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In the aftermath of the May 4, 1970, shootings at ����Թ�, when many university leaders wanted to walk away from the tragedy, Professor Emeritus Jerry M. Lewis, Ph.D., turned toward it.

As a sociologist, Lewis said he felt he had no choice but to bear witness to the day’s events.

On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on students protesting the escalation of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, killing four and wounding nine others. Many historians credit the shootings, which brought the war home to Middle America, with changing the course of America’s involvement in the war.  

Lewis was on duty as a faculty marshal in the Prentice Hall parking lot, where he witnessed students fall from gunshot wounds. In the years following the shootings, many university administrators sought to downplay the tragic history, but Lewis felt compelled to act on it. It was important, he said, that the shootings were not forgotten, and more important that the memory of the students killed and injured that day be kept alive.

“Having witnessed the events firsthand, and having a background in studying crowd behavior, I felt that it was important to not only remember the events but educate students about them and their consequences,” Lewis said. “When people were running from May 4, my research and lectures helped keep not only the memory of the events alive, but factual knowledge that was taught to generations of students.”

Lewis devoted the rest of his career to researching, memorializing and lecturing on the events of May 4.   

Lewis is Honored

Now Lewis, who turns 88 on April 1, is being honored with an exhibit at the May 4 Visitors Center titled, “Teach Peace: The Life and Legacy of Jerry Lewis.”

“The exhibit is really about him and his contributions to ����Թ� State through a May 4 lens,” said Alison Caplan, director of ����Թ� State’s May 4 Visitors Center.

The exhibit, which continues through June 3, features Lewis’ papers, photographs and memorabilia from his career at ����Թ� State, with a particular emphasis on his time as a faculty marshal. Some of the archival items in the exhibit include a paper candle holder from a May 4 vigil and the armbands that Lewis wore over the years, when serving as faculty marshal.

Molly Merryman, Ph.D., associate professor of peace and conflict studies, and herself a faculty marshal for more than 25 years, said through many conversations with Lewis over the years, she learned that he remained deeply troubled that the marshals were not able to prevent the shootings.

In Lewis’ oral history in the University Archives, he talks about how he did not believe the guard’s guns were loaded, Caplan noted.

“It haunted him, and still does haunt him,” Merryman said. “He holds himself accountable for the students he didn’t save. Jerry has dedicated his life to preserving the legacy and honoring and recognizing the lives of the students who were there.”  

Organized to Protect Students

The faculty marshal program was born in 1968 in the Sociology Department, in conjunction with English Department faculty members, Lewis said. He was a founding member.

The program was inspired by non-violent social movements and peaceful protest examples, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Professors and faculty members were to be a peaceful presence and calming force at student protests.

“The intent was to play a role at the Black student walkout,” Lewis recalled.

Black United Students became a registered student organization at ����Թ� State in April 1968 as racial tensions were escalating following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4 and a violent confrontation between Oakland, California, police and Oakland’s Black Panther Party on April 6.  

The Black Panthers had challenged police brutality against the Black community in Oakland, resulting in Bobby Hutton, an unarmed 17-year-old Black Panther member, being shot 12 times and killed by police after he had already surrendered.

In the fall of 1968, the Oakland Police Department began actively recruiting new members from ����Թ� State’s Law Enforcement program. Members of BUS and Students for a Democratic Society held a sit-in to protest the recruitment, resulting in charges of disorderly conduct against many students. When the university refused to grant the students amnesty from the charges, about 250 students, many of them BUS members, silently marched off campus in protest on Nov. 18, 1968.

“The role was to protect the students as they walked off campus,” Lewis said. “As part of that protest, I called off my classes to garner support for the students until the Black students returned to campus.”

Lewis was not the only professor to cancel classes during the three-day walk-out, a move which in retrospect, Lewis says he regrets. “That was a mistake, because I became part of the controversy, and it distracted from the Black students causes,” he said. 

Faculty Marshals Play Profound Role on May 4

The faculty marshals’ actions as nascent peacekeepers on May 4, 1970, remain their most profound success.

Merryman said the marshals organized in advance of May 4, to accompany students to a peace rally scheduled for May 9, 1970, in Washington, D.C. Their service at ����Թ� State five days sooner has become a critical part in the history of the day.  

Lewis said he did not expect faculty marshals to play such a pivotal role on May 4, but following the burning of the ROTC building on the evening of May 2, 1970, he knew the marshals would have a significant role to play.  

“We expected to have a strong presence, especially with how the events unfolded,” he said.

Following the first round of guard fire, the marshals are credited with saving countless lives by convincing students to disperse the protest area before the guardsmen fired again. Audio recordings of the day feature the voice of Geology Professor Glenn Frank, frantically pleading with students to disperse for fear of more bloodshed.

“Led by Professor Glenn Frank, the faculty members pleaded with National Guard leaders to allow them to talk with the demonstrators, and then they begged the students not to risk their lives by confronting the guardsmen. After about 20 minutes of emotional pleading, the marshals convinced the students to leave the Commons,” Lewis wrote in “The May 4 Shootings at ����Թ�: The Search for Historical Accuracy,” which he co-authored with the late Thomas R. Hensley, Ph.D., longtime ����Թ� State political science professor.

