TOWN & COUNTRY
By Gregory DL Morris
Columnist
May the 4th has become a pop-culture celebration of all things Star Wars, riffing on the elemental benediction of that mythology, “may the Force be with you.” As someone who saw the original film 17 times in 1977, this columnist is not here to ignite a primary against any such celebration.
Just spare a thought for the very real agony just seven years before the film was released. May 4, 1970, four college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio were shot and killed by National Guard troops. Nine other students were shot and injured.
The harrowing event was captured in a photograph by John Filo, a photojournalism student, for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. In the photo, the face of one student is a mask of incredulous horror as she kneels beside the dead body of a fellow student.
Only 10 days after the Kent State killings, one college student and one high-school student were shot dead when city and state police at Jackson State University in Mississippi opened fire on a women’s dormitory. Another 12 students were injured.
Thankfully, there have been no such bloody incidents on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, but that does not mean that there has not been protests. Last October, the UNC-Chapel Hill community filled the walkways and grass of the university as people rallied in support of a professor accused of being affiliated with an anti-fascist organization, according to WRAL.
The faculty member, Associate Professor Dwayne Dixon, was placed on administrative leave “based on recent reports and expressions of concern that he is an advocate for political violence,” according to the university’s statement, but was quickly reinstated. “We have found no basis to conclude that he poses a threat to university students, staff, and faculty, or has engaged in conduct that violates university policy.”
Historically, four large protests at UNC-Chapel Hill have received the most attention, according to the university’s archives: the controversy over North Carolina’s Speaker Ban Law, civil rights demonstrations, the Food Workers’ Strike, and anti-Vietnam protests provoked the largest reactions from students and the media.
The tradition of student activism at UNC-Chapel Hill dates back much further than the 1960s. Some anti-war protests took place on campus in the 1930s. In the 1980s and 1990s, UNC students protested Apartheid and the university’s renewed contract with Nike. In the 1960s and 1970s, students became increasingly vocal in their protests of local and national events.
It is so much less upsetting to remember a rollicking space movie where blaster shots are just special effects and everyone gets up after the scene is in the can. But it is so much more important to remember very real bullets that stole the future from college students. And all the more important to remember those students today, when, within the last year American citizens have again been shot and killed in the street by agents of their own government.
Gregory DL Morris is a business journalist and historian who reports regularly for TLR.
This reporter can be reached at Informaion@TheLocalReporter.press
Be the first to comment on "Town and Country: The Dark Side of the Fourth"