The lecture series created in 2022 to honor the legacy of Kent State University Professor Emeritus of Sociology Jerry M. Lewis, Ph.D., will feature Professor of Geography Chris Post, Ph.D., presenting “Developing and Interpreting the Wounded Student Markers at Kent State” as this year’s selected speaker. The Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series and Luncheon will be held on Friday, May 3, from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. in the Kent Student Center Ballroom. Registration is required for this free event. This ticketed event is free and open to the public. Tickets are available for download on the May 4 Commemoration Events ticket website.
Post has held a faculty position in Kent State University at Stark’s Department of Geography since 2008. He currently serves as the program coordinator for two Kent State Stark programs, geography and environmental studies. He has published extensively on topics in areas of his research and teaching, such as the cultural landscape; May 4, 1970; historical geography; commemoration and heritage; and North America and company towns. He recently edited “The Routledge Companion to the American Landscape.” In 2021, he was appointed as May 4 researcher in residence, a pilot program supported by Kent State’s Office of the President and University Libraries.
Post supported a group of committed individuals – including Lewis; Alan Canfora, one of the wounded victims; Rod Flauhaus, who served as project manager for the 50th May 4 Commemoration; and Michael Bruder, former executive director of facilities, planning and design, and university architect at Kent State – in an effort to commemorate each of the wounded students with a bronze marker indicating their location when they were shot. After careful research, it was determined that several of the measured distances, originally established by the FBI in the 1970s, were inaccurate. Charged with researching the archival information on the precise locations of the nine wounded students and publishing an academic paper on the findings, Post said, “I’m not reinventing the wheel, I’m just documenting how it was made and what that means.”
For the Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series, Post will discuss his evaluative research on the physical distances between the Ohio National Guard and the students. In addition to exploring digital resources in University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives, he examined physical materials, including the large-scale map of the site that was used as evidence in the 1975 Krause v. Rhodes civil trial. After the locations were verified, the wounded student markers were installed in 2020 and dedicated in 2022 as part of the university’s annual May 4 Commemoration and the return of an in-person commemoration.
“This new information is an opportunity to reinvestigate what happened and to reengage the public with the events of May 4,” said Post, noting the importance of the markers’ relationship between archival materials and memorial landscapes.
Lewis, the series’ namesake, taught at Kent State from 1966 until 2013, becoming a professor emeritus in 1996. Serving as a faculty marshal in 1970, he witnessed the May 4, 1970, shootings firsthand and has since devoted time to researching, memorializing and lecturing on the events of May 4. In 1971, with the help of students, Lewis established the first Candlelight Walk and Vigil, an annual event that begins at 11 p.m. on May 3 and continues until 12:24 p.m. on May 4, the time of the shootings. Lewis was one of the four co-authors of the application to add the May 4 site to the National Register of Historic Places, which was approved in February 2010.
The Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series is made possible through a generous donation from former Kent State Board of Trustees member Michael Solomon, a 1974 Kent State alumnus.
For tickets to the Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series featuring Post, visit https://kentstate.evenue.net/events/UEP-MAY4.
For the latest information about the May 4 Commemoration and a complete list of events to honor and remember May 4, 1970, visit www.kent.edu/may4.
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Top Photo Caption:
Chris Post, Ph.D., professor of geography at Kent State University at Stark, will serve as the 2024 speaker for the Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series, a part of the university's annual May 4 Commemoration events.
Media Contacts:
Chris Post, cpost2@kent.edu, 330-244-3427
Cynthia Williams, cdwillia@kent.edu, 330-672-0159