The Jackson State Shootings That Time Forgot

The Difference in Police Responses at Columbia, Kent State, and Jackson State Universities

Photo by Carol Spivey

The nation watched as the NYPD cleared protesters from Hamilton Hall at Columbia University in New York. A group of about sixty protesters were handcuffed in zip ties, walked out of the building, and placed in waiting buses after being invited in by the university to restore order. The action was monitored by television networks, student reporters, and hundreds of student-made videos. There were over a hundred arrests in total with no known injuries and, more importantly, no shootings or deaths.

The student-led protests were in reaction to Israel’s response to the October 7th attack by the terrorist group Hamas that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, including some Americans. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s counterattack has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, not counting those still buried under the rubble. Over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, and they are facing food shortages to the point where people are starving. Many of the casualties are women and children, including infants.

This wasn’t the first time police came to Columbia University and removed protesters from Hamilton Hall. In 1968, police arrested over 700 students who were protesting the Vietnam War and the construction of a segregated gym in nearby Morningside Park. Over 100 students were injured, and four faculty members received severe head wounds. The police action was described as a “brutal, bloody show of strength.”

Columbia’s Hamilton Hall unrest falls on anniversary of the police arresting protesters at same building

During the 2024 unrest, the media frequently referenced the past. Occasionally, to the 1968 Columbia protest, but more often to the 1970 actions at Kent State University, where the Ohio National Guard opened fire, killing four students and wounding nine. The protests were in response to the announcement that the United States had widened the Vietnam War by invading Cambodia, where many of the North Vietnamese forces we were at war with were believed to be headquartered. President Richard Nixon ran for office, saying he would end the Vietnam War. Going into Cambodia seemed like he was doing the other thing.

National Guard troops arrived on the second day of protests on May 2, 1970. They took no immediate action and spent much time mulling over and chatting with students. They arrived to find a wooden ROTC structure on fire, but the protests were otherwise peaceful. Governor James Rhodes arrived on Sunday, May 3rd, determined to restore order. He announced plans to declare a state of emergency and place the National Guard in control, but never took that step. Still, the university, students, and National Guard themselves thought the Guard was in charge. The National Guard canceled the planned Monday protests, and the school distributed 12,000 flyers announcing that there would be no protests. The students showed up anyway.

The protests had evolved from an anti-war sentiment to one opposing the presence of the National Guard on campus. By noon, about 3,000 students had gathered in the Commons area, and General Robert Canterbury had ordered the crowd to be dispersed. What happened next is highly disputed, except for the body count: four dead and nine wounded. Fortunately, the protests at Columbia didn’t turn into another Kent State. It helped that the world was watching.

The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy | May 4, 1970 | Kent State University

I watched coverage of the removal of protesters from Hamilton Hall at Columbia on multiple networks, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. They all made constant references to the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970. None referred to the Jackson State University (JSU) shootings just ten days later.

Jackson State students had also been protesting on their campus, but their focus wasn’t on the Vietnam War. Their students were against the racism they faced regularly, in particular from Jackson, MS, police and local white people yelling racist insults and throwing objects while driving through the JSU campus. The protests at Jackson State added an element in support of the Kent State students killed while opposing the war. Little did they know their campus would be next.

The Gibbs-Green Tragedy | Margaret Walker Center | Jackson State University

Jackson State students had staged multiple protests, all non-violent, over several months before the deadly events of May 14, 1970. Among the demands was the closing of John R. Lynch Street, named for a Black Congressman from the Reconstruction Era and having nothing to do with the act of lynching. On May 14th, there were no protests, although there was a fire. A dump truck had been mysteriously placed on campus and was set ablaze. In addition to fire trucks, the Jackson City police and Mississippi State troopers showed up in full riot gear. They also brought a “Thompson Tank,” named for the segregationist Mayor Allen Thompson, who purchased it to use against civil rights workers.

There was a disturbance near the campus involving several Black high school and college students. A false rumor had spread that Charles Evers, the brother of the recently assassinated Medgar Evers, and Charles’s wife, Nannie, had also been assassinated. Black students were reported to have thrown rocks at white people driving past on Lynch Street. New Mayor Russel C. Davis reported a riot, hence the arrival of 75 officers and troopers. A bottle landed and broke into pieces nearby, where the officers/troopers had gathered. They responded by firing over 400 rounds in 28 seconds, many at a women’s dormitory, Alexander Hall. When the shooting stopped, twenty-one-year-old Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and seventeen-year-old James Earl Green were killed. Gibbs was a junior pre-law major at Jackson State and father of an eighteen-month-old son; Green was a senior at Jim Hill High School in Jackson.

On June 13, 1970, President Nixon formed the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest. They conducted hearings and issued mild criticisms of the Ohio National Guard and Jackson City Police. No charges were ever filed. The Jackson City Council then voted to close John R. Lynch Street, which was one of the original demands.

By Student John Filo — The Post-Crescent. 5 December 1976 edition., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=144340259

A photo taken at the time of the Kent State shootings went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. This photo and others made the front page of newspapers across the country. No such images were taken at Jackson State. The shootings barely made news in Mississippi newspapers, let alone nationwide outlets. When they became relevant again in 2024 due to the unrest at Columbia University, unlike the Kent State shootings, they didn’t get a mention. It’s possible that the reporters, many of whom weren’t born in 1970, did not know about the Jackson State killings. Those deaths may have been omitted from their history books. Perhaps protesting racism isn’t as sexy as protesting war, or maybe dead Black children have been lost to the nation’s collective memory.