48 Years Ago Tonight

[Tactical Peek]

The Jackson State killings occurred on Friday, May 15, 1970, at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi. On May 14, 1970, a group of students were confronted by city and state police. Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.[1] The event happened only 11 days after the Kent State shootings, in which National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio, which had first captured national attention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings




Steve Vernon Weakly was hanging out with fraternity and sorority friends outside of the girls' dorms on the campus of Jackson State College when highway patrol and city police in riot gear marched up to the campus from the other end of the street. Weakley remembers the lobbed bottle that precipitated the gunfire.

"So, the bottle is in the air; it's as if it's suspended in the air like forever. It floated down and came in from behind [the police] and hit right in the middle of them and it burst," says Weakly. "It was as if they just went crazy from there... they started shooting the guns immediately – immediately – and it was like all hell broke loose," says Weakley. He was shot in the leg.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/kent-state-jackson-state-survivors-talk-student-activism-w519846