I am not a spokesperson for the people whose story we are seeing continuously written today, fifty-five years after the first Civil Rights Movement and one hundred and fifty-five years after the end of the American Civil War. What I can speak to is the long view. I saw the social fabric torn not only by dissent against the war in Vietnam but by a sense of urgency that our society needed to change in the face of malignant racism.
As with any revolution, lives were lost. Kent State, by Deborah Wiles, is written in verse and includes the points of view of the groups impacted that day in Ohio when the governor decided to call out the National Guard to stop the voices and in some cases the lives of college students wanting the seemingly unwinnable war to end. With the election of Richard Nixon, the draft lottery was instituted. College students who had deferments from the draft were now subject to it based on the lottery number that corresponded to their birthdate. When the protestors burned down the ROTC building (Reserve Officers Training Corp) some say fueled by outside agitators like the SDS and the Weathermen, the National Guard was called in. The confrontations that ensued ended with four students dying, most not involved in the protests on campus.
This book is not intended for young Middle School students. It is suitable for 8th grade to 12th grade I would think, but I also think it underscores that when we fail to learn the lessons of history we are going to repeat them. From the Backlist, Deborah Wiles has also written the Sixties Trilogy, Countdown about the Cuban Missle Crisis, Revolution situated during the Civil Rights Movement, and Anthem about the anti-war protests. They are called docu-novels. The author integrates primary sources throughout the books to help the reader understand the history of the volatile time in America. The actions of that decade informed the hopes and dreams for change. We can learn from those who brought us to the brink of a revolution because we know that things must change.
