Jackson State Tragedy

Jackson State Tragedy. . Tragedy struck Jackson State College on May 15, 1970, when Jackson police and Mississippi Highway Patrol officers suppressed student unrest with intense gunfire. Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green were killed and many injured when bullets riddled Alexander Hall and peppered nearby areas. Law enforcement had massed at the college to subdue students protesting harassment from whites driving through campus, police intimidation, and the recent killing of four student demonstrators at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard., Gibbs-Green Tragedy Tension was high on college campuses, including Jackson State, in the spring of 1970. The expansion of the war effort from Vietnam into Cambodia and the introduction of the military draft lottery were among issues of grave unease. Student protests and strikes occurred nationwide. At Jackson State, these worries were shared with other concerns. Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act, racial discrimination was ongoing. Recent public school desegregation had elevated anxiety between the races. Police intimidation was particularly disturbing., The campus was bisected by busy Lynch Street, where traffic made student crossings hazardous. Some white motorists who passed through taunted students, often speeding and even injuring people., On May 4, four students involved in an anti-war protest at Kent State University in Ohio were killed by National Guardsmen, setting off widespread demonstrations. This tragedy also troubled Jackson State students. On the evening of May 14, a rumor spread through the campus that the brother of martyred Medgar Evers, Charles Evers, and his wife had been killed. Students reacted, setting fires and overturning a truck. The harassed firefighters on the scene, who called for police help. Blocking off Lynch Street, some seventy-five armed policemen and state highway patrolmen assembled. Mississippi National Guard troops were stationed at the west end of the campus., Around one hundred students gathered in front of Alexander Hall, a women’s dormitory, shouting and throwing rocks at the police facing them. Around midnight a loud noise startled the crowd; a policeman fell to the ground. Then police and highway patrolmen fired toward the crowd, an assault lasting more than thirty seconds. Terrified students scattered., After the melee, Philip Lafayette Gibbs, twenty-one, a junior pre-law major, lay dead near Alexander Hall. James Earl Green, seventeen, a Jim Hill High senior, was killed in front of B.F. Roberts Dining Hall. Many students were injured, at least twelve by gunfire. The dormitory was riddled by 460 rounds, some holes still visible. Witnesses dispute what sparked the tragic events. There were no arrests in this incident. Soon thereafter, the city closed Lynch Street to through traffic and added the initials “J.R.” to the street’s name in honor of John Roy Lynch, Mississippi’s first black congressman. Near Alexander Hall, the Gibbs-Green Plaza and Monument memorializes the slain students.