Today is May 4, the anniversary of the day in 1970 when four kids were killed at Kent State.
I went to Kent State, graduated in 1990.
A sociology class there taught me about the power of experiential learning.
Every day I walked across those grassy, hilly fields, past the architecture building and the sculpture with the big bullet hole.
My sociology prof was Dr. Tom Lough, who was one of the Kent 25--people indicted for but never convicted of inciting campus unrest.
Lough believed--and spent an inordinate share of our semester trying to convince us--that President Nixon ordered Ohio governor Rhodes to have the National Guard shoot some kids at Kent, to quiet other campuses down.
The theory struck me as preposterous, but I never again assumed that the story was as simple as the "inexperienced Guard troops panicked" notion that the government put forth.
In any case, I won't forget Dr. Lough telling us about the day of the shootings and a 20-year-old boy--"a good radical," he called the boy--running toward the mentor professor with wide eyes, and blood pouring out of his mouth.
And now--if my connection to Dr. Lough and Kent State links to your connection with me--you won't forget it either.
Comments (2)
I remember my barber saying something to the effect that maybe of thos kids knew they might get killed, they wouln't be so quick to cause trouble. I must have been pretty young—10—and didn't know much about it, so I probably agreed, as did all the "older and wiser" folks in the barbershop at the time.
You have to understand, I grew up in a pretty conservative house: my parents were positive Nixon had done nothing wrong, or at least nothing that hadn't been done by other presidents, and that the only problem was that he got caught.
I've changed a little since then.
Posted by John Cowan | May 4, 2007 9:04 PM
Posted on May 4, 2007 21:04
Thanks for telling that one, John. Your post suggests we shouldn't trust anyone over 30--or, under 11.
The effectiveness of Nixon's shoot-some-kids tactic, on the distant chance that that's what it was--in shutting down protests and, indeed, universities for the rest of that semester--was what gave Prof. Lough's conspiracy theory the little credence that it actually had.
Posted by David Murray | May 7, 2007 2:40 PM
Posted on May 7, 2007 14:40