Jed Hickson, Oral History

Recorded: May 3, 2010
Interviewed by Craig Simpson
Transcribed by Amanda Faehnel

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Interviewer]: Good morning. The date is Monday, May 3, 2010 and my name is Craig Simpson. We're conducting an interview today for the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project and could you please state your name?

[Jed Hickson]: My name is Edward L. Hickson. I go by Jed.

[Interviewer]: Okay. Where were you born, Jed?

[Jed Hickson]: I was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. Something I'm told I shouldn't admit.

[Interviewer]: (laughs) And when did you first come to Kent State?

[Jed Hickson]: Well, I attended DePauw University in Indiana for three years. It must have been 1969.

[Interviewer]: 1969 when you came?

[Jed Hickson]: Fall of 1969.

[Interviewer]: And what made you decide to come to Kent State all the way from New Jersey?

[Jed Hickson]: I was born in New Jersey but I grew up in Barberton.

[Interviewer]: Oh, you grew up in Barberton. Okay. What made you decide to come to Kent State for college?

[Jed Hickson]: I changed my major to communications and broadcasting and Kent had a program.

[Interviewer]: Okay. So you majored in communications?

[Jed Hickson]: What was it they called it? At the time they called it telecommunications, I think that's the term they used--teleproductions.

[Interviewer]: Teleproductions now, but I think it was telecommunications then.

[Jed Hickson]: Yeah. It was that hallway behind the stage at Music and Speech [Building], where we were last night.

[Interviewer]: Okay, right.

[Jed Hickson]: And the television studio is behind that.

[Interviewer]: And how would you describe the university prior to 1970? Just kind of your general impression of it?

[Jed Hickson]: I know the broadcasting program was well-respected. I came--DePauw was a very small university. I think there were fifteen hundred people or something total and there were nearly that many people in the first class I took. I took two classes to catch up, sociology and psychology, with I think five hundred and seven hundred people. And I had been at an advanced point in my major--prior major--and one of the classes I took had two people in it at DePauw. So you come with seven hundred people and it's almost--completely overwhelming.

[Interviewer]: There was a lot of growth at the university then I heard, yeah.

[Jed Hickson]: Those were like freshman introduction courses, so it was just a lot of people in them. The only way I could deal with it was to sit in the front row.

[Interviewer]: That makes sense. And you were here on May 4, 1970?

[Jed Hickson]: Yeah. You were asking for my impression of the university?

[Interviewer]: Yeah, sure.

[Jed Hickson]: I think my opinion, the accepted opinion, was that Kent was a good university. Maybe not a great university, but it was a good university. I think it's gotten better since--the reputation's gotten much better since. It's certainly gotten much bigger. (laughs)

[Interviewer]: (laughs) It's gotten much bigger, yeah. Between twenty and twenty-five thousand students now.

[Jed Hickson]: But yes, I was here on May 4th.

[Interviewer]: You were here on May 4 and you have a poem that you would like to read?

[Jed Hickson]: Yeah. I was working the weekend and heard about the fracas downtown and the ROTC building had been burned down, so naturally, I came over to see when I got back Monday morning. And a classmate and I were going across campus and stopped to see what was going on.

[Interviewer]: Okay. And do you have any context for this poem or do you want to go ahead and read it first?

[Jed Hickson]: I'll go ahead and read it.

[Interviewer]: Talk about it later. Okay. Please read.

[Jed Hickson]: It's dedicated to Alan Canfora because Alan and I went to high school together.

[Interviewer]: Oh, okay.

[Jed Hickson]: In commemoration of the fortieth anniversary. On Monday, May 4, 1970 on a quiet college campus in Northeast Ohio, four students were killed and nine more were wounded in thirteen seconds of gunfire from the rifles of Ohio National Guardsmen called to duty on Sunday, May 3rd, and again on the morning of May 4th. Many of the Guardsmen were the same age as the students. Herein lies a story and a tribute: to those fallen, to those not; to those wounded, and to those not; to those present, and to those not.

Flowers are better than bullets

On the fourth of May

On the fourth of May

At 12:24 in the afternoon

for thirteen seconds,

rendered asunder by sixty-seven bullets,

peace was torn and scattered on the winds of change

At that moment, the American psyche entered a new paradigm

And so great was the schism that the old and

the new have yet to communicate.

On Sunday, May 3rd, Allison Krause talked to a Guardsman who had a flower in the barrel of his M-1. Later on Sunday, she yelled to the commanding officer that flowers are better than bullets.

In 2007, I wrote

No book no poem no stanzas no lines, no

No rock stars no hot tunes no

No shit, no.

But, I woke today, May 4, 2007,

thirty-seven years after and pronounced, "My god, it's good to be alive."

This is still true on May 4, 2010.

I did so this morning.

[Interviewer]: You did what this morning?

[Jed Hickson]: Said, My god, it's good to be alive.

[Interviewer]: Oh. (laughs)

[Jed Hickson]: Four Lay Dead, Killed in Ohio

On the fourth of May

On the fourth of May

At 12:24 in the afternoon

Allison Krause shot at 343 feet fatally wounded.

