"Don't Shoot"

"Don't Shoot"

Kent State

On May 4th, 1970, Ohio national guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State University who had an objection to the United States involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia during the late 60’s and into the 70’s. After all the years since the shooting, nobody really knows what really happen that lead to the events now known as the Kent State Massacre. Writer John Fitzgerald O’Hara said, “The ‘truth’ of what happened on Kent State remains an omnipresent but elusive goal of May 4 narratives. As it predicable, perhaps, the lack of a definitive story has not deterred attempts to seek one”. When word of the shooting spread throughout the country, college students from colleges all over were outraged and protested the national guards, and by extension the government’s, actions during the protest at Kent State. Columbia College Chicago was one of many colleges to take part in the protest and a group collective of anonymous students, and possible faculty made works of art in solidarity of those who were victim to the shooting. Only using what they had on them or easily accessible cheap material, the collective got to work. This poster was made from construction paper and shows a screaming face painted on in red. The words “Don’t Shoot” were outlined with the red paint as it gave a dripping down effect on the poster. What made this work interesting is that the artist who made the first poster went ahead and created two more of similar styles but without the assistance of a stencil, or a template, each new poster was drawn by hand having some new lines or slightly different attributes on the posters. The speed of how the collective got together and created pieces in response to the news of the shooting showed the nation that what happened at Kent State will not be forgotten or forgiven as it showed abuse of government and militaristic abuse of power.

The poster depicts a person that feels threaten as if a gun was aimed at him or her and declares, “Don’t Shoot”. This relates to the students who were shot by Ohio National Guard during the Kent State massacre.

The quote "Don’t Shoot" portrays a person begging for his or her life in terror. The drips in the bottom of the image suggest the blood being shed as it was too late for the students at Kent State. As art, this poster gives us an understanding that nobody deserves to die, death should not come from murder, and violence is not the answer to show someone having no mercy for other people’s life. Not only does the art is trying to show us to end the violence but also to show that a person/s death can impact many other people to make a change and in order to do is by having your voices heard. The Kent State massacre didn’t only just prove something tragic can impact a lot of people, the poster’s maker also illustrates the same pain as the students in Kent State that were killed. On page 74 of Kent State/May4 and Postwar Memory, it states... “Crowds gather on a campus laden with objects and artifacts of May 4 and “remember” through a program of activities nominally orchestrated by the university to demonstrate its commitment to the history of the event and memory of the victims.”


Technique process: This poster was done on marker silkscreen to create an artwork of a man pleading “Don’t Shoot”.

Columbia College Chicago Students

Kent State, College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia College Chicago

Kent State, College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia College Chicago

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