For the times in which we live...

      Memorial Day Sunday, CenterPoint Church, Concord, New Hampshire, May 27, 2024

Fifty-Four years ago this month, a huge anti-Vietnam War rally took place on the University of New Hampshire Durham campus - UNH, featuring nationally known activists Jerry Rubin, David Dillinger and Abbie Hoffman, in what state newspapers billed as "The Chicago 3." They and other anti-war leaders, dubbed variously as the "Chicago 7" and Chicago 8, lead riots and demonstrations interrupting the nationally televised Democratic National Convention in 1968. In New Hampshire, on May 5, 1970, a police and national guard presence was everywhere either near, or on the campus, however mostly unseen. 

The New Hampshire event may have generated higher than normal tension among local law enforcement since the long-planned UNH event happened to land on the day following similar demonstrations in Ohio, where on the Kent State University campus, state national guard troops shot and killed 4 four, and wounded nine unarmed student demonstrators. The New Hampshire event, however, ended without incident.

In this video, New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who was president of his UNH senior class, and was himself in attendance at the rally, reminisce about these events and other memories with two state troopers operating on campus as plain cloths-men that day. They are retired NH State Police Majors Ernie Loomis and Dick Campbell. This video was conducted at the state archives building, Concord, New Hampshire, December 11, 2018.