Moments of Truth by Howard E. Ruffner

For one generation of Americans, Dec. 7, 1941, is “… a date that will live in infamy,” described by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

For many in my Milwaukee generation, it’s May 4, 1970, at Kent State University. I’ll never forget it. Four students dead, nine wounded on campus—at the hands of the Ohio National Guard sent in by Gov. James Rhodes—during an anti-Vietnam War protest.

Most memorable to most Americans—including many Black Milwaukeeans—is the Pulitzer Prize-winning student photo inside the May 15, 1970, Life of a teenage girl kneeling over a fatally wounded student. Dramatic and shocking.

But the widely hailed Life cover photo of one of the wounded—headlined “Tragedy at Kent”—was taken by a different student, Howard E. Ruffner, a stringer for Life, who received the Polk Award for his work that day. Ironically, Ruffner loaned a zoom lens to student John Paul Filo, who took the photo which earned a Pulitzer. 

After news of the shooting made newspaper and television headlines in Milwaukee, I received phone calls in Cleveland from a number of local Black news colleagues and friends with their reactions.

George F. Sanders, Korean War veteran and one of my co-workers at the Milwaukee Star weekly newspaper, wondered why he didn’t see Black students in the photos, or in TV news coverage. I told him I’d check with two of my White colleagues on the Plain Dealer who were Kent State journalism grads.

“I’d be surprised if those Guardsmen didn’t look for some Blacks to shoot,” barked the fiery Sanders, an outspoken pro-Black activist. I later reported to Sanders that I was told Kent State had a number of Black students, but none seem to be visible in the crowd of protesters.   

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“Too bad, I don’t blame ‘em,” he said. “Still, with so many brothers getting wasted in Vietnam, I’d been there protesting if I’d known about it.”

Milwaukee Journal reporter Jay Anderson, another former colleague at the Star, also expressed outrage at the shootings, and suggested that I get the Plain Dealer to send me to Kent State for insights.

A few hours later, I heard from prominent Milwaukeeans, Ben and Marlene Johnson and ex-girlfriends Evelyn Bailey, Gloria Harpole and Loretta Walker, wondering how such a thing could happen. When I told them about Anderson’s suggestion, they agreed. “You can write better than those White boys,” Evelyn said.   

When I approached my Plain Dealer editor, he respectfully turned me down, opting to go with stringers who covered Kent State.

Photo: Kent State University - kent.edu

Photographer Ruffner, who was pictured in an editor’s note in the May 15 issue of Look, later chronicled his photographic recollection of the events in his 2019 book Moments of Truth: A Photographer’s Experience of Kent State 1970. 

How well I recall the night in 1979, when I accompanied my wife, Janice, a Plain Dealer reporter, at her interview of Ruffner in his suburban Cleveland Heights home. At the time, he and I were Ohio Bell Telephone media relations colleagues. In the wake of her interview, I immediately called Anderson, Sanders, and the others in Milwaukee to tell them what I’d finally learned. 

“Sounds like you are privy to a great story,” said Anderson. “Sure wish I knew about this in 1970 when the shootings happened.” And, as usual, he had a journalistic suggestion. “You should write this up for the Milwaukee Journal. You know how much they like stuff by local talent—especially born-and-raised-here Blacks like you.”

But I decided against writing about it until now—in great detail—for Shepherd Express, since it remains very disturbing news in Milwaukee and everywhere. Here’s how it all went down. 

Although working closely with Ruffner for several years, we rarely discussed his experiences at Kent State. However, when I mentioned that my wife was eager to write about it for the popular Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine, he agreed to an interview. As he talked openly to Janice for several hours, I took my own detailed notes. 

“All I expected to do Monday morning, was to cover the rally and print a few pictures,” he began. “Gov. Rhodes had visited the burned ROTC building on Sunday morning. I thought my pictures of the governor would be played up.”

But the day would hold much more significance for the red-bearded, second-year Kent State broadcasting major than he ever dreamed—the cover of America’s leading national magazine was an unusual success for one so young. And his photos would also be used in subsequent court cases.

Later, the $2,000 Ruffner was paid for the cover of Life and three other pictures in a two-page layout, would be referred to as “blood money” by an FBI agent.

And for the next eight years, he would be called to testify at numerous hearings and court trials, making him somewhat cynical about judicial proceedings. At the first Kent State civil trial in 1974, his deposition lasted eight hours. 

“I’m disappointed in trials,” he said. “They’re theater. You want to tell the truth. But they only want that portion supporting their side. I don’t think whatever I say will hurt anyone, and it will never be less than the truth.”

According to Ruffner, the defense attorney who examined him in 1974 “tried to get me to say I knew the Guard would fire and that’s why I was there. I’m not partial to the defense or the prosecution because nothing will change my testimony.”