Marshal Program Still at Work

The faculty marshal program is still active, and marshals continue to be a calming presence during campus demonstrations, from Gulf War protests in the 1990s to present-day protests over the Israeli-Hamas War.

The marshals don’t exist to take sides, but rather to protect all students and, as frontline observers, help stop violence before it begins.

Merryman, who was trained by Lewis as a marshal, said she has always been in awe of his ability to de-escalate situations when tensions were near the boiling point.

“It was amazing watching Jerry in action,” Merryman said. “A fight would nearly be broken out and Jerry would walk right up into the face of a student ready to throw a punch, and would say, ‘Gee, I really like what you are wearing today.’ He was so good at de-escalating conflict.”

Lewis is proud that the marshal program has endured.

“The program continuing 55 years later shows that student safety is important, and students can expect faculty members to be present at major demonstrations,” he said. 

Carrying the May 4 Torch

Caplan said her research has shown her that the months immediately following May 4, were as challenging for faculty as they were for students.

After the campus closed and students were sent home, students had to connect with their professors to complete their work. Lewis told his students he planned to complete his lectures and traveled around the state, stopping at three separate locations so that students could hear them. Attendance was not required.

He closed the correspondence by saying, “I need my students as much as you need me, which was really sweet,” Caplan said, “And that’s really a theme that we tried to thread through the exhibit, that he was such a caring professor.”

She recommends that anyone interested in May 4 history go through Lewis’ collection in University Archives, which includes many letters from his students and the public and listen to his oral history on file there.

“Jerry’s work is research-based, and he was thinking through a sociology lens, but he’s also deeply committed to his students,” Caplan said.

Lewis and Hensley created the course on May 4, which is taught each spring semester, and for many years, Caplan said, was the public face of May 4, conducting countless interviews as an eyewitness.

“I think the one thing that’s so important to his time on campus is that Jerry really helped to establish the rituals of May 4 commemoration,” Caplan said,

In 1971, with the help of students, Lewis established the first candlelight walk and vigil, an annual event that begins at 11 p.m. May 3 and continues until 12:24 p.m. May 4, the time of the shootings. Lewis began the vigil and walk to the Prentice parking lot years before the spots in the lot where the slain students fell were cordoned off with lighted posts.  

“Every year, when they measured the parking lot, it was a real educational experience for the students to see the distances, because there was no representation of the distances at the time,” Caplan said.

Lewis later played an integral role in having markers placed on the May 4 site to indicate the location of the nine wounded students, an achievement that came more than 50 years after the shootings. The wounded student markers were put in place in 2021 and formally dedicated in 2022. During interviews at the time of the dedication, Lewis said he hoped the markers would stimulate further research into May 4, 1970.  

He has maintained that teaching about May 4 was the fundamental responsibility of ����Թ� State.  

Lewis was one of the four co-authors of the application to add the May 4 site to the National Register of Historic Places, approved in February 2010. He also wrote “����Թ� State and May 4: A Social Science Perspective,” a volume he edited with Hensley. The book stresses the importance of social science theory and methods in the study of May 4. 

Decades of Service  

Lewis, a native of Oak Park, Illinois, joined the ����Թ� State faculty as an assistant professor of sociology in September 1966, becoming a full professor in 1979, and continuing his career at ����Թ� State until 2013, becoming a professor emeritus in 1996.  

In 2022, ����Թ� State alumnus and former university Board of Trustees member Michael Solomon, a 1974 graduate, made a generous donation to endow the Jerry M. Lewis Lecture Series and Luncheon, to honor Lewis’ decades of service to the university community and to preserve Lewis’ legacy.  

A ����Թ� State faculty member is selected annually to give the lecture, based on their research that involves the May 4 Visitors Center and the ����Թ� Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives, to advance the scholarship surrounding May 4, its aftermath, or the Vietnam War era. The chosen presents their talk as part of May 4 Commemoration events.  

“Dr. Lewis played a critical role in saving lives on May 4, 1970, as a faculty marshal. Since that tragic day in American history, Dr. Lewis has been a key proponent of learning lessons of human value from this event,” Solomon said at the time of his endowment. 

Reflecting on His Legacy

Lewis said he was grateful to Caplan for creating the current exhibit, and while infirmities of age have prevented him from seeing it in person, he has seen photos and videos of the display and was pleased with how it recognizes his activities and work.

As he reflects on the history of May 4, Lewis says the lessons of the events are as pertinent in today’s political climate as they were 55 years ago.

As Lewis ages and faces health challenges, he said he is satisfied with his life and legacy.  

“I taught all the courses I wanted to teach and had a surprising number of publications. I had great colleagues to work with who inspired my work. I feel like I accomplished all I wanted,” he said. “As the landscape of higher education has changed since retiring, I would impart the wisdom to learn everything you can and continue with your scholarship, even in the face of adversity.”