Video: 'May 15, 1970: Gibbs/Green Tragedy at Jackson State University'

(Friday, May 15, 1970, 12:05 a.m. CDT) — Two students were killed and 12 wounded early today after the police opened fire on a women’s dormitory at the predominantly-black Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi.

A group of 40 city and state police officers opened fire on Alexander Hall and into a crowd of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators, after claiming to have seen a sniper at a window on the building’s top floor.

No sniper was ever located.

Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior, and James Earl Green, 17, a senior and miler at nearby Jim Hill High School, were killed.

The event happened only 11 days after the Kent State shootings, in which National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio, which had first captured national attention.