The Jackson State killings occurred on May 15, 1970, at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, amid broader tensions in the United States over the Vietnam War and racial conflict. On the evening of May 14, approximately 100 black students had gathered on Lynch Street, a road that bisected the campus and was frequently the site of confrontations between white and black Jackson residents. African-American youths were reportedly pelting rocks at white motorists, and tensions escalated when a rumor spread across campus that Charles Evers—a local politician and civil rights leader, brother of slain activist Medgar Evers—and his wife had been killed. This event occurred just 11 days after the Kent State shootings, in which National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio during a protest against the Vietnam War, though the Kent State event had first captured national attention.
Shortly after midnight on May 15, city and state police who had confronted the group of students outside a campus dormitory opened fire on them. The police action resulted in the deaths of two students and injuries to twelve others. The specific commanders, detailed sequence of events, and identities of those killed are not provided in the article.
The Jackson State killings represented a critical moment in American civil unrest, demonstrating the vulnerability of students and African-American communities to police violence during a period of heightened national tension. The incident underscored ongoing racial divisions and the risks faced by black students engaged in protest activity, occurring within days of the similarly fatal Kent State encounter and contributing to the broader historical record of police-civilian confrontations during the Vietnam War era.
2 killed, 12 injured
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.