Kent State Massacre

The 55th anniversary of the Kent State massacre has prompted comparisons to today’s student efforts to bring attention to the rapidly worsening conditions in Gaza. And more broadly to questions about imperialism, colonial histories and current policies of the U.S. and Israeli governments.

This is the current version of a diagram I’ve been working on related to colonialism. The diagram shows how settler colonialism in this country continues to be engaged in Israeli’s ongoing settler colonialism and genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and …

I was a Senior at Scattergood Friends Quaker boarding school when the Kent State massacre happened, May 4, 1970. I took this photo on October 15, 1969, when the entire student body walked from the school twelve miles to the University of Iowa. On that date there were demonstrations at schools and universities aross the country, all part of the Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam.

Students from Scattergood Friends school, October 15, 1969

NotebookLM research findings

I’ve been writing about using Google’s NotebookLM artificial intelligence research assistance application. I wanted to learn more about the relationships between the histories and concepts related to student protests during the Vietnam War, and pro-Palestinian encampments and other actions happening today.

I loaded the articles listed as sources below. The reason NotebookLM is such a great research tool is because the model is built solely from the sources you give it. I was then able to submit queries and receive the results of the notebook project’s findings which include:

Briefing Document: Echoes of Dissent – Contemporary Protests
and the Legacy of Kent State
How do the motivations and demographics of student activism compare
across different historical eras?
Kent State and Current Student Protests: Detailed Timeline
Mind Map
The song Ohio as part of the uprising
Study Guide

Briefing Document Kent State Download

How do the motivations and demographics of student activism compare across different historical eras Download

Timeline

Timeline Kent State and Current Student Protests Download

Mind Map

The following two views of this project’s Mind Map show are examples of NotebookLM’s ability to graph relationships among concepts in the project. Parallels with Contemporary Protests (Israel-Gaza) and Differences from Contemporary Protests. When you click on any of the boxes in the Mind Map, you are then shown the source of that information.

Asking question about the information in the sources

Following is an example of how you can ask questions about a NotebookLM project. I was curious about the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Ohio” that is about what happened that day at Kent State.

The song Ohio as part of the uprising Download