DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1970 | ""Iowa '70: Riot, Rhetoric, Responsibility?"" Page 45

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University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1970

""Iowa '70: Riot, Rhetoric, Responsibility?"" Page 45

At a rally a friend of mine and I were sitting on the fringes talking. As our conversation turned to the bombing incidents at the men's dorms, another guy joined our conversation. He was young-looking, a long-haired kid, wiht typical hyperstimulated actions of a person on speed. Saying that he was speeding and that he was really " out of it," he listened to what we were saying about the bombs. He sat silently looking at us a moment and then, in a halting, disjointed pattern of thought, told us that he was involved in the bombings. He showed no remorse, only an incredulous sense of awe that he had been involved. Why did he resort to violence while so many others were working to keep the demonstrations peaceful?
A student worker involved in non-violent political action to try to stop the war had several threats made on his life by telephone. His anonymous caller was found to be an old man who felt that the entire protest movement was due to a communist "takeover."
Students were faced with the decision of whether or not to take an option or to stay for finals. Many of them had their decision made for them by parents who feared for their children's lives in the midst of a "radical rebellion." A father in one phone call told his daughter that he had paid for her education and wasn't going to let any "damn radicals" keep her from going to classes. Despite her pleading he treatened to take his vacation early and come and personally escort her to every class. Another father, despite a doctor's orders not to travele came over 200 miles in order to personally look over the situation. My own mother in a phone conversation ordered me to stay away from all demonstrations and when I told her I had a class that night in 

[photo]

the union she was worried about my walking alone to attend it. I tried to reassure her that I felt no personal danger. 
But the point at which I felt no personal danger was in the beginning before several students were beaten by the art building  - one of them was a girl. Before, I felt that I was part of the demonstrators and that the only danger was present at police confrontations. But then attacks began on individual students and bomb scares started in the dorms and I became afraid of students who were supposedly working on the same cause I was. 
On the same night that the black was trying to tell demonstrators that the police were as human as they were, another demonstrator from a crowd on highway 218 threw a brick through the windshield of a passing car. In it were two students - one of them cut by the flying glass. A member of the crowd tried to help the bleeding victim but the other occupant of the car pulled him away, calling him a "goddamn hippie," even though the guy had short hair and looked very straight. Then jumping onto the car he accelerated into the crowd still 
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At a rally a friend of mine and I were sitting on the fringes talking. As our conversation turned to the bombing incidents at the men's dorms, another guy joined our conversation. He was young-looking, a long-haired kid, wiht typical hyperstimulated actions of a person on speed. Saying that he was speeding and that he was really " out of it," he listened to what we were saying about the bombs. He sat silently looking at us a moment and then, in a halting, disjointed pattern of thought, told us that he was involved in the bombings. He showed no remorse, only an incredulous sense of awe that he had been involved. Why did he resort to violence while so many others were working to keep the demonstrations peaceful? A student worker involved in non-violent political action to try to stop the war had several threats made on his life by telephone. His anonymous caller was found to be an old man who felt that the entire protest movement was due to a communist "takeover." Students were faced with the decision of whether or not to take an option or to stay for finals. Many of them had their decision made for them by parents who feared for their children's lives in the midst of a "radical rebellion." A father in one phone call told his daughter that he had paid for her education and wasn't going to let any "damn radicals" keep her from going to classes. Despite her pleading he treatened to take his vacation early and come and personally escort her to every class. Another father, despite a doctor's orders not to travele came over 200 miles in order to personally look over the situation. My own mother in a phone conversation ordered me to stay away from all demonstrations and when I told her I had a class that night in [photo] the union she was worried about my walking alone to attend it. I tried to reassure her that I felt no personal danger. But the point at which I felt no personal danger was in the beginning before several students were beaten by the art building - one of them was a girl. Before, I felt that I was part of the demonstrators and that the only danger was present at police confrontations. But then attacks began on individual students and bomb scares started in the dorms and I became afraid of students who were supposedly working on the same cause I was. On the same night that the black was trying to tell demonstrators that the police were as human as they were, another demonstrator from a crowd on highway 218 threw a brick through the windshield of a passing car. In it were two students - one of them cut by the flying glass. A member of the crowd tried to help the bleeding victim but the other occupant of the car pulled him away, calling him a "goddamn hippie," even though the guy had short hair and looked very straight. Then jumping onto the car he accelerated into the crowd still 41