My Protest Song Evaluation

My Protest Song Newscast Evaluation 

Our previous assignment in this History Elements course was to create a protest song in which is related to a topic of protesting. Our job was to write lyrics and perform the song with our acting skills. Wr could wear any type of clothing symbolizing the time of when the event occurred.However, I created a video, involving a newscast that I directed as well as describing a song related to the event that I chose. I chose the song “Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I played this song throughout the video, as well as showing a live audio version of them performing in Toronto, Canada. 

The event that I chose was the Kent State, Ohio, University Shootings that took place in 1970. The students were protesting about their feelings of the Vietnam war and were very angry at what president Richard Nixon told them. He had told the American people that the American Army needed to expand. This, therefore, meant that young soldiers from all over America were needed to be drafted. Once the American Army heard about these protests at the school, the Ohio National Guards Men were called in to disperse the students. However, the guards men ended up shooting 4 students as well as leaving 9 other severely injured. I made the video as if it was during the time of when the event of the Kent State Shootings actually took place.

In this unit, I thought I did exceptionally well as I managed my time wisely and ended up finished with the video leaving myself with 3 full class times free. I really enjoyed this topic, but would it particularly challenging as it took me a long time to find an event that interested me. I searched so many different protest songs, from the top protest songs of the century to the top 45 protest songs that changed America. It also took me a long time to find raw footage of the event because there weren’t many people on that day who had their camera ready to take photos if something happened. However, I did have many advantages of picking this topic as there was a Pulitzer Prize winning photo that I used two times in my video because of how engaging and inspiring it is. This special and rare photo shows a girl named “Mary Veechio” as she stood screaming over the dead body of a former student “Jeffery Miller.” 

Before I picked the Kent State, Ohio shootings as my protesting topic, I was thinking on doing my video on Animal Testings or Animals of war. However, I couldn’t find any songs that could help me. I also knew that if I created this video by just making a song of my own I knew that I would fail and wouldn’t be able to create a video the best of my ability. I was going to pick a topic related to animals because that is what I love and I am very interested in it. Therefore, I didn’t want to pick something such as “The March on Washington” because I am not as interested in it compared to animals. However, in the end I found something that was both sad, shocking and interesting.