Volume 1 explores - in narrative form -- the record of the first week of the May 1970 explosion of student protests and the National Student Strike, the greatest student strike in American history --all in response to both President Richard Nixon's invasion of Cambodia and the subsequent government repression. The rebellion brought the nation's higher education system to a halt and created an unprecedented crisis for the Establishment. Millions of college and university students joined protests, 1400 colleges and universities were affected, 650 campuses were shut down, 8 deaths were attributed to the rebellion, 1300 injured or wounded, 4,500 arrests in the nearly one hundred clashes between students and law enforcement, and the National Guard was deployed 2 dozen times in 16 states. Drawn from original sources and archives of student newspapers and strike newsletters, the book unearths the burial for over 50 years of one of the greatest unreported stories of the century. The murders/ killings of 4 students at Kent State University were just the tip of the iceberg, as The May 1970 Rebellion shows. Much more came down and this book gives light to the voices and acts of America's college students. And it forever changes the way the history of the sixties and seventies will be viewed. The story of May 1970 can now be more fully appreciated and understood as the record of the true high-water mark of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Volume 2 continues the story for the rest of May 1970.
Volume 1 explores - in narrative form -- the record of the first week of the May 1970 explosion of student protests and the National Student Strike, the greatest student strike in American history --all in response to both President Richard Nixon's invasion of Cambodia and the subsequent government repression. The rebellion brought the nation's higher education system to a halt and created an unprecedented crisis for the Establishment. Millions of college and university students joined protests, 1400 colleges and universities were affected, 650 campuses were shut down, 8 deaths were attributed to the rebellion, 1300 injured or wounded, 4,500 arrests in the nearly one hundred clashes between students and law enforcement, and the National Guard was deployed 2 dozen times in 16 states. Drawn from original sources and archives of student newspapers and strike newsletters, the book unearths the burial for over 50 years of one of the greatest unreported stories of the century. The murders/ killings of 4 students at Kent State University were just the tip of the iceberg, as The May 1970 Rebellion shows. Much more came down and this book gives light to the voices and acts of America's college students. And it forever changes the way the history of the sixties and seventies will be viewed. The story of May 1970 can now be more fully appreciated and understood as the record of the true high-water mark of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Volume 2 continues the story for the rest of May 1970.