1968 – Undercurrents of Tension Revealed
By Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 5, 2020.
The first sign that 1968 was not going to be a good year was when the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive on January 30th. People in Exeter heard about the campaign just as they heard about the death of Corporal Lawrence Bloom, an Exeter High School graduate and Green Beret. Bloom was killed in action four days before the Tet Offensive began. He was the second young man from Exeter to die in this most recent war. The United States had been involved in Vietnam since 1954 and popular tolerance was wearing thin.
The Exeter News-Letter, as a local paper, rarely ran articles about the big events. There were no headlines shouting the major events in 1968, or in any year of its 137-year history. The battle of Bull Run in 1861 only made the third page. When it came to local news - marriages, births, business openings, complaints about taxes, Boy and Girl Scouts, church dinners, fundraisers, graduations and military inductions - the Exeter News-Letter was the center of the universe. In 1968, there was always television and magazines to provide world news. Locally, the News-Letter was the place to find out what was happening on the ground at home.
The front page featured an editorial, with no byline, in the first column. In 1968, the editorials were primarily given to local issues – mostly those regarding taxation as the town had been rapidly growing since the end of World War II.
To uncover how people were feeling with larger issues, there was a section devoted to “Communications and Clippings” in modern parlance, the letters to the editor. Helen Wusteney Histen, of Epping, began her letter - dripping with sarcasm - “I am a female public high school teacher and as such should do what I’m told when I’m told, not make waves to upset the status quo or the powers that be because they’re so great and I should know it.” She follows this with