"We're Finally On Our Own"
How would the Peace Retreat look in action? Was it possible for peace to co-exist with the American War? The fear at NC State was not Kent State level violence but whether the student government could prove the value of a student led Peace Retreat.
“I urge that all students on this campus carefully and morally consider and assess the events of the past week. What exactly do they mean to you the individual student, and to you the students collectively?”
-Cathy Sterling, May 6, 1970
There are real limitations to what can immediately be accomplished through group action. The march on Raleigh proved this. Though students arrived in the thousands at the capital to make their point to the governor, his only official response was: “I will convey to the President the students’ belief that his decision to escalate the Indochinese War has been disruptive to the normal academic processes of the institutions of higher learning in North Carolina.” Not exactly a rousing success. This was evidence to many students that true political change was impossible.
Of course, NC State was not the only university dealing with this challenge. Duke and UNC (which had started boycotting classes on May 5th, the day of the Kent State shootings) were also facing the limitations of political change; their students had also taken part in the march on Raleigh. Yet the decision by these more liberal universities was both more radical and less useful. Duke and UNC stayed closed for the remainder of the semester, skipping all exams and finals. However, there were real failings with this strategy, namely that the students had no chance to discuss the issues corporately.
See a word picture for May 13th of the Technician