Why We Should Care:
Resistance Throughout The Generations

Text by: Dave Sessa

While the Forest Hills riot has already become old news for most students, here’s something new to think about. Thirty years ago, in the spring of 1970, at Jackson State College in Mississippi (a predominantly black school), police fired more than 400 rounds of ammunition from shotguns, rifles, and a submachine gun in a 28-second barrage, killing two students inside an all-girls dormitory. A local jury found the attack justified. It was declared that students involved in civil disorders “must expect to be injured or killed,” by a U.S. District Court judge. Rubber bullets in Harrisonburg caused weeks of outrage.

During the same spring, a federal jury in Boston decided in favor of two black soldiers when it was found a policeman used excessive force against them. One of the soldiers needed 12 stitches in his head. The judge awarded him $3 (yes, three dollars) in damages. I had to pay a hundred dollars for parking in the wrong lot last month.

On May 1, 1970, the draft board in Tucson, Arizona received this letter: “I am enclosing the order for me to report for my pre-induction physical exam for the armed forces. I have absolutely no intention to report for that exam, or for induction, or to aid in any way the American war effort against the people of Vietnam …” The letter’s author, Philip Supina, finished by quoting a Spanish philosopher who said, “sometimes to be silent is to lie.” Supina was sentenced to four years in prison.

On May 4, 1970 four students were killed and one paralyzed when fired upon by National Guards at Kent State University in Ohio at an anti-war protest. Students at James Madison University held a sit-in at Wilson Hall to protest the war. Maybe you’ve been in the same jail cell as they were.

On Election Day in that same year, a resolution was passed by the people of Madison, Wisconsin calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces in Vietnam, 31,000 votes to 16,000. These days we show a great deal of concern for what influences young people in this country. In 1970, when fifth graders were polled, 61 percent of them were in favor of an immediate end to the Vietnam War.

All of that happened thirty years ago. The generation before these people (our grandparents) inherited an America influence by the end of prohibition, the Great Depression, and World War Two. Our parents inherited this influence, and lived through the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and the summer of love.

Most of us were in grade school when the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Cold War ended. For the first time in a long time, a generation of Americans has inherited an America that lacks a common enemy. Did they leave us a better world? Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “our freedom was not won a century ago, it is not won today, but some small part of it is in our hands, and we are marching no longer by ones and twos but in legions of thousands, convinced now that it cannot be denied by any human force.”

And what would Dr. King say today if he were still alive? The struggle still goes on, each generation inherits eyes open wider to the problems of the world and the ability to make that change. He understood that the job was not yet finished, and until justice is won each of us must do our part to join the march, to fight for freedom, and resist racism, oppression, poverty and the other social ills that plague the world we live in. Why should we care? A society in need of a leader produces one. The heroes and icons, leaders and revolutionaries of the past are gone. Their actions and words are not forgotten, but who will take their place?

On Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m., students will come together for the Student Political Interest Forum. This event will be held in the PC Ballroom and is sponsored by the Issue and Cultural Awareness Commitee at University Program Board. The event will feature student organizations and speakers. All are welcome. These are men and women from our generation who are doing their part to protect freedom for all, so that we do not forget, in the comfort of our lives, the problems of the world that still threaten us, and the small part of it that is in this generation’s hands.