Forty Years Ago Today in Brooklyn: May 13, 1970: Brooklyn College reacts to Kent State

From our diary:

Wednesday, May 13, 1970

A warm, sunny day punctuated by a morning rain shower. I was very dizzy last night and didn't get much sleep. Mom spent the day shopping downtown and she got me a Wallace Beery-type shirt.

I had lunch near the college with Howie and Linda, who was on her lunch hour from her job/ Howie may get a job announcing the news on Saturdays on a Long Island radio station; he's auditioning on the air on Friday. They make a nice couple - it's obvious they're in love.

In Boylan Hall, I was walking around and saw that riverrun [college literary magazine] was on sale. When I told them who I was, they gave me three copies free. The story, "Reflections on a Village Rosh Hashona," [a revised version appeared in the London-based Transatlantic Review in 1976] is just the way I wrote it. It was elating to see it in print. I didn't let anyone read it, however - too embarrassing.

I briefly joined Esther on a picket line and went home to lie in the sun and finish the Mailer novel. [Robert] Morgenthau dropped out of the race for governor. The hardhats and those dandruffy clerks in their Robert Hall shirts were out [on Wall Street] shouting "U.S.A. alla way."

Thank God for Sec'y Hickel - I made a mistake in opposing his appoointment. [Vice President] Agnew was on David Frost, taking a cue from his boss, coming on quiet and sincere. God, sometimes I wonder late at night what would have been had Bobby Kennedy not gotten shot.

The day's New York Times contained an article by Paul L. Montgomery, "War Protests Continue; Colleges Poorly Attended," reporting on the previous day's events related to the campus strikes, which began

The State Court of Appeals in Albany ruled yesterday that law students must complete the specified number of classroom hours and take final examinations to be eligible for the State Bar examinations.

and went on to say

Attendance was small at many of the larger colleges in the metropolitan ara, including New York University, Columbia, City College, Long Island University, Hunter College and Brooklyn College.

. . . On the lawns at Brooklyn College, students put on guerrilla theater skits about the state of the nation. . .

The article had a photograph taken near the New York Stock Exchange with the caption

POLICE BAR CONFRONTATION: Helmeted policemen guarding barricades set up around student antiwar demonstration in Broad Street just south of Wall Street. Helmeted construction men and other workers, foreground, were kept away during the meeting.