Nor can anything change the story told by the 304 pictures Ruffner took of the events leading up to and including May 4:

The ROTC building on fire; Gov Rhodes with a pained expression as he tours the damage; students burning the U.S. Constitution, hurling back tear gas bombs and making obscene gestures; fixed bayonets on raised rifles; the Guard taking aim; clusters of students around the dead and wounded; a large pool of blood; a long-haired youth dancing crazily around the blood and sopping it up with a black flag.

“The interesting thing is you don’t need a lot of words,” Ruffner said. “The pictures tell you what happened.”

Ruffner believes that if the Guardsmen had let the rally go on until 1 p.m., it would have ended peacefully. “Everyone goes back to class. Between 12 and 1, you gave up your lunch hour for a cause,” he emphasized.

Instead, at 12.22 p.m., 26 Ohio National Guardsmen fired 59 shots from powerful M-1 rifles at a group of students, some demonstrating against President Nixon’s order sending American troops into Cambodia. Many students, Ruffner said, “were only “curious onlookers.”

The Guardsmen had been sent to the campus by Gov. Rhodes after 3,000 of the 20,000-student population rampaged through the town that weekend, breaking windows and setting fire to the ROTC building.

“I thought the Guard, in dispersing the crowd at the base of the hill, had done its job,” Ruffner said, “but they chased the students up the hill and down the other side to a fence. I wonder, had there not been a fence, how long they would have chased the students around campus. All of a sudden, everyone was gone.”

Not far from the Guardsmen, Ruffner assumed the rally was over as he trudged up the hill. As the men reached the crest, he said he acted spontaneously, taking one last picture.  Before he took cover, the picture shows the Guard taking aim. 

“I don’t remember hearing anything. I saw the Guardsmen turn rapidly in unison and I took a picture,” he said. “I stood a few seconds and wondered if I should go down. I decided to drop because I didn’t want to give them cause to fire or make them think I was part of it. I grabbed my camera bag, turned and kneeled on a steel grating.

“There were only two other students between me and the Guard when they fired. The one just in front of me jumped over a railing as soon as the firing started. The closer one, about 20 feet to my left, was hit.”

Ruffner’s picture of the Guardsmen, just before firing, shows two of the helmeted, gas-masked figures looking straight at him—straight into his camera.

“Some people have said one of them appears to be taking aim at me,” he said. This photo, which he feels “is his most telling,” was published by The Plain Dealer on May 14, 1970. He also called our attention to one, he said, that shows top officers conferring before the Guard elected to move back over the hill to the position from which it fired.

“There were antagonists in the crowd, but most couldn’t hurl stones far enough,” he said. “Giving the finger and yelling doesn’t hurt anyone. I sympathize with the soldiers, however. It wasn’t a good position to be in. Hundreds of others just watched,” he recalled. “And I could even see some students playing tennis on nearby courts on this nice, sunny day.” 

He added, “Working for Life magazine was a big deal for me. If something significant had caused the Guard to turn, I would have turned. I wouldn’t have missed it. But I wasn’t being hit by rocks. It would be easy for me to say maybe one Guardsman got scared, turned and fired, or that they were tired of the whole situation and decided to shoot someone, or that they had picked out people to shoot.” 

Ruffner said he heard a “rapid, loud popping noise,” but it wasn’t until he got to his feet he realized the Guardsmen weren’t shooting blanks or firing over peoples’ heads—his earlier assumption. Emotionally distressed, he began taking pictures immediately, despite pleas from his fellow students not to.

“I wasn’t conscious of what I was doing at first. Three frames were overexposed because the camera jarred when I went down on the ground. I saw clusters of students around the dying and wounded. People were crying and yelling, ‘Don’t take my picture.’

“It was very difficult to take these pictures. It was like stealing a moment of private space. I had to ask why I’m not giving them the privacy they deserve at this time,” he said. “These pictures are hard to like, but I had to take them. I knew they tell the story.” 

Although Ruffner said he never considered himself a demonstrator or a part of the incident, he had become much too involved in the tragedy to recognize the significance of the pictures he had taken.

“It wasn’t until 2 a.m. the next day when LIFE called because they couldn’t find the negatives I sent—according their instructions—that I realized how important it was. Later, out of all the pictures from photographers who were present, they told me my work was being considered for the cover.” 

But Ruffner, whose $2.000 payment was double the normal $500 Life cover and $250 for each page his pictures appeared on—due to the hazard involved—had sent unprocessed film to the magazine.

“I didn’t see any of my pictures until Life printed them,” he honestly noted, shaking his head. “My role at Kent State was accidental,’ he said, “but it changed my life.” 

Memories of that day 52 years ago may fade, but for me and my concerned Black Milwaukee colleagues and friends, Ruffner’s pictures remain a stark testimonial to a younger generation’s own ”date of infamy.”

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