In 1974, at the end of a criminal investigation into the Kent State incident, a federal court dropped all charges levied against eight Ohio National Guardsmen for their role in the students' deaths. As the events at Kent State shook the country, they also became emblematic of an era in which students worked with passion to change the world for the better. Their inspirations included the assassinated President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
At first, Klein finds a Kent State that seems totally removed from him and from the events of the past. Students are clean cut, fraternities and sororities are booming, and sports are a major concern. The manager of an off-campus tanning spa reports that she has an average of 100 customers a day, 98 percent of them students. Being tan "makes me feel good about myself," says a student, while lying on a taning bed. One particular student confesses that he came to Kent State because the legal drinking age in Ohio is 19, while in his home state it is 21. Another lower classman, looking somewhat surprised by Klein's questions, proclaims "I don't read books at all." Most of the students Klein initially meets are fed up with hearing about the events of May 4. "I don't think the students were as innocent as they were made out to be," one tells him. His words seem to echo those of a different Kent State student, seen in one of several newsreels from 1970. "The students wouldn't disperse," she says. "So what could they do? I'm sorry they didn't kill more." For worse or better, the May 4 incident remains the most important thing that ever happened at Kent State; simply stated, it put the school on the map. To the irritation of many young people, the campus newspaper never tires of replaying the 1970 confrontation. Those professors who lived through it seek to pass their memories on to the next generations. For some, those years of political turmoil and promise remain the high point of their lives.