Outrage at Oklahoma: Campus Protests in the Weeks after the Kent State Shootings

Abstract

“Outrage at Oklahoma: Campus Protests in the Weeks after the Kent State Shootings,” by Dominic Granello, uses deep research in memoirs, campus newspapers, and oral history to paint a nuanced portrait of OU in the tumultuous 1960’s. Granello finds that the university’s demographic makeup and the tactfulness of the university’s leaders helped OU escape the violence that wracked so many of the nation’s universities. Implicit in Granello’s analysis is the idea that lives saved and battles avoided are as important to the shaping of history as tragedy and bloodshed are. It takes a subtle scholar to appreciate the unsung efforts of officials who reached out, opened a calm dialogue, and kept the community’s violent passions at bay. –Raphael Folsom