Primary Sources: A Film Analysis

1. Motives and Context: The primary source was an interview conducted by Henry Halem in 2000, who interviewed a former Kent State student named Rob Fox. Rob Fox witnessed the 1970 National Guard shootings at Kent State University in Ohio. He was a young student at the time who was really against the war in Vietnam and against Richard Nixon's proposal of sending troops into Cambodia. This source was intended for a general audience, who wants to analyze and hear first-hand accounts of what really occurred in Kent State. The interviewer who interviewed Rob Fox and the Kent State University wanted to document and record the experiences of the students and witnesses who experienced the Kent State shootings in the 1970s. Rob Fox shared his story as best as he could remember and he said, "When we tell our story, people listen to use. And people want to know what really happened there. So that's why I came in today. I have wanted to do this for a long time." He wanted to share his experience and have his voice recorded to tell the story of what went down in Kent in the spring of 1970. One specific feature of the source that provides evidence of the author's motives is when Fox discussed how the National Guards marched
Primary Source Connections: This interview account relates to another primary source, which is a documentary named How Vietnams was Lost. This documentary provided first-hand accounts of some of the college students from the University of Wisconsin in 1967 and their testimony of what was occurring at the university and what was happening in society. Students at the University of Wisconsin were also protesting against the Vietnam War, the draft of many young college men, and the fact that the U.S. soldiers were using chemical warfare against the Vietnamese. The protests at the University of Wisconsin were not as deadly as Kent state but still were similar in the sense that the college students wanted to protest against the U.S. involvement in the