he was not an ideological man and his opposition to the war was very muted--replied that if I was expelled, he would fight it "all the way to the Supreme Court." I had done nothing else than exercise my First Amendment right of protest. We heard nothing more about expulsion, but a close friend of mine, who didn't have an assertive parent to stand up for him, was thrown out of school. That week, people came out of the woodwork--wearing black leather, chains wrapped around their fists, waving American flags--people we had never before seen in our neighborhoods. These patriots set up a counterdemonstration across the street from ours. For hours, a rumor was rampant that they would attack us and that the police would not intervene--exactly what had happened on Wall Street a day or so before. Their cursing and chain-rattling became uglier until finally they summoned their courage and charged. Someone shouted "Link arms!" and five or six teenagers, me among them, joined to interpose our bodies between the attackers and demonstrators. The Brooklyn police, unlike those on Wall Street, or the National Guard in Kent days earlier, did not seek or condone the killing of children. They ran in and forced the attackers back. I was fifteen then and am forty now, but I have never had a finer moment in my life. It was the only moment in my life that I came close to living up to Gandhi's statement that "we must be the change we wish to see in the world." Here are the names of those who died at Kent State, so that they may not be forgotten: ALISON KRAUSEJEFFREY MILLERSANDRA SCHEUERWILLIAM SCHROEDERMy source for many of the details in this essay is William A. Gordon, Four Dead in Ohio (North Ridge Books, 1995.)...
