“We Want Fred!:” UGA’s Reaction to Kent State, 1970

May 6, 1970-

Shattered glass flew into Park Hall from several windows.

Outside, a few thousand students and citizens demanded attention from U.G.A.’s president Fred Davison. When he sent anybody he could convince to face the angry crowd in his stead, they violently broke into the academic building. Four thousand voices rose into the cool air shouting “Kent State!”, “Shut it down!”, and “We want Fred!”.

Inside, secretaries went into riot mode, huddled in a lounge per university protocol, afraid and uncertain of the mob’s next move.

Davison was one of many faced with the same decision that Wednesday. A nationwide call for strike spread throughout student-run organizations in the hours after the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970. The call was for administrators to speak out against the shooting deaths of four university students in Ohio and to sign a letter addressed to the Nixon administration condemning troops in Cambodia and his reluctance to leave Vietnam. They wanted campuses shut down in honor of those lost. Hundreds of university presidents acquiesced. Governor Reagan shut down all high school and college campuses in California. Fred Davison, reluctant to speak on behalf of 27,000 students and a few thousand more staff and faculty, refused.

By nightfall on May 6, the crowd sat outside the President’s Mansion at 570 Prince Avenue. They blanketed the macadam. The entire city was aware of their cause. Reporters from all over the country counted U.G.A. as one of 400 campuses thrust into activism because of the four students killed. The protest was officially the largest in Georgia’s history.

The unrest lasted four days. The group traipsed through campus and left their mark at a number of buildings. From the Military Building, which housed the U.G.A. R.O.T.C., to Memorial and Park Halls; from Old College back to the President’s Mansion.  In numbers that ebbed and flowed, the group occupied much of Athens to bring awareness to their cause.

Then and now, questions remain.

When the school shut down because of the protests for two days, they persisted in their rebellion. They wanted Fred to commit to the demands above, he never did.

In his opinion, the demands of four thousand people–a mix of citizens, students, and what he called “professional protesters,” which included faculty member, alumni, and overall rebel rouser Pete McCommons–did not represent the majority of 27,000 students. He was right.

   

In the days immediately following the protests, reaction letters poured into the offices of the Red and Black. Most criticized the protesters. Some were appalled at their violent outburst, but agreed with their cause. Some simply wanted to go to class.

Unfortunately for students who sought a quiet, consistent, campus of higher education, U.G.A. in 1970 was cursed with discontent. The same week the Kent State protests broke out, a racially-charged occupation of College Avenue and much of North Campus was organized by members of the Black Panther party to address the increasing divide between whites and blacks. Peace was out of the question in a time when so many felt disfranchised, forgotten, and ineffective.

Still, new student organizations were formed to prevent future campus unrest and created partnerships with the administration that lead to the current top-down control of the student body.

By the end of the Kent State protests administrators decided a heavy hand was necessary to quell the disturbance. They issued a restraining order to the protesters for “destruction of University property” among other charges. It was effective. The protests dwindled to a putter by Monday.

The University’s heavy hand continued throughout the seventies. In 1972, McCommons and seven others became known as the “Athens Eight” when they were arrested for trespassing during a peaceful sit-in at Fred Davison’s office to protest campus housing crackdowns. It took years of litigation, money, and media over the trial, and re-trial, that ended with fines and probation for McCommons and his compatriots.

U.G.A. was not alone. Across the nation, state legislatures passed laws which empowered college campuses to stifle unrest. State leaders and university presidents were done with being embarrassed on a national stage.

In recent years, U.G.A. permitted protests. The Tate center, named for the man who sat with embroiled students on the cold asphalt of Prince Avenue, swells with amplified speakers on a regular basis. Still, over-sized pictures of mutilated fetuses, Tate center preachers, and Greek organization giveaways do not qualify as unrest to me. The organizations in favor of administration goals or allowances always seem to garner the stage and P.A. The students–the majority, anyway–have to walk by in silence or lash back with the voice they were born with in an attempt to address their opinions.

I saw the protests concerning online racism on campus last year. A hundred or so students raised signs and chanted across the street from the Tate Center, while buses roared by their assembly, drowning their voices every 5-10 minutes. No classes were disturbed. I saw the Occupy Movement hold communion in tents lined along broad until the city and  the university grew tired of their presence. Classes remained on schedule. Just the other day, five supporters of Tim Denson stood on the steps of the Arch with signs promoting his revolutionary campaign for mayor and barely spoke to passers-by.

I felt like I was looking at a cardboard Titanic while struggling to imagine a choir of agonized voices.

Original Article Published by Source Athens.