![]() ![]() ![]() Grace excavates the deep roots of protest at the Ohio university. ![]() If our leaders truly hold those rights sacred, why not display more forbearance in the face of dissent-even if by foul-mouthed longhairs throwing rocks and human waste? Why did the guardsmen fire? Did outside agitators foment the violence? In a country that sends its youth to fight and die for democracy, American soldiers killed American students exercising the rights of free speech and assembly on their campus. Kent State holds the imagination by posing so many unanswered questions. Compared to today’s mathematics of slaughter, that toll is puny, and the incident seems long ago. Three new books on events of May 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio examine the killing there of four young people by Ohio National Guardsmen. Precedent offers a chance to reflect on how things turn violently wrong and how they might have gone differently. Outbursts of aggressive behavior attempt to regain control or to restore justice. Grace (University of Massachusetts, 2016, $29.95) Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties by Thomas M. ![]()
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