Allison, what voice rings through the clear, cold dawn,

mourning the loss of your voice?

On the fourth of May

On the fourth of May

At 12:24 in the afternoon

Jeffrey Miller shot at 265 feet killed instantly.

Jeff, what voice rings through the clear, cold dawn,

mourning the loss of your voice?

On the fourth of May

On the fourth of May

At 12:24 in the afternoon

William Schroeder shot at 382 feet fatally wounded.

Bill, what voice rings through the clear, cold dawn,

mourning the loss of your voice?

On the fourth of May

On the fourth of May

At 12:24 in the afternoon

Sandra Scheuer shot at 390 feet fatally wounded.

Sandy, what voice rings through the clear, cold dawn,

mourning the loss of your voice?

On the fourth of May

On the fourth of May.

 

And then there were nine

Joseph, John, Thomas, Alan, Dean, Douglas, James, Robert, Donald

remains there a voice,

remains there a voice to guard your pain, to shield your eyes, your ears?

Who will hold your wounds to stop the bleeding and the pain?

It is you who listens at the door for the coming of the truth and of peace

Your voice is not stilled--this is difficult--

[Interviewer]: That's okay.

[Jed Hickson]: You call out through the silence for the lost, for our lost brothers and sisters

Remember that flowers are better than bullets,

at least and at last, they are stronger and they last longer.

 

And the one

And I, me, myself, not shot,

Not physically, but wounded nonetheless,

I am not a direct eyewitness of the shootings, but I was there, a witness from atop Johnson Hall, with friend and classmate, just walking across campus together, stopped to watch, ROTC building gone, a burned hulk, then, the two of us, in the crowd, standing in front of Taylor, fixing wet handkerchief over faces against tear gas, then we headed away from Blanket Hill and Taylor, towards the Art building, only to be pushed back by advancing line of National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets, our age, I remember noting to myself and my companion.

Here I have a footnote:

As I recollect now, forty years later, seeing bayonets fixed on rifles remains one of the freshest memories, the most fixed in memory. I particularly remember being struck by how young the National Guard looked, all dressed in fatigues and helmets with the rifles and bayonets held diagonally across their chests.

This is an aside, but my mother asked me if I really could remember, and I said, Yes, the bayonets fixed on rifles, something like that, I remember.

Sorry.

[Interviewer]: That's okay.

[Jed Hickson]: So we came back to the Johnson Hall side of the hill where we saw someone lobbing back tear gas, witnessed the Guardsmen cross and start up the hill, but now we cut out from the crowd and entered Johnson, working our way to the roof, heard the shots, watched the National Guard retreat back to The Common[s], and, finally, watched later as the State Police riot-trained and equipped unit arrived, finally, worked our way back to the Music and Speech Center and the TV studio to report what we had seen and heard.

And to the hundreds who were there but who were not shot,

Not physically, but wounded nonetheless,

not direct eyewitness, though perhaps you were,

but there, present.

We who have carried wounds for all these years,

Who were victims too,

Is there a voice that sings our voice, our anger

Who will succor our wounds?

We shall learn no longer to be victims, we all shall learn

We who have carried this burden

We sing our anger, will succor our wounds that we may heal and learn.

 

We shall not victims be.

In a village of life and light grows a city of hope.

So, here now

In this present

The steps we take, on the earth or in the sky, one after another

Leading

Inevitably back

To that other moment, forty years ago

Can we but begin anew

Turning toward hope, toward forgiveness, and toward reconciliation

Know that we shall not victims be

remembrance of those thirteen seconds

becomes

Readiness, preparedness

the very stuff of continuance

As we, inspired, listen to

A guide to reconciliation

A guide to affirmation

and as we

Recognize, or not

Signify, or not

Acts of affirmation and reconciliation

Become as necessary

As breathing

As dreaming

As the essence of living

The great vessels of hearts and minds

Begins empty and fills

And then we empty to begin again

What words, says the poet, inflict hope, incite forgiveness?

What are the colors of peace, what are the sounds of loving?

Where is the laughter of forgiveness, the thunder of healing?

To those voices stilled, to our voices, and to our hearts bring peace,

quietude, and the certain assertion that the next revolution will be conducted by reconciliation.

[Interviewer]: That's beautiful, Jed. Very nice.

[Jed Hickson]: There's then four pages of supporting material.

[Interviewer]: (laughs) Okay.

[Jed Hickson]: If I could just read my own description there called My own memory and thoughts. But first, least we forget Jackson State and Phillip Gibbs and James Green and DePauw University where May 1st and May 6th there was a fire explosion at the ROTC building.

[Interviewer]: At DePauw?

[Jed Hickson]: At DePauw, right.

[Interviewer]:May 6th? Wow. Huh.

[Jed Hickson]: Actually, I looked this up. There's a book by Christopher Hewitt: Political violence and terrorism in modern America: a chronology which lists over thirty-one hundred acts of political violence from 1953 to 2005, but for the dates of May 1st through 6th, there were thirty-three instances of bombing or fire or shootings and forty-nine percent, or sixteen, involved ROTC buildings.

