This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

70s Student Strikes

Contents of this path:

Police and student demonstrators facing off in an anti-war march down the I-5 freeway during the May 1970 student strike. On Tuesday, May 5, 1970, at approximately 1:50 pm 6,000 University of Washington students marched off campus and poured on to the Interstate 5 freeway and headed south towards the Federal Courthouse. The students entered the freeway shouting anti-Vietnam War slogans, carrying protest banners and sporting peace signs. The organization of students at the UW, on other college campuses in Washington and throughout the country was sparked when National Guard troops shot and killed four students at a protest rally in Kent State University, following President Richard Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. These events instigated a national week of student strikes involving some of the largest protest movements on campuses in Washington State and around the country
In May of 1970, UCLA declared a state of emergency after a student protest turned violent. During this demonstration, students protested United States military involvement in Cambodia as well as the shooting of anti-war demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio. UCLA canceled classes due to vandalism as students marched from a rally in Meyerhoff Park to central campus buildings. During this march, students threw rocks, set fires in Ackerman Union and attacked ROTC headquarters. In the end, 200 police officers responded to the protest and 74 people were arrested
The Kent State Pietà: The soldiers formed a rifle line. “I put my camera to my eye and trained it on one of the soldiers,” he says. “He aimed toward me, and then his gun goes off. The next thing I know, a bullet hits a tree next to me and a chunk of bark flew off.” John dropped to the ground and waited out the 13 seconds of gunfire. When the smoke cleared, he stood and patted his arms and legs, checking to see if he’d been hit. “It was like slow motion. I just kept wondering, ‘How come I’m not shot?’” Then, not 10 feet away, he saw a body on the ground. John was running out of film as he saw a girl kneel beside the body. “I knew the boy was dead, but I could tell she didn’t know,” he told me. “I could see something building in her, and all of a sudden she lets out this scream and I shoot. I shoot one more picture, and I’m out of film.” By the time he had reloaded his camera, the girl was gone.
May 16, 1970 - Jackson, Miss: A man stands behind the shattered window of a women's dormitory following the fatal shooting of two students at Jackson State College. With a fire truck called to the scene, the Mississippi Highway and Safety Patrol (MHSP) and the Jackson city police arrived as well; both were there to protect the firefighters. Law enforcement’s presence only angered the crowd. When the fire was doused, rather than leaving, the officers turned and marched, inexplicably and against their orders, up Lynch Street toward the center of campus