2 comments (Add your own)

1. Dr. Rod Murrow, Class of 1971 wrote:

I was an undergraduate student at NSC from 1967 to 1971, at the height of the war. NSC enrollment was at an all-time high and most males had student deferments from the Selective Service in order to attend school. If you dropped out of school, you were likely to be drafted immediately. Some people opted to move to Canada instead of be drafted into service and a war they violently opposed. "Hell no, we won't go!" was a typical chant those days, as was "Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" Collectively, our generation was identified as a bunch of hippies, opposed to "The Establishment." But we cared deeply about the direction our nation was taking and so "took up arms" against political decisions in the only way we knew how, the only way left to us. It was a grand time, yet it was a scary time in many ways. Grand in the sense that our generation was active in the debate, going against the establishment, and making a difference; scary in that many of our fellow students were pulled out of college and sent to the war - and many of them died there, in a war they neither supported nor understood, nor which was winnable. VietNam was the first war to come directly into our homes, via TV, which added to the violent opposition against it. The mixture of students on campus included the whole range, from straight-laced to strung-out; we were home to a large number of students from "back east" areas of New Jersey, New York and other northeastern states. These were the days of VietNam protests, LSD trips, free love ("Make Love, Not War"), Janis Joplin, M*A*S*H, protest songs, Woodstock, campus sit-ins, campus violence, and a total lack of confidence in the policital leadership of the Johnson adminstration. In many ways, this era was the "perfect storm" of social upheavals - including the VietNam protests, the drug scene, the racial unrest, and a generation what was considered "a bunch of hippies." RIP, JFK, RFK, MLK.

September 23, 2009 @ 4:39 PM

2. Dr. Patricia L. Steed (Stephens College 1968-1970) wrote:

I remember attending the Moratorium on the Stephens College campus in October 1969. I will never forget all the demonstrators wearing the black arm bands, and the silence, then the speeches given by my professors who bravely stood up against the war. They knew they were putting the jobs on the line. They knew they might be dismissed for participating in those demonstrations. I remember the tear gas fired upon students just across town at the U of Missouri. Most of us went on about our daily student lives, studying for tests and writing papers.

Most of us at Stephens wore the 60's like some new-fangled "fashion." Many of us weren't really involved in protests and demonstrations----until May 4, 1970. Kent State University was in the forefront. When we watched the CBS Evening News and saw 4 students shot down in cold blood, we froze. It was then that we understood that this wasn't "fashion." It was real, it was right in front of us. We were horrified and angry. We started participating in demonstrations. Many of us woke up every morning in fear of policemen and anyone wearing a military uniform. Students had become targets.

For more information about May 4, 1970, click the link below:
http://www.may4.org/

October 2, 2009 @ 10:39 PM

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