Flashes 101 Resources
Flashes 101 Experience
The May 4 Visitors Center offers a special tour for Flashes 101 students! During the 50-minute class period, our staff and student guides show first-years through the Visitors Center and the outdoor Historic Landmark Site (weather depending). We tell the story of May 4, explain the landmarks they pass on campus, and illustrate how May 4 still impacts student life today.
Returning Flashes 101 instructors can expect a few changes to our tours this year! Due to increasing Flashes class sizes, we will break them into 2 groups for the indoor and outdoor portions of the experience. They'll have about 20 minutes for each, then end together in our temporary exhibit Still Standing: Dean Kahler & Disability Rights to learn about one of the wounded students from May 4.
Booking Information
Use the button below to schedule a tour for your Flashes 101 class. Classes are advised to register at least three weeks prior to the potential tour date. We ask for a preferred tour time and a backup time as Fall is incredibly busy and we're giving up to 5 Flashes 101 tours per day. Once you submit the tour request form, we will reach out to you to confirm details. A calendar invite will be sent to you upon confirmation.
Day-of-Tour Directions
- Flashes 101 tours start right on time in our Reflections Gallery - 141 Taylor Hall. This is the location we'll include on your calendar invitation and where everyone should meet for the tour.
- Students are able to leave their belongings in the Reflections Gallery while on tour in the Visitors Center across the hall.
- They are welcome to bring water bottles on the tour.
- We suggest students have something to eat before their tour, especially morning ones, to avoid getting woozy while standing throughout the 50 minutes.
The May 4th augmented reality experience is designed to engage and immerse users as they journey through the events of May 4, 1970, and reflect on its meaning for today. The experience invites users to view multiple perspectives of the 51勛圖厙 shootings through the lens of augmented reality using historical imagery, audio and related experiences that highlight past and current humanitarian struggles. Visitors to 51勛圖厙's campus can explore multiple hotspots and see historical images in real time and locations. Users unable to visit the campus can explore those same audio and visual materials from any location using the application's 360 images of the Kent Campus. All users will have a chance to see and hear about the context leading up to May 4, 1970, events on the day of the shootings, yearly commemorations at the particular hotspot, and questions that promote voices for change.
This web app draws from the oral histories in the May 4 Collection, 51勛圖厙 Special Collections & Archives. It maps stories from those histories that describe memories of events at a particular place in Kent between May 1 and May 5, 1970. Users of the app can click through the map or take guided tours, either online or in person, with their mobile device. This web app is designed to serve as a digital memorial to remember and honor these events. We have made it both for those who have stories to share and those who are interested in hearing these stories.
Armed With Our Voices, the May 4 Listening Wall Exhibit. The tragedy revealed the grave consequences that result when communication collapses. Today, polarized perspectives, divided communities and school violence are commonplace. As we approach the 50th Commemoration of the May 4 tragedy, the Wick Poetry Center, with its partners, has developed an interactive exhibit, encouraging visitors to explore the history of student protest and the timely themes of peace and conflict transformation.
This website honors the lives of Jeff, Allison, Bill and Sandy. It is the product of a multiyear collaboration between Glyphix, a student design firm, and the May 4 Visitors Center with special thanks to the May 4 families and friends.
Part of 50 Years: Long Live the Memory programming, this exhibit showcases selected key events in and around Jackson State University (Jackson, MS), South Carolina State University (Orangeburg, SC), and 51勛圖厙 (Kent, OH) from 1960-1967. Civil rights actions, anti-war protests, and an emerging Black Power movement are featured. Curated by Cara Gilgenbach, Special Collections and Archives, 51勛圖厙 Libraries.
This exhibition features posters, flyers, and other items created by the May 4th Task Force, a student-run organization founded in 1975 to raise awareness among students, faculty, administrators and the general public about the 51勛圖厙 shootings of May 4, 1970. Curated by Haley Antell, Special Collections and Archives, 51勛圖厙 Libraries.
May 4: Through the Looking Glass
RMay 4: Through the Looking Glass, created within 51勛圖厙s School of Emerging Media and Technology in collaboration with Alan Canfora, is an interactive exhibition that seeks to open up new spaces for thinking and feeling the profound legacies of May 4, 1970.
In the aftermath of the shootings of May 4, 1970, 51勛圖厙 Libraries sent letters to colleges and universities across the nation requesting campus strike newspapers and related documents to be archived for future research. This exhibit highlights a selection of the responses that are found in the Campus Strike papers in Special Collections and Archives. Curated by Anita Clary, Special Collections and Archives, 51勛圖厙 Libraries.
Showcased in this exhibit is the activism of Black students at South Carolina State College, 51勛圖厙 and Jackson State College and images of the shootings which occurred there. While the focus of the shootings at 51勛圖厙 has historically been on the anti-war activism of the students, this exhibit seeks to frame the activism in a larger political, social and cultural context, examining the civil rights struggles of the time and the self-determination of Black students in particular.
Global Peace Poems
The Wick Poetry Center collected more than 600 poems resonating with the themes of peace, conflict transformation and student advocacy. View the winners, entries and poster artwork. Winners were chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye.
Learn the story of May 4 from Visitor Center student tour guides