over the last five decades, those who were responsible for the killings found complete protection in U.S. government impunity delivered through government control of the courts at state and federal levels, and U.S. media, the news.
When Kent State reached the courts, eight of the shooting National Guardsmen were indicted with criminal charges by a Grand Jury but the charges were later dismissed due to flaws in the case prepared by the prosecutor. To this day, the Ohio National Guard refuses to publish the findings of its investigation into command responsibility for the Kent State massacre.
Nine long years of obstructed civil litigation took Kent State all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing the right for the harmed Kent State students and families to pursue civil claims against the government which ended in settlement in 1979.
The 1975 U.S. Supreme Court decision was an important legal breakthrough permitting civil damage claims against high-level state officials, including Governors, for actions or omissions in their official capacity which violated the constitutional rights of individuals. States and government officials were no longer able to claim they were sovereign or above the law.
However, the 1979 civil settlement outcome was devastating for the families of killed Kent State student protesters, who received only $15,000 and a Statement of Regret. Read their published Civil Settlement Statement. The Kent State families and those who cared have still been left clueless about how and why their loved ones were slaughtered that day.
Taking the Kent State Massacre to the U.S. Courts
Attorney for the Krause family, Steve Sindell’s report here.
Founding the Truth Tribunal
The Kent State Truth Tribunal is a direct response from “those who were there,” countering and rejecting decades of the sheltered impunity afforded those who perpetrated the killing of anti-war student protesters in the May 4, 1970 massacre.
For decades Laurel has witnessed Kent State University and U.S. government officials manage Kent State history with institutional power and unlimited funds to repress and rewrite the truth of what occurred at Kent State. Instead of exposing the truth, government officials have buried all evidence of U.S. government complicity and collusion in perpetrating the Kent State massacre.
We look forward to sharing the stories and voices of witnesses and participants in a Kent State Truth Tribunal archive. A testament and enduring record of the truth, told by those who were there and survived the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre.
Author, college professor and, for decades, a leader in protest against U.S. war, Dr. Howard Zinn. In the 70’s Laurel studied at Boston University with Professor Howard Zinn. 37 years later and just weeks before his passing in 2010, Zinn sent this note encouraging the Kent State Truth Tribunal:
Laurie,
You are right that trying to get “redress” via the judicial system is a dead end, or a maze, and that learning and spreading the truth is the most important thing you can do. That was the idea of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.
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Even though you’re not with us, I am writing to wish you a happy 70th birthday. This is my bittersweet wish from your little sister who still looks up to you. Five decades later, I still want to tag along with you and follow your lead. It has been my honor to grow up with you, and to know and love you every day dear Allison.
I want you to know my greatest surprise has been that ever since forming the Kent State Truth Tribunal and the Allison Center for Peace, I’ve healed a little each day. Who knew that searching for truth and accountability related to your killing at Kent State would help me feel better and find peace in my life? Kent State peace is a double blessing you ignited. 😉
Allison, even after all these years, you continue to drive me with your peaceful, kind, astute and loving spirit. I especially enjoy the pranks I see with your name written all over them. Please keep ‘em coming.
On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, the day before your 19th birthday, you celebrated your commitments to peace, against war, to a planet in harmony and your love for all beings in a Buckminster Fuller-inspired geodesic dome set up on the Kent State University commons. A moment that embodied peace in its sacred geometry, its energies and its presence.
Bucky’s geodesic dome was erected just days before President Nixon destabilized the United States with his Cambodian invasion and then called you a “bum” for reacting to an escalating war in Vietnam. In response, on May 3, 1970 you said, “What’s the matter with peace? Flowers are better than bullets.”
Thank you for continuing to guide us. For whispering encouragement into the ears of peaceful young persons even today and for driving peace worldwide in thousands of other ways. I am so thankful to have you in my life and have so much gratitude for the strength you give me to fight for truth and accountability at Kent State as I stand with you!
Wanted you to know we will continue our work at the United Nations with the U.N. Human Rights Committee. We join in solidarity with other human rights and anti-war organizations to demand accountability for excessive and deadly force used by the U.S. military and police against citizens and protesters. Demanding the U.S. government and police never harm or kill a protester again.
