EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the sixth and final part of a series of columns examining why the 1960s decade of protest, sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll ended so abruptly, much of it occurring in 1970. Much of this material first appeared in a book by David Young and Jim Wasserman, never published, “Breadcrusts.”
KENT STATE: May 4, 1970
The movement didn’t end suddenly just with this important incident on May 4, 1970. As stated in the earlier sections of this chapter, there were other factors that helped make it all possible.
But if anyone from the 1960s is asked what one event killed the movement, the vast majority would name this one deadly incident in the unlikely place of Kent, Ohio.
I choose not to rehash all of the events, which has been done so eloquently in other places before. Suffice it to say that four Kent State University students were killed when U.S. National Guardsmen opened fire during a campus disturbance.
There was tremendous debate. One side claimed the soldiers had been pushed to the brink, so the shootings were understandable. The other side countered that there is no excuse for killing unarmed young people on a college campus.
The chilling effect for many peacenik demonstrators was obvious. Many questioned why they should march against the war and now put their lives at risk in front of a trigger-happy military that hated their guts.
President Arend D. Lubbers quickly diffused any trouble related to Kent State by shutting down the Grand Valley campus for two days. Many other college presidents did the same thing. GVSC and Lubbers sponsored a lot of rap sessions about the incident to let uneasy students air their feelings.
My critic teacher at Caledonia High School, Ken Koster, noting that I spent every Wednesday at GVSC instead of in the classroom, told the high school students to ask me why I was present at Caledonia that particular Wednesday. He was appalled that the educational process had been interrupted by something that had happened as much as 400 miles away.
(Actually, I got a lot more out of student teaching in the classroom than attending the boring and irrelevant education classes Wednesdays at GVSC. Furthermore, I noticed that Caledonia teachers didn’t have any problems with interrupting the educational process at their high school for bullshit activities such as pep rallies and preparing for the prom.)
After the Kent State tragedy, there was no trouble on the GVSC campus. There was no leadership left for the New Left. James Wasserman was too absorbed in his own personal problems to raise his voice. I was student teaching in Caledonia, not that I was leadership material. Many other movement leaders were becoming apathetic or were busy doing other things.
We could see that things indeed had changed a great deal from just a year ago. In the spring of 1969, things would have been very different.
Instead, we realized it was all over.
