WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED: A STUDY OF THE MAY 4TH COALITION AND THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY GYMNASIUM CONTROVERSY OF 1977

MIRIAM RUTH JACKSON, Purdue University

Abstract

This study identifies and analyzes the factors leading to the rise and fall of the May 4th Coalition, a student-based group which attempted in 1977 to prevent the construction of a gymnasium annex on part of the area involved in the National Guard-student confrontation of May 4, 1970, at Kent State University. Based on interviews, newspaper articles, editorials and letters-to-editors, correspondence, legal documents, and Coalition, University and personal papers, the study shows that the Coalition arose as a result of long-term discontent with the lack of accountability on both local and national levels for the casualties of 1970, and as a result of short-term indignation at University insensitivity for planning a construction project slated to destroy part of the most famous national symbol of student opposition to the Vietnam War. The study documents the strengths, weaknesses and contradictions of both the Coalition and its major opposition, the Kent State University Board of Trustees, and shows the key role played in 1977, largely on behalf of the Coalition, by liberal journalists, politicians and judges who had--unlike the American public--come to terms with the Kent State shootings and the Vietnam War. The study concludes that public hostility ultimately defeated the May 4th Coalition.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

American history|American studies

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