Happy 70th Allison!
Love, peace and healing to the folks, family and Manny,
On the 50th anniversary of the Kent State killings, Professor Mickey Huff of Project Censored, in association with the Kent State Truth Tribunal, brought together academics, socio-political historians, protesters and survivors to discuss the many issues related to the May 1970 Kent and Jackson State massacres.
History matters. These perspectives enrich your understanding of this important historical event and provide context for where we are as a society today. Reasonating on issues of war and peace, civil and human rights, and the enduring question of how we may work together to create a more just, equitable and peaceful world.
Kent State 50th Teach-In discussions, extended plays:
About the Kent State 50th Teach-In
Mickey Huff, Host and Moderator, is director of Project Censored, President of the Media Freedom Foundation, and professor of Social Science/History and Journalism at Diablo Valley College in the SF Bay Area, where he co-chairs the history and journalism department. He is Executive Producer and Host of the weekly syndicated public affairs program, The Project Censored Show on Pacifica Radio, co-editor of an annual book of the most censored news stories for Project Censored since 2009, and is co-author of United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what we can do about it).
Mickey did his graduate thesis in history, “Healing Old Wounds,” on the efforts of state and university officials to censor interpretations critical of the official narrative around the Kent State massacre aftermath from 1977-1995. He conducted over 20 oral history interviews at Kent for the 25th anniversary and later testified for the Kent State Truth Tribunal in New York City. In 2012, he co-authored with Laurel Krause a chapter for Censored 2013: “Kent State: Was It about Civil Rights or Murdering Student Protesters,” which revealed new Kent State forensic evidence that led Laurel Krause to take the case all the way to the United Nations.
Laurel Krause, Host and Participant; Co-founder of the Kent State Truth Tribunal and Director of the Allison Center for Peace
Peter Kuznick – Professor of history, American University; author of Untold History of the United States with Oliver Stone
Joseph Lewis – Survivor of two gunshot wounds at Kent State on May 4, 1970
David Zeiger – Documentary filmmaker, Sir! No Sir! The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War in Vietnam
Ira Shor – Author with Paulo Freire of A Pedagogy for Liberation, scholar of critical pedagogy
Joel Eis – Longtime anti-war protester, organizer around draft resistance, and political artist; owner of The Rebound Bookstore
DeRay Mckesson – Author of On the Other Side of Freedom; host of Pod Save the People; civil rights activist at Ferguson; Black Lives Matter
David Swanson – Executive Director, World Beyond War; Campaign Coordinator for RootsAction.org; on the advisory board with Veterans for Peace
Laurel Krause – Sister of Allison Krause, who was murdered at Kent State; co-founder of the Kent State Truth Tribunal and director of the Allison Center.
Support for the Kent State 50th Teach-In from documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, and civil and consumer rights advocate and lawyer, Ralph Nader.
“50 years after the Kent State killings, justice still has not been served. The Kent State Truth Tribunal brings us closer to that goal by sharing first-hand accounts with the public. I am grateful for their efforts and hopeful that some day the truth will come out.”
– Michael Moore
“I spoke at Kent State a few days before May 4, 1970. The anxieties of the students were plainly evident in the crowded auditorium and throughout a very tense campus. The massacres at Kent State and the black college Jackson State confirmed the worst fears of anti-war and civil rights student protesters on campus — that this was going to be the response of a police state.”
– Ralph Nader on the Kent State 50th anniversary of May 4, 1970
On the 40th anniversary of the Kent State massacre in May 2010 new expert forensic evidence emerged uncovering the Kent State Commands-to-Fire from the May 4, 1970 killing of four and wounding of nine student protesters. Ever since that day, the U.S. government and those in power at Kent State University have made it their business to deny and refuse any meaningful inquiry into the Kent State Commands-to-Fire.
Stuart Allen, forensic audio expert
This game-changing Kent State evidence made front-page headlines in a Cleveland Plain Dealer series of news articles from science journalist John Mangels, sharing with the public the findings and analyses of forensic audio expert Stuart Allen in his examination of the Kent State tape. Mangels’ May 2010 article offered new perspectives into the Kent State massacre, especially the Kent State Commands-to-Fire, 40 years after the tragic event.
