That's me with the painted face (the stripes under my eyes are red, in between white stripes, my forehead is blue, with a white peace sign) in May of 1970, demonstrating against the Vietnam War. I was nineteen years old, in my second year at Michigan State University.
I want to let you know what bookended that picture. There was about 5,000 people marching about five miles from the MSU campus to the state capitol down Grand River Avenue. During that march, a white guy drove his car up to the people marching down one side of the street. My friend was a marshall, and was at the point where he drove his car up. He came around the front of the car, and was going to ask the guy what he was doing when the guy floored his car into the marchers. No one was killed, but a girl got a broken leg. When his car came to a stop, about a half dozen state police, who had been policing the march, ran, grabbed the guy and literally dragged him across the street to a squad car. In the meantime, we did a dance on his car. So, by the time we got to the capitol building, we were not in the best of moods.
When we got to the capitol, the doors were locked and a number of state police were inside dressed in full riot gear to keep us out. The governor, Republicon William Milliken, came out and said how much he welcomed dissent, to which the crowd chanted "Bull-shit, bull-shit!"
Later that night, some activists attacked the ROTC building on campus and set some curtains on fire, that drew some state police onto campus. A lot of tear gas was fired around to disperse the crowd.
TBH, a friend and I dropped acid that night and decided to stay away from the action. By the end of the night, I grokked that the revolution was over. It wasn't going to happen. All I could do was write the lyrics to "For What It's Worth" on the blackboard of a class that would commence ay 8:00 that morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bl-vbBnJ3I