[Interviewer]: That's interesting you mention that because there's often this impression that May 4 ended protest movements when actually, if in the stats, it actually inflamed it, (laughs) at least immediately afterward. That was great. When did you write this poem?

[Jed Hickson]: I started, I think it was sometime last year.

[Interviewer]: Did you just last year? Because it's very vivid. Do you find that your memories of this are very vivid or do you think some things seem--

[Jed Hickson]: They're all--I mean, a case in point is that I wrote this and as I talked with (unintelligible) I had gotten it backwards.

[Interviewer]: You had gotten it backwards?

[Jed Hickson]: Yeah.

[Interviewer]: What do you mean?

[Jed Hickson]: Well, let me read it.

[Interviewer]: Sure.

[Jed Hickson]: My own memories and thoughts.

And meanwhile, the war in Vietnam raged on, Americans of all color continued to die, as well as Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and several other Southeast Asian nations.

Veterans and returning soldiers gained little respect and, in many cases, were treated with harsh and violent behavior. Many, many mistakes were made at the highest levels of our society. Some have been acknowledged and some have not. We are still paying for all of them.

Now this is the--I wrote it here that I transported people out of Kent and in fact, I was--a friend of mine transported me and a bunch of other people out of Kent.

[Interviewer]: This is when they closed the campus down?

[Jed Hickson]: Yeah. So let me read that correction.

[Interviewer]: Sure.

[Jed Hickson]: My friend, AR, took several of us, well, a jammed full Volkswagon, out of Kent, past the troops and roadblocks, and took us home. My mother, to her great credit, exclaimed, "How are you?", and was overjoyed that everyone was safe. AR later told my mother that she was the only one, her parents included, that asked that question. Most asked, What happened? Some said that they should have died that day or those shot got what they deserved. This latter attitude was expressed to me on occasion in the days that followed.

And I never, never, never understood.

The following summer and fall, I worked for the campus department responsible for maintaining the campus wide cable television system. The coaxial cable used for the system ran from building to building through the same underground tunnels as the steam system for heating. Following May 4th, all entrances to the tunnels were locked and, as a student worker, the campus police had to be called every time I needed access to the tunnels. This is despite the fact that I had free access to the tunnels in my work with the same department and the same full time staff prior to May 4th.

So there was a real sense of paranoia.

[Interviewer]: Right. Did you find that that carried on through when you came back in the fall?

[Jed Hickson]: Let's see, I started back to work as soon as they opened the campus. Yeah, I don't think that ever really went away.

[Interviewer]: It continued through the following year. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Did you take correspondence classes?

[Jed Hickson]: I was listening to Chuck--

[Interviewer]: Chuck Ayers, yeah.

[Jed Hickson]: --and he was in Charlie Brill's class. So was I. So I finished my only--it was my only photography class until about three years ago when I took some classes in Boston. I didn't remember that we were in the same class but I finished the entire class by correspondence.

[Interviewer]: Did you? (laughs) I had an interviewee who finished a fencing class by correspondence, so that was interesting. (laughs) You talk at the end of the poem a lot about reconciliation. Do you feel that that's been achieved more now than at the time, or do you feel there's still more work that needs to be done?

[Jed Hickson]: Well, I felt that after the play last night that a lot of those questions had been answered, or there was more of an answer available, for those questions I ask at the end of the poem.

[Interviewer]: Are there any more thoughts you would like to share?

[Jed Hickson]: As opposed to the attitude here, I found the attitude in New England very different. It was almost a badge of honor for me to have been here. One friend introduced me at a Christmas party as his friend who (unintelligible) Kent State, which made me feel a little awkward but, you know, it was his perception that--it was his perception.

[Interviewer]: You felt that they were more sympathetic elsewhere, in other words, than here in Kent?

[Jed Hickson]: Yeah. Or Northeast Ohio.

[Interviewer]: Right. Whereas here it was more of a stigma, you had mentioned.

[Jed Hickson]: Right.

[Interviewer]: Yeah, I've heard that other people talk about that too, and even overseas they felt--anybody that had traveled overseas--had the same thing that you were talking about that you experienced in New England. Are there--anything else you'd like to share?

[Jed Hickson]: Let me look back here. Recently at a retreat, in which we were asked to rewrite or add to the beatitudes:

Blessed be poets, sublime fools, whose words transcend words

that they may achieve meaning.

Blessed be flowers for they are, at last, stronger than bullets,

and they last longer.

Blessed be the heart of reconciliation that it may guide

jurisprudence.

Blessed be those who incite forgiveness.

Blessed be the traveler whose journey may lead him home once again.

Blessed be the coming of dawn, it remains a fact without regard

that there is or is not a watcher.

I saw W.S. Merwin read last week and I don't remember what line it was but it was almost identical to mine. In fact I grabbed--I showed my companion. It was fun.

[Interviewer]: Well Jed, thank you very much.

[Jed Hickson]: Thank you.

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