We are, without doubt, living through unusual times under unusual circumstances. But it might be helpful to remember that the experience of watching a school year unexpectedly vanish is not unique.
Fifty years ago, in the spring of 1970, students of my generation had a similar experience. Across the country, student protests against the war in Vietnam had been flaring up for many months, campus buildings had been "occupied" by student groups demanding an end to American military action in Asia and demanding changes to the status quo. Violence and vandalism gave the protests a nasty edge. Our University was relatively quiet in those days although events in Vietnam and on other campuses across the country kept us focused on our country's unrest and on the pressing questions themselves.
Fifty years ago we were finishing our junior year at the University of New Hampshire. Donna and I were engaged to be married in June. Ahead of that we were lining up summer jobs, finding a place to live, and chasing down the hundred separate details that had to be pursued individually in those dark times before the internet. Trying to make life-shaping decisions can be nerve-wracking in the best of times, but few would have thought those were the best of times.
As tensions on campus began to ratchet up week by week, some students started boycotting classes in favor of discussion groups we called "rap sessions." Sympathetic and like-minded professors cancelled their own classes and volunteered to participate. A kind of alternative curriculum sprang up around issues we felt more urgent for our lives than normal academics. There were sessions on racism and women's rights as well as on the complicated politics of war.
Yes, there was a lot of shared ignorance, but there were also energized and vital discussions as we tried to figure out how to think about the challenges facing our generation. Most of us were less consumed with the political ideologies confronting each other. Rather most of us were anxious and confused about what would happen next and whether we, as young people, could possibly have any say in it.
In an effort to be close to what was happening, to learn first hand, I joined the university newspaper and began writing about rap sessions I was assigned to.
Then in early May, news spread rapidly around campus that the Ohio National Guard had fired on students at Kent State, killing several. Classes that had continued to meet abruptly stopped meeting. Our sense of fear became tangible. For all practical purposes, the University ceased to function. We had joined the student strike without trying to. Rumors spread that New Hampshire's Governor, Mel Thompson, had called up the National Guard. Armed troops were rumored to be ready at the Armory five miles away.
A makeshift memorial to the slain Kent State students sprang up spontaneously -- mostly stones and candles and signs and flowers. A little more than a week after white students were shot at Kent State, black students were shot and killed at Jackson State in what was being called a police riot, a recently coined term. What would we ever do if the National Guard arrived on our campus with weapons?
We continued to hold rap sessions and rallies to hear student leaders speak. It was hard to know what would happen tomorrow, let alone imagine how the country might ever return to normal. What had become clear in all that uncertainty is that life and death issues were being "played" by those in positions of power to advance their political ends. At some point, word came down from the University administration that there would be no final exams and that graduation ceremonies would be cancelled.
Then, almost as if we had been given permission to leave, the campus emptied out. The makeshift stone memorial, which had become the center for evening bonfires and rallies, remained. But banners were taken down. Graffiti was painted over. Junk from the weeks of rallies and meetings was raked up and hauled off. Lawns were fixed. Unsure of what else was called for, I started my summer job early. In mid-June we were married on schedule.
That fall we returned to classes for our senior year. Fifty years on we lean on what we learned from that experience.
Even in these days of quarantine, chaos and fear again cloud the future, but it is the quiet fundamental lessons that matter. There are many things to be said -- in another essay, perhaps -- about the abuses of power on many levels. But in this moment, when the stability of our school year has become distant and uncertain, I am more interested in one simple lesson, a reminder from fifty years ago: Life does go on. And we know there will be opportunities, yet to come, to make something good from these lost months.
