Did the 1960s teach the nation a lesson?
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Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Last Friday, Vietnam marked the 35th anniversary of the Communist
victory in the Vietnam War with a grand military parade through the
former Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.
Today, the Peace and Justice League at the University of New
Hampshire will commemorate the 40th anniversary of an anti-war strike
that ended classes early in the spring of 1970.
The convergence of these events has turned the clock back for many to
a very painful time in American history.
The soon-to-come defeat of the United States in Vietnam, the death of
student protestors at Kent State on May 4, 1970, and the tumult that
overtook campuses across the country marked a decade that had not
seen such national division since the Civil War.
UNH's contribution to the anti-war fever climaxed the day after the
Kent State shooting of four students by the National Guard. A visit
to campus by three members of the Chicago 8 brought campus life to a
standstill as more than 7,000 gathered in and around the field house
to hear Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and David Dellinger, part of the
group which had disrupted the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
But this is only part of the story of the decade that saw the
country's divisions explode in riots and death.
The fall of 1962 saw two killed during race riots when James
Meredith, who was black, was admitted to Jackson State University
under court order. A protest sign at the time read,
"Two-four-one-three, we hate Kennedy, Kill the n*****-loving bastards."
On Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the
United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Malcolm X fell on Feb. 21, 1965, in New York City after being hit
with a shotgun blast and a hail of bullets.
August 1965 brought the Watts race riots, which last six devastating
days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Calif.
At 6:01 p.m., April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned
down on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.
June 5, 1968, saw the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy at the
Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, Calif.
Then on May 4, the members of the National Guard fired 67 rounds in
13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others.
The only bright spots of the decade seemed to be Neil Armstrong's
"... one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind" on July 20,
1969, and Woodstock's "3 Days of Peace & Music" that August.
The decade of the 1960s is not one to be proud of. It pitted black
against white, college-aged protestor against college-age soldier. It
was a time when too many of America's streets were safe for no one.
It was a time when American casualties were not limited to the 50,000
who died in the rice paddies of Vietnam.
Today, as the war's end is marked and student protests remembered, an
unfortunate question remains: Did the hate and terror of the 1960s
teach us anything?
Today, the nation's political ranks are torn by hate and bigotry, as
seen during the recent health-care debate and now the furor over
illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, citizens live in fear of homegrown terrorists like Timothy
McVeigh, found guilty and executed for the Oklahoma City bombing;
Nidal Malik Hasan accused in the Fort Hood shootings; and perhaps
someone raised locally for this past weekend's attempted fire bombing
in Times Square.
To quote philosopher, essayist George Santayana: "Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
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