Elyse Green, Oral History

Recorded: May 4, 2000
Interview by Sandra Perlman Halem
Transcribed by Maggie Castellani

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]: [This is Sandra] Perlman Halem and we are in the Alumni Center, May 4th, 2000 with an interview. Would you give us your name and where you were in May of 1970.

[Elyse Green]: My name was Elyse Scott in 1970. Now my name is Elyse Green in 2000. In May of 1970, I was here as a student. I was a freshman. It was spring quarter of my freshman year, here at Kent State. And I lived in a dorm called Humphrey Hall out in Small Group housing. Felt like I was pretty separated from the rest of humanity out there but that's where the university chose to put me.

[Interviewer]: What memories do you have you would like to leave for us?

[Elyse Green]: Well, my memories are mainly being downtown on Friday night and seeing the very beginnings of what led up to the Monday afternoon of May 4th. And my other memory is walking across the Prentice Hall parking lot on Monday afternoon at about 12:30 because our professor in Music and Speech had excused us from class as soon as the shots were fired because he thought that they were teargas and that we should not be having a class under such inappropriate circumstances. He released us and I knew I had a class that started at 1:10 at Satterfield Hall. And I had to go across The Commons to get from Music and Speech to Satterfield. I had a midterm in a grammar class that I was taking. And I decided that if I left Music and Speech and cut across The Commons, I might be able to get to Satterfield early so that I would have extra time to cram for my grammar test, which never occurred. And when I walked across the Prentice Hall parking lot, I just remember the tremendous amount of blood. I remember the ambulances were already leaving. There was a tremendous amount of blood all over the parking lot. It looked almost like, almost like little rivulets of blood, puddles of blood everywhere, the whole parking lot. And I was so shocked and I couldn't figure what was happening or why it had happened. And I saw a lot of students crying and holding hands and hugging each other. But I still didn't really know because I kept thinking of what Professor Falcione said in the Music and Speech Building in my speech class about the teargas. And I still was convinced, for some crazy reason, that there was just teargas. So I had no clue where the blood was from. I had no clue where the ambulances were going or why there were so many of them and why they were so loud and moving so fast and why people were crying so hard and hugging each other and being so hysterical. So I kept walking. I didn't stop and talk to anyone. I just kept walking because I had such a one-track mind. I felt like I had to get to Satterfield Hall. For some reason, I was like, it was almost like my body didn't have control of itself. I was being like pulled to Satterfield Hall. And I stopped nowhere, talked to no one, and just kept walking.

And when I got to Satterfield Hall, I crammed for my test. And then when I looked for my professor and my class, they weren't there at 1:10 when they were supposed to be. And I couldn't figure out what was going on and the building was pretty empty. And then I think somebody came up to me and said, "You better go back to your dorm. There's been a problem on campus. There's been, you know, people shot. We don't know who or how many. But I think you better go back to your dorm." I don't remember who it was that told me that. Then I walked from Satterfield all the way back to Humphrey which is pretty far away from everything.

And when I got back to my dorm, I heard a little bit more from some of the girls on my dormitory floor who seemed to be a little more aware of things than I was. And next thing I heard was that we had to go home right away. And that we didn't have much time. We just had to take basically what we could carry. And that we couldn't call out and we couldn't receive calls in because all the phone lines were down or were turned off or something. And so we had to find -- we were told, "You just have to find a ride. You know, just find somebody who's going as close to your neighborhood or your city as possible and just leave. You have to leave!" And I remember like military cars running, driving around with bullhorns saying you know, "This campus is being evacuated. Take your things and leave." Luckily, the girl who lived across the hall from me in Humphrey had a boyfriend who had a car and they both lived in University Heights which is a suburb of Cleveland on the east side. I lived in South Euclid also a suburb on the east side. They offered me a ride home. I took it and just basically took the clothes on my back. And I think I took some of my textbooks because, as you can probably tell, I was pretty into my studies. So I took my textbooks and I left. And they drove me home. Shelly and Mark drove me home. And my mother was standing in the driveway crying, waiting for me, thinking that I was one of the dead people at Kent. And she was crying. And my neighbors were standing on their, in their front lawns waiting. And when they saw me get out of the car, everybody was pretty happy to see me. And so that's what I remember about that day.

And then, I've since come up with different theories about why it happened and the causes and effects and so forth. But that's my specific memories of that day. I don't even remember what happened after I got into my parent's house, other than there was a lot of crying on my mother's part. And I don't remember crying at all. And I remember all my neighbors coming in and just touching me and saying how glad they were to see me, and that I was, you know, how glad they were that I wasn't injured, and that I was all right and that I was home.

[Interviewer]: Is there something else you would like to add?

[Elyse Green]: I would. And what I'd like to add is my theory about what happened on May 4th. My theory is not my own theory. Two of my neighbors on one said of me, a husband and wife, at the time in South Euclid, were members of the American Communist Party. And they had a very big influence over me that summer, especially after May 4th. They had a theory, and I don't know if they got it from the American Communist Party or if it was just their own theory, because of a distrust of the American government. But their theory was, is that, "This whole thing was just one big setup. And it was a conspiracy." This theory, to this day, is also my theory. I share this theory with them that the government sent in agent provocateurs to stir up the students. And that Governor Rhodes knew what was going on. That the president of this university, President White, at the time knew what was going on. He was out of town for the weekend when they called him and told him what was going on. He was too busy to come back! Or he was having such a good time he couldn't come back! Governor Rhodes knew what was happening. The Mayor of Kent knew what was happening. I think Nixon for sure knew what was happening. And I think a whole lot of people knew what was happening. And they were going to make an example out of Kent. Where better than to make an example than a middle-class, basically white school, kids who weren't too rich where the parents could possibly be a threat to the government, or you know, with major lawsuits or anything like that. Also, it was different than Jackson State. Look at the small amount of publicity that they got because they were a small, black, Southern institution, whereas, we were a large, white, middle-class, Midwest institution that was fairly well-known. So it was like the ideal place for the government to make an example of the student protest movement, the antiwar movement. [Government], "We're going to put these kids down, literally! And they're never going to get back up again, literally! And this antiwar movement is going to be ended once and for all! And we're going to continue having this war until we feel that it's time to stop!" And so I, in my mind, and again this, a lot of this influence was from my neighbors, but it made so much sense to me, and it's the only thing in all the thirty years that I've thought about this over and over and over again, it's the only thing that makes sense! The only thing that I can actually say, "This is why it happened on May 4th, in 1970, at a place like Kent State University, in a state like Ohio." And to me, that's where it is. No one else will ever convince me otherwise. I will never believe any other reason of why it happened. I think it was definitely planned out by the government: you know, the federal, the state government and even the local government, the National Guards, the National Guard leadership, etc., etc. I think it was all planned.

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