I listened to a great radio documentary on the BBC about the Kent State killings in 1970. On 4 May, 4 students were killed when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a demonstration. The troopers claimed that they were shot at and responded with deadly force.

The backdrop to this was that university campuses played a large part of the anti-war movement. Richard Nixon had widened the war, even while he was withdrawing troops from Vietnam. On 30 April, Nixon decided to invade Cambodia, which ignited a new round of protests.

The Kent State killings shocked America. College kids shot at by troops? Almost two weeks later, a similar incident took place at Jackson State College in Mississippi on 15 May 1970. State troopers opened fire on a student demonstration at the campus. Two students were killed. Yet another claim of “a sniper” to justify the use of lethal force.

This being America, there was a racial dimension to these two incidents. The students at Kent State were white, whereas those at Jackson State were black. The media focused on Kent State and still does. Jackson received media attention, but not on the same scale. Two Americas. One white, one black. Two tragedies.

If you are black, the prospect of a white law enforcement officer using deadly force was real. No apologies were made about Jackson State, nor was anyone arrested. All of the state troopers on the campus were white. That was in 1970. In 2014, there was a series of incidents of police shootings of black men throughout the United States. Barack Obama was 8 years old when Kent State took place. He was President when the shooting took place in Ferguson, Missouri. What exactly has changed?

It is worth mentioning that in 1970, Richard Nixon was a divisive figure, claiming to speak for “the silent majority” and he attacked the student protest movement. He did everything to appeal to the white working class who were uneasy with the civil rights legislation. He called students “bums” knowing full well that this played well with the older conservative voters.

His successor in 2020, Donald Trump does same to appeal to his base. He uses social media as a weapon to stir up his core voters. Trump’s base includes Christian evangelicals, White nationalists and the gun lobby. America is more divided today than it was in 1970. Then as now, the issue of race has not been addressed. Nixon and Trump both made appeals to racist voters. The transcripts of Nixon’s taped phone calls reveal his true thoughts. He used the n-word. Fifty years on from Kent State and Jackson State, America is still not at peace with itself.