Jeffrey Glenn Miller

Jeffrey Glenn Miller (born March 28, 1950 in Plainview ( Nassau County , New York ), † May 4, 1970 in Kent Ohio ) was an American student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio when he was served by soldiers of the Ohio Army National Guard was killed during the Kent State Massacre while protesting the invasion of Cambodia and the National Guard presence on the Kent State University campus. National Guards opened fire on a group of unarmed students and killed Miller and three others at an average distance of 106 m.

Origin and background

Jeffrey Miller was a son of Elaine Holstein and Bernard Miller. His family was Jewish. Four months before his death in May 1970, Miller had moved from Michigan State University to Kent State University. While at Michigan State University, Miller pledged allegiance to the Phi Kappa Tau (ΦΚΤ) Brotherhood, which included his older brother Russell.

He and his brother were always close and had their birthday on the same day. After his brother graduated from Michigan State University, Miller became less and less comfortable with the dominant Michigan state culture . When he was visited in the summer of 1969 by a friend from New York who was studying at Kent State University, the latter urged him to consider moving there. In January 1970 he left Michigan State University (MSU) with four like-minded friends who were also fellow students to drive to Ann Arbor with them . With these friends he had protested against the Vietnam War at MSU. While three of his friends stayed in Ann Arbor, he and the remaining friend went to Kent State University. Here he quickly adapted to the new university and soon made many friends, including Allison Krause and Sandra Lee Scheuer , who both died with him on May 4th.

Kent State Massacre Site Map (1970)

Miller had participated in the protests that day and threw a canister of tear gas back on the Ohio National Guards who originally fired it. The protests, which were initially directed against the expansion of the Vietnam War to Cambodia , ultimately escalated into a protest against the presence of the Ohio National Guard on the campus of Kent State University. Miller was unarmed when he was shot; he had been facing the guards when he was on an access road that led to the Prentice Hall car park on campus about 50 feet away. A single bullet entered his open mouth and exited at the posterior base of the skull, killing him instantly. The Pulitzer Prize- winning photo of John Filo shows Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling over Miller's body.

Three other students were shot and killed at Kent State University: Allison Krause, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder ; nine others were wounded, including one who was paralyzed for life. This and other shootings sparked protests and a nationwide student strike that closed hundreds of universities. The Kent State campus was closed for six weeks. Five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, DC against the war and the military-industrial complex, and protested the killing of unarmed student protesters by American soldiers on a college campus. Eleven days after the shootings at Kent State were on 15 May 1970 at the Jackson State University two students by police from Jackson and the Mississippi shot -Staats Police and 12 others injured.

Kent State University, Jeffrey Miller Memorial

Miller was cremated and his ashes were interred in the mausoleum of Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale Ward, Westchester County , New York . In Plainview at the "Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School" in Nassau County, New York, in the same city where Miller's High School was located, a memorial was erected in his honor. Miller's mother had been the secretary to the principal of John F. Kennedy High School in the 1960s. At MIT there is a Kent State Memorial Lecture Fund that was founded in 1970 by a childhood friend of Miller's. The university had a memorial erected on the spot where Miller died.

Web links

Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Miller, Jeffrey Glenn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Miller, Jeffrey
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American student, victim of the Kent State massacre
DATE OF BIRTH	March 28, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH	Plainview , Nassau County (New York)
DATE OF DEATH	May 4th 1970
Place of death	Kent , Ohio , USA

[1] Resources: People: Jeffrey Glenn Miller, In: dept.kent.edu (English)

[2] What I Lost at Kent State, by Elaine Holstein, May 3, 2010, by the Philadelphia Inquirer, In: commondreams.org (English)

[3] Twenty Contentious Years Haven't Ended the Pain Inflicted by the Tragic Shootings at Kent State, by Charles E. Cohen and Jane Briggs-Bunting, April 30, 1990, In: people.com (English)

[4] Remembering the Kent State University shooting on its 50th anniversary, Three of the four students killed by the Ohio National Guard at protest against Vietnam War were Jewish; school presents a virtual commemoration dedicated to memory of incident, by Marcy Oster, May 4, 2020, In: timesofisrael.com (English)

[5] Website of the Phi Kappa Tau Brotherhood, In: phikappatau.org (English)

[6] Kneeling With Death Haunted a Life New York Times : May 6, 1990.

[7] The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The search for historical accuracy, by Jerry M- Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley, May 9, 2008, In: web.archive.org (English)

[8] Freedom of Information / Privacy Act, April 10, 2004, In: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

[9] Photographer John Filo discusses his famous Kent State photograph and the events of May 4, 1970, May 4, 2000, In: CNN.com

[10] Class of 1971 Kent State Memorial Lecture Fund (2982700), March 4, 2016, In: web.archive.org (English)

[11] May 4 Memorial (Kent State University), February 21, 2007, In: web.archive.org (English)