May: The Final Month

Abstract

The end of the Illinois student movement came wrapped in the intertwined issues of the day, race and war, when first, a young black man named Edgar Hoults was fatally shot in the back by Champaign police, and then next day, President Richard Nixon announced an invasion of the sovereign state of Cambodia. Hoults was guilty of having an expired driver’s license, Cambodia of harboring North Vietnamese. Champaign community leaders demanded an explanation from police, U.S. congressmen demanded one from the president, and neither received satisfaction. Four days later Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed four protesters at Kent State.