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Lawrence, 1970 : a narrative and oral histories surrounding three crises
Weeks, Marian J.
Weeks, Marian J.
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Abstract
The project focuses upon the era of turmoil and protest in
Lawrence in 1970. The narrative article and appendix of oral
histories provide background and accounts of three crises: the
University of Kansas Student Union fire on April 20, 1970, and the
three-day curfew; the shooting death by a policeman of Rick "Tiger"
Dowdell; and the shooting death of Harry "Nick" Rice during a
disturbance at which police weapons were fired. During the April and
July crisis periods, vigilantes, students, white protesters, blacks
and police readied their guns. The city's response was the Police-
Community Relations Program, a conflict resolution/ sensitivity
training program. This master's project includes the perspectives of
many factions identified in the conflict.
This narrative article draws from the six oral histories in the
appendix, additional interviews, newspaper articles, a Dowdell
inquest transcript and other written materials. The weaknesses in the
oral history/cultural journalism method have hopefully been corrected
in this project through the narrative, the editing, the comparison of
sources, the selection of materials, the notes included in the oral
histories and the balance of materials taken together. The oral
histories provide personal accounts, anecdotal experience and current
perspective on those experiences in the sources' own language. This
project only begins to fill the gap of material published on Lawrence
in 1970, and upon the deaths of the two former KU students and the
Union fire.
Description
Thesis (M.S.)--University of Kansas, Journalism and Mass Communication, 1990.
Date
1990
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University of Kansas