The view from the Idea Center

Jane Fonda is coming to Kent State University in May.

That news beats the Rolling Stones’ recent announcement of a tour stop in Cleveland this June by a few degrees.

The 82-year-old actress and activist ( she protests weekly against climate change) will speak at Kent State as part of the events commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the Ohio National Guard shooting that killed 4 students and injured 9 others on campus during anti-war protests on May 4, 1970.

Fonda was a highly-visible anti-war activist in the early 1970s. She earned the nickname “Hanoi Jane” after visiting North Vietnam. A photo of her, sitting on an antiaircraft gun surrounded by North Vietnamese troops, enraged some Americans and forever altered her public image.

Fonda has said she will regret that photo to her “dying day.”

But some veterans still resent her. About 50 vets demonstrated against Fonda’s appearance in Maryland in 2015, carrying American flags and signs reading “Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never.”

Her appearance at Kent State on May 3 will likely stir similar protests on such a high-profile anniversary year. It was a gutsy move on the part of the university’s commemoration advisory committee to make her the event’s featured speaker.

“We were committed to finding meaningful ways to recognize the significance of student protest in 1970 and its direct relation to the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia,” said Chic Canfora, a survivor of the shooting and commemoration committee member. “While our personal experiences and points of view varied, we shared a common belief in the vital role of dissent in a democracy and the university’s responsibility to promote and protect freedom of speech.”

See you bright and early tomorrow morning on the radio,
Amy Eddings

Need to KnOH

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