President's Commission on Campus Unrest 1970

To provide some perspective as to the intensity of what was referred to as "a crisis of violence" in the United States in 1970 here are the opening paragraphs to the introduction of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest:

"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio. ..."

Lyrics from Ohio written by Neil Young 

On April 30, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon announced that U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were moving against enemy targets in Cambodia. Minutes after the announcement, student-organized protests were underway at Princeton and Oberlin College. Within a few days, strikes and other protests had taken place at scores of colleges and universities throughout the country. Some twenty new student strikes began each day. 

The expanding wave of strikes brought with it some serious disturbances. One of these occurred at Kent State University in Ohio, where the governor sent approximately 750 Ohio National Guardsmen to quell the disorders. On May 2, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) building at Kent State was set afire. On May 4, Kent State students attending a rally on the university commons were ordered to disperse by the National Guard. After students failed to comply with the order, National Guardsmen fired tear gas followed by live ammunition into the crowd. After thirteen seconds of shooting, four students were dead and nine were wounded. 

During the four days that followed the Kent State deaths, there were a hundred or more strikes each day. A student strike center located at Brandeis University reported that by May 10, 448 campuses were either still affected by some sort of strike or completely closed down. 

Ten days after the events at Kent State, demonstrations took place at Jackson State College, a black teacher's college in Jackson, Mississippi. On the night of May 14, protesters set fires and overturned a dump truck, while unrelated persons mistaken for students threw bricks and bottles at passing white motorists. Seventy-five city and state policemen arrived to protect the fire fighters, then remained on campus and backed demonstrators up against a women's dormitory. Following a brief confrontation, the officers fired at the students and into the residence hall. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates, over four-hundred rounds hit the building. Two students were killed and at least twelve were wounded. Other schools joined the student strike, and many temporarily suspended classes in memory of those killed and wounded at Jackson State. By the end of May, according to statistics compiled by the Urban Research Corporation, nearly one-third of the approximately 2,500 colleges and universities had experienced some form of protest activity. The high point of the strikes came during the week following the deaths at Kent State.

To be a Hippie in this environment required some true grit, more than your average Punk had to pony up at a Rock Against Reagan show.