May 14 On this date in 1970, two Black students at Jackson State University were killed and many others injured by Jackson police. These killings were never as publicized as the Kent State shootings of four white students that had occurred only a few days earlier. It was a time of turmoil in campus communities across the country that were characterized by protests and demonstrations.
No college or university was left untouched by confrontations and continuous calls for change. At Jackson State College in Jackson, MS, there was the added issue of historical racial intimidation and harassment by white motorists traveling Lynch Street, a major thoroughfare that divided the campus and linked West Jackson to downtown. On May 14-15, 1970, Jackson State students were protesting these issues as well as the May 4, 1970 tragedy at Kent State University in Ohio.
The riot began around 9:30 p.m., May 14, when rumors were spread that Fayette, MS Mayor Charles Evers (brother of slain Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers) and his wife had been shot and killed. Upon hearing this rumor, a small group of students rioted. That night, several white motorists had called the Jackson Police Department to complain that a group of Blacks threw rocks at them as they passed along the stretch of Lynch Street that bisected the campus. The rioting students set several fires and overturned a dump truck that had been left on campus overnight...
...When the order to ceasefire was given, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior pre-law major and father of an 18 month-old son, lay dead. Across the street, behind the line of police and highway patrolmen, James Earl Green, 17, was sprawled dead. Green, a senior at Jim Hill High School in Jackson, was walking home from work at a local grocery store when he stopped to watch the action. Twelve other Jackson State students were struck by gunfire. The five-story dormitory was riddled by gunfire. FBI investigators estimated that more than 460 rounds struck the building, shattering every window facing the street on each floor. Investigators counted at least 160 bullet holes in the outer walls of the stairwell alone bullet holes that can still be seen today.
The injured students, many of whom lay bleeding on the ground outside the dormitory, were transported to University Hospital within 20 minutes of the shooting. But the ambulances were not called until after the officers picked up their shell casings, a U. S. Senate probe conducted by Senators Walter Mondale and Birch Bayh later revealed. The police and state troopers left the campus shortly after the shooting and were replaced by National Guardsmen. After the incident, Jackson authorities denied that city police took part.
Reference: The biographical dictionary of Black Americans by Rachel Krantz and Elizabeth A.Ryan Copyright 1992, Facts on File, New York, NY ISBN 0-8160-2324-7