Later that year in October 2010 as Allen prepared for his Kent State Truth Tribunal testimonial, he “heard” additional new evidence in a commotion among the student protesters before the Kent State massacre. Mangels’ account on Allen’s findings reported, “When he re-analyzed and enhanced the section later, he picked up details of the yelling and what sounded like gunfire. He compared the acoustic signatures to his library of weapon sounds to determine that it was a .38-caliber revolver.”
News of the “sounds of commotion” heard moments before the Ohio National Guard gunfire in the Kent State massacre, and the implications of these sounds, precipitated U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich to launch a U.S. Congressional“inquiry into an altercation and apparent pistol fire that occurred about 70 seconds before Ohio National Guardsmen shot students and antiwar protesters on May 4, 1970.”
Spurred by Allen’s revelations in October 2010, it looked like the new Kent State findings would be heard before U.S. Congress. Then by a twist of fate, even though Kucinich won the November 2010 re-election, he lost his Domestic Policy subcommittee chairmanship and its investigative powers when Republicans gained control of the US House of Representatives in 2011. Forty years later, the truth at Kent State was again prevented from being heard in the U.S. Congress.
Beyond the Commands-to-Fire, Allen also identified elements of government complicity in the alleged Kent State pistol shots of Terry Norman, the Kent State University student and FBI informant who may have fired the first shots in the Kent State massacre
Back then, the “21-year-old law enforcement major and self-described ‘gung-ho’ informant was the only civilian known to be carrying a gun — illegally, though with the tacit consent of campus police — when the volatile protest unfolded on May 4, 1970. Witnesses saw him with his pistol out around the time the Guardsmen fired.” It is believed Norman fired the first gun, first shot in May 4, 1970 at Kent State.
Spent bullets allegedly fired by Terry Norman’s pistol
Allen’s forensics shine a bright light and blow a whistle on U.S. government involvement in the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre. Allen’s expert verification and matching the four pistol shots fired BEFORE the Kent State Commands-to-Fire expose long-secreted, covert U.S. government complicity and collusion in the shooting and killing of student protesters at Kent State.
At the May 4 Visitors Center and in historical accounts from Kent State University about May 4th, Stuart Allen’s new findings on Terry Norman’s activities that day, and the Kent State Commands-to-Fire, are still wholly denied, whitewashed and censored.
Kent State University’s dictum for the Kent State massacre of “Inquire, Learn, Reflect” is more like “Deny, Ignore, Bury the Truth Since 1970.”
Beyond delivering credible, expert and verifiable findings, Allen’s 2010 revelations in the Kent State Commands-to-Fire impact decades of our legal and collective understanding of what occurred before the Kent State massacre fusillade. In the nine years of Kent State lawsuits immediately following the massacre, the families of the dead and the survivors had no proof of this key evidence: the existence of the Kent State Commands-to-Fire.
Without this evidence, it was impossible to litigate critical legal issues involved in the Kent State massacre such as those involving the Ohio National Guard and their command responsibility. Back then and to this day, the US government, the state of Ohio and Kent State University have made every effort to control and obfuscate what is known about the Kent State massacre as they erase evidence of government involvement in the reports, books, visitor centers, documentaries and commemorations they sponsor.
In 2024, after seven years of demands, our efforts to secure Allison Krause’s and her father Arthur Krause’s FBI files through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have born fruit. Releasing these files to the public are in our future plans.
Let us heal the wounds of those hurt by what occurred at Kent State, establish true cause and effect in the massacre, and shine a light on truth as we stand for the safety and protection of protesters in America today.
From Michael Parenti in his book, History is Mystery:
“Those engaged in the manufacturing of history often introduce distortions at the point of origin well before the history is written or even played out. This initial process of control is not actually left to chance but is regularly pursued by interested parties who are situated to manipulate the record.”
In remembrance of Stuart Allen, international forensic expert, who crossed over peacefully on November 23, 2016
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Just days after the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre, Neil Young penned the song “Ohio,” creating an anthem for peace and a tribute to the student protesters killed and wounded by the National Guard at Kent State. This song and Kent State became a tragically iconic episode in the collective history of the United States.
