A Brief history of the past 100 years
While the height of student protest seemed to occur during the turbulent 60’s and early 70’s, very few people are aware that some of the first politically motivated expressive acts on college campuses began in the 1930s.
Prior to 1932 student expressive acts primarily revolved around on-campus rivalries such as athletics, Greek Life and between undergrad classes. There were also extramural sports rivalries. A riot at Harvard in early 1930 revolved around the results of a hockey game.
In his book, “When the Old Left was Young: Student Radicals and America ’s First Mass Student Movement, 1929-1941,” Robert Cohen explains how and why student protest developed: “The American student movement of the 1930s emerged as students groped for solutions to the double barreled crisis which confronted their generation: the Great Depression and the growing rift in international relations that ultimately led to World War II.”
This would become one of the most effective and well organized radical student protest movements of the 20th century, ending only with the US involvement in WWII.
Student political activism would not experience a resurgence until the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements began to gain traction in the late 50s and early 60s.
Student expressive acts took many forms during this time, advocating for peaceful protests and civil disobedience as the best ways to communicate their desire for change.
Unfortunately, clashes between student protesters and government authorities took a violent turn on several occasions. Two of the most notable of these violent confrontations occurred on May 4, 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio and 11 days later, on May 15, at Jackson State College in Mississippi.
In his book “Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties,” history professor Thomas M. Grace – one of the Kent State students injured in the shooting – not only recounts the events on May 4, but takes a hard look at everything leading up to and occurring after that day.
Grace describes how on May 2, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen arrived at Kent State University on the orders of Ohio governor, James Rhodes. The national guard had been called upon to address the violence and vandalism accompanying student protests on and off campus following the April 30 announcement of the invasion of Cambodia by US troops.
The violent protesting came to a head with the burning of the campus ROTC headquarters on the evening of May 2.
On May 4 at a student organized rally on the campus Commons, student protests became loud with students chanting and waving black flags. They were ordered to disperse by campus police.
Instead, students became resistant to what they considered an occupation of their campus by the national guard and an infringement on their right to free speech. The national guard began to advance, firing tear gas into the crowd. Students dispersed with most gathering in nearby areas.
Confrontation ensued with some students throwing rocks at the national guardsmen and the national guard throwing rocks back at the students. Some students also threw the gas canisters back at the troops. The national guard eventually retreated to a hilltop area of the commons, where both protestors and casual bystanders had gathered. They formed a line and turned to face students.
How and what happened next is still a topic of debate. But the results remain – the national guard opened fire on the Kent State student protesters, killing 4 and injuring 9.
Another shooting occurred at Jackson State College in Mississippi after police officers confronted students gathered near a dormitory late on the evening of May 14.

In “Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College,” Nancy Bristow takes a deep dive into this lesser known incident, the events leading up to it and why it is not as well known as the Kent State shootings.
Bristow describes how students at Jackson State were protesting the Vietnam War and the recent shooting at Kent State, but mostly they were protesting civil rights inequities. Police and Mississippi Highway patrol responded to reports of a rowdy crowd and a burning dump truck near a men’s dormitory on campus.
Once the fire was out and the Mississippi National Guard had arrived to handle the crowd, the police officers chose to move on towards the middle of campus. A second group of protesters were assembled near a women’s dormitory.
Shortly after midnight on May 15 and prompted by a perceived attack, police officers opened fire, killing two and injuring 12.
From Yesterday to Today
The US involvement in Vietnam ended in 1975, but civil rights, women’s rights, international relations, and other issues continue to prompt student activism on both sides.
Robert V. Labaree’s bibliographic essay, “College Student Activism, or How to ‘Disguise Subversive Action Like a Sugar-Coated Pill’” is a great resource for further study and insight into the development and history of politically motivated student expressive activities across US campuses. He cites more than 75 individual works regarding student activism from the 1930s up to the 21st century.
Today, with the rise of social media and other digital means of communication, expressive activities often take a different route, yet students still strongly express their ideas and opinions on a variety of issues in person.
Digital media aids the organization of movements and expressive activities to reach farther than campus communities, yet in-person activism appears to carry the most impact. One only has to look at recent events revolving around the conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe to see that student expressive activities are still a valid form of free speech.
This article is posted to accompany the collaboratively-written article “Free Speech at WCC: Oppressed or Expressed?”