To a war-weary nation he announced a new direction to the Vietnam "conflict." The United States would begin bombing missions into North Vietnamese sanctuaries along the Cambodian border.

Almost immediately, college campuses across the nation erupted in violent protest. ROTC buildings were firebombed, students stormed administrative buildings, and deadly confrontations ensued between students and police.

Five days after Nixon's speech, on May 4, the violence escalated into a bloody free-for-all at Kent State University. Panicked National Guardsmen sprayed a dispersing crowd with gunfire.

Four lay dead. Nine were wounded. The moment was immortalized by the silent screams of 14 year-old runaway, Mary Ann Vecchio.

We still remember.

- - -

It was a hot, muggy night in Jackson, Mississippi on May 14, 1970. The air was heavy with apprehension and expectation.

The night before, Jackson State students had clashed with police and motorists along the main campus thoroughfare appropriately named Lynch Street.

Jackson State students were angry in the spring of 1970 -- angry at continued racial injustices, angry at the mandatory draft, angry about the killings at Kent State and angry about black soldiers dying for a homeland where they were treated as third-class citizens.

But Jackson was no stranger to anger, killing and racism. Students had clashed frequently with police during the previous decade. And Jackson residents still remembered the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers.

As night fell on the 14th, the trouble began. Police and firemen responded to calls that a dump truck was ablaze in the middle of Lynch Street. After arriving on the scene, police fired shots into Stewart Hall, a men's dormitory. An officer had apparently spotted a sniper.

The burst of gunfire startled Lieutenant Warren Magee. He reported to headquarters that his men were being fired upon. He and his men, along with members of the State Highway Patrol, then headed up Lynch Street to disperse a large throng of students.

More than 200 black men milled in front of Alexander Hall, a women's dormitory. Many were there to say good-night to dates before their midnight curfew.

As the officers faced Alexander Hall, the epithets flew: "White pigs," "white sons-of-bitches."

Just as Magee turned to address the crowd with his bullhorn, a green bottle was hurled towards the officers. Many officers mistook the bottle's crash for gunfire. Officers began shooting. For twenty-eight uninterrupted seconds bullets fired from machine guns and buckshot fired from shotguns tore through the west wing of Alexander Hall. By the time the barrage ended, two men lay dead; ten were wounded. The pock-marked dorm was strewn with more than 200 bullet holes.

Lloyd "Goon" Jones was the first to radio headquarters following the melee. "We got some injured here . . . They're nigger students . . . They ain't hurt all that bad . . . There were two nigger gals . . . They're still some nigger males in the nigger female dormitory."

But we don't remember.

- - -

This past month we paused to remember the 25th anniversary of the Kent State shootings. Mary Ann Vecchio got interviewed. Phillip Gibbs and James Green, the two men murdered at Jackson State, remained anonymous.

We talked with admiration of the student protesters at Kent State. We didn't even know what happened at Jackson State.

At Kent State the protesters eventually won; the United States gradually withdrew American forces from Vietnam. At Jackson State, an all-white jury acquitted the officers of any misdeeds.

But why -- why have we wrapped a cultural cloak around Kent State while Jackson State remains nameless, faceless? Does race have anything to do with how and what we as a society choose to remember?

Maybe "Goon" Jones was right on that hot night of May 14. Maybe nobody got hurt all that bad.

Tim Spofford's book, Lynch Street, provided much of the historical detail for this column.