Lyrics from the Song “Ohio” by Neil Young:
Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming We’re finally on our own This summer I hear the drumming Four dead in Ohio …
Neil Young’s Ohio – Live (1971) re-released in March 2021 on Young Shakespeare
In 1970, the Massacre at Kent State Seized the Nation
More than 50 years ago — nine months after the birth of Woodstock and six months after the 1969 war moratoriums when millions of young Americans marched against the Vietnam War — the May 1970 campus massacres at Kent State and Jackson State traumatized a generation of American anti-war protesters and peaceful people. Directly following the killings, students rose up at campuses across the country in the largest national student protest in U.S. history.
Every young person back then carries a Kent State recollection, many remember how it dramatically affected their lives and left an enduring imprint on their relationship with the U.S. government.
Even though more than five decades have passed, millions of peaceful people around the world who opposed the Vietnam War and endless war today still honor these Kent State students. Let us remember how Holly Near empathized, “It Could Have Been Me” hurt, harmed or killed protesting. Let us fight to protect protesters and reclaim the right to protest safely in the U.S. today.
Honoring the Killed
Allison Beth Krause, age 19 – 343 ft (105m) – fatal left chest wound, died hours later
Jeffrey Glenn Miller, age 20 – 265 ft (81m) – shot through mouth, killed instantly
Sandra Lee Scheuer, age 20 – 390 ft (120m) – fatal neck wound, died minutes later from loss of blood
William Knox Schroeder, age 19 – 382 ft (116m) – fatal chest wound, died in hospital undergoing surgery
Honoring the Wounded
Joseph J. Lewis, Jr. – 71 ft (22m) – shot twice, right abdomen, left lower leg
John R. Cleary – 110 ft (34m) – upper left chest wound
Thomas M. Grace – 225 ft (69m) – shot in left ankle
Alan M. Canfora – 225 ft (69m) – shot in right wrist
Dean R. Kahler – 300 ft (91m) – back wound fracturing vertebrae, permanently paralyzed from chest down
Douglas A. Wrentmore – 329 ft (100m) – shot in right knee
James D. Russell – 375 ft (114m) – shot in right thigh and right forehead
Robert F. Stamps – 495 ft (151m) – shot in right buttock
Donald S. MacKenzie – 750 ft (230m) – neck wound
Kent State, a Seminal Event in U.S. History
When this image of Jeff Miller lying dead on the Kent State University campus was released in U.S. news, it electrified the nation as the news went around the world. Accounts of the most important events in the latter half of the 20th century frequently name the Kent State massacre as a watershed moment. This Pulitzer Prize-winning photo has become tragically iconic, a rebuke to a country priding itself on democratic representation and civil liberties … and in 2024, this photo is censored on most social media platforms.
John P. Filo’s Pulitzer Prize photo of the 1970 Kent State massacre with Jeffrey Miller and Mary Ann Vecchio
The Poem, “Flowers & Bullets”
Right after the Kent State massacre, Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote “Flowers & Bullets” for killed Kent State student protester Allison Krause and published his poem in Pravda, the leading Russian newspaper. In 1970, even with arcane technologies and media methods, news of the Kent State massacre spread worldwide including how Allison had asked an Ohio National Guardsmen, “What’s the matter with peace? Flowers are better than bullets” the day before she was killed. In May 1970 City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco published this pamphlet of Yevtushenko’s poetry for generations of peaceful U.S. readers, selling out each time after multiple printings.
Flowers & Bullets by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (English translation by Anthony Kahn)
Of course: Bullets don’t like people who love flowers, They’re jealous ladies, bullets, short on kindness. Allison Krause, nineteen years old, you’re dead for loving flowers.
When, thin and open as the pulse of conscience, you put a flower in a rifle’s mouth and said, “Flowers are better than bullets,” that was pure hope speaking.
Give no flowers to a state that outlaws truth; such states reciprocate with cynical, cruel gifts, and your gift, Allison Krause, was the bullet that blasted the flower.
Let every apple orchard blossom black, black in mourning. Ah, how the lilac smells! You’re without feeling. Nothing, Nixon said it: “You’re a bum.” All the dead are bums. It’s not their crime. You lie in the grass, a melting candy in your mouth, done with dressing in new clothes, done with books.
You used to be a student. You studied fine arts. But other arts exist, of blood and terror, and headsmen with a genius for the axe.
Who was Hitler? A cubist of gas chambers. In the name of all flowers I curse your works, you architect of lies, maestros of murder! Mothers of the world whisper “O God, God!” and seers are afraid to look ahead. Death dances rock-and-roll upon the bones of Vietnam, Cambodia – On what stage is it booked to dance tomorrow?
Rise up, Tokyo girls, Roman boys, take up your flowers against the common foe. Blow the world’s dandelions up into a blizzard! Flowers, to war! Punish the punishers! Tulip after tulip, carnation after carnation rip out of your tidy beds in anger, choke every lying throat with earth and root! You, jasmine, clog the spinning blades of mine-layers.
Boldy, block the cross-hair sights, drive your sting into the lenses, nettles! Rise up, lily of the Ganges, lotus of the Nile, stop the roaring props of planes pregnant with the death of children! Roses, don’t be proud to find yourselves sold at higher prices. Nice as it is to touch a tender cheek, thrust a sharper thorn a little deeper into the fuel tanks of bombers.
Of course: Bullets are stronger than flowers. Flowers aren’t enough to overwhelm them. Stems are too fragile, petals are poor armor. But a Vietnam girl of Allison’s age, taking a gun in her hands is the armed flower of the people’s wrath! If even flowers rise, then we’ve had enough of playing games with history.
Young America, tie up the killer’s hands. Let there be an escalation of truth to overwhelm the escalating lie crushing people’s lives! Flowers, make war! Defend what’s beautiful! Drown the city streets and country roads like the flood of an army advancing and in the ranks of people and flowers arise, murdered Allison Krause, Immortal of the age, Thorn-Flower of protest!
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Taking the Kent State Massacre Before the United Nations
When Kent State University, the state of Ohio and the U.S. government refused to acknowledge credible new forensic evidence in the 2010 discovery of the Ohio National Guard’s Commands-to-Fire, the Kent State Truth Tribunal sought every legal and official channel to bring this forensic expert findings, proof, to light.
In December 2012, after reading a newspaper article quoting Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program, on the landmark decision of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the CIA kidnapping, rendition and torture of Khaled El-Masri, we contacted Dakwar to seek his guidance.
In January 2013 the Kent State Truth Tribunal began working with Dakwar when he suggested raising the lack of accountability for the Kent State killings at the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Committee which monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
From the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights the Truth Tribunal learned students and protesters at Kent State on May 4, 1970 were “target assassinated” by forces of the U.S. government; this is also known as extrajudicial executions. Kent State was in effect a firing squad against unarmed student protesters.
In March 2014 the Kent State Truth Tribunal testified before the U.N. Human Rights Committee at the U.S. 4th periodic review. Hear this BBC interview with Laurel Krause conducted at the United Nations.
Based on our testimony, the U.N. Human Rights Committee asked the U.S. delegation specifically about the lack of adequate investigation into the Kent State massacre, also calling out issues of Command Responsibility and use of Excessive, Deadly Force.
Department of Justice, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin stated that “In 1970, four students were killed, were murdered,” the first official admission that the Kent State massacre killings were murders. However, Austin defended the closing of the DOJ investigation despite the new evidence establishing the Commands-to-Fire.
Since 2014, the Truth Tribunal continues to participate at the United Nations, seeking truth, accountability, reconciliation and healing for the 1970 Kent State massacre. Read the 2015 United Nations Kent State report.
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Emily Kunstler – Co-founder & Video Archivist of the Truth Tribunal
Emily Kunstler graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA and honors in Film and Video. Emily was a video producer for Democracy Now!, an independent national television and radio news program, and a studio art fellow with the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and is a co-founder of the Kent State Truth Tribunal. In 2000, along with her sister, Sarah, Emily co-founded Off Center Media, a production company that produces documentaries exposing injustice in the criminal justice system. Off Center Media films have contributed to campaigns to stay executions, convince decision makers to reopen cases, and exonerate the wrongfully convicted. Emily has made two feature documentaries, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (Sundance 2009, POV/PBS), which was short-listed for the Best Documentary Oscar, and Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (SXSX 2021) which won an Audience Award at SXSW and the Golden Space Needle at Seattle International Film Festival.
Laurel Krause – Co-founder of the Truth Tribunal and Director of the Allison Center for Peace
Laurel Krause is an advocate for Kent State truth and for the protection of protesters in America today, also dedicated to safe renewable energy and combating climate crises. Since 2007 Laurel writes on these topics at her blog, MendoCoastCurrent and makes her home at the Allison Center for Peace on the Mendocino Coast, creating a People’s Memorial Park and Power Art Farm. On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State massacre in 2024, Laurel’s Peace on the Mendocino Coast started at Substack. Before spearheading the Kent State Truth Tribunal for her sister Allison Krause, Laurel worked in sales and marketing at technology start-ups in the early days of Silicon Valley and the Internet.
Martina Radwan – Cinematographer
Martina, a German/Syrian, based in NYC for more than 20 years, has been the cinematographer of award-winning documentaries, including Saving Face, for which she earned a 2013 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Cinematography. The film was also the winner of the 2012 Academy Award and the 2013 Emmy for Best Documentary. Most of her documentaries, like Inventing Tomorrow, The Final Year, The Family I had, The Promised Band, Through a Lens Darkly and William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe can be seen on national and international screens, as well as HBO, Showtime and PBS. Her directorial debut Spring In Awe received the Media Awareness Award at the Media That Matters Film Festival, 2004, as well as the Best Editing Award at the Brooklyn Film Festival. Her second film Aliens Among Us was part of DocuWeek 2009. She is currently in post-production with her first feature-length documentary, currently titled Stolen Childhood. Martina is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Science, Documentary Branch.
Karmen Ross – Communications Strategy
Karmen Ross is a filmmaker and political strategist with many years of experience in truth-seeking initiatives. Karmen has received numerous prizes, including Emmy awards, a Cable Ace award, a Robert F. Kennedy journalism award and her work has been featured by The New York Times, CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, Newsweek and many others. She was the first Communications Director for the International Center for Transitional Justice, founded by members of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and worked for many years to help survivors of the Bosnian war seek accountability for war crimes. She most recently completed her MBA at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
Tracy Bunting – Associate Producer
Tracy Bunting graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005 with a BA in History and from NYU in 2008 with an MA in Archives and Public History. She was an Associate Producer on the Oscar-shortlisted documentary, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. Tracy currently resides in LA where she works in commercial production.
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The Kent State Truth Tribunal continues to seek accountability and truth related to the Kent State massacre. In 2010 we filmed the testimonies of Kent State survivors and witnesses at three Truth Tribunals and then followed a path of international accountability for the protection of U.S. protesters, which took us to the United Nations in 2014.
The Kent State Truth Tribunal and the Allison Center for Peace are nonprofit organizations made possible by individual and grassroots donations. Your support enable our actions for peace to thrive as well as help us challenge the U.S. government. We’re counting on you to make sure we continue to correct history and stand for the protection of protesters today.
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Attributed Photographs
Many of the images from the May 4, 1970 Kent State massacre pictured at this website are used with permission from the Kent State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives. John P. Filo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Kent State is used with his permission. Unless otherwise attributed, Kent State memes and artwork have been generously created and used with the permission by Prapat Campbell. Nancy Cutler created the Kent State Truth Tribunal logo. Photos of the Allison Center for Peace are used with the permission of Laurel Krause.
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Various Allison memes were created by Prapat Campbell from the art of Vince Packard and used with their permissions. The “Allison with flowers” montage art created by Jon Nalley is used with his permission.
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The black and white photograph of Laurel Krause with Allison at the United Nations is used with the permission of Kyle Johnston. The color photograph of Jamil Dakwar and Laurel Krause is used with the permission of Emilia Bolin Ransom. The UN Kent State T-shirt art was created by Josh Starcher and is used with his permission.
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