Black United Students (BUS) became a vision of students at Kent State in fall of 1967 as they met with former Deacons of Defense member Henry Austin in Cleveland. In the spring quarter of 1968, BUS had their first meeting mentioned in the Daily Kent Stater on April 5, 1968, the day after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The group which would become an official student organization on May 2, 1968, wasted no time and organized a walkout of Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s address at Kent State University on May 6, 1968.

All photos courtesy of KSU Special Collections and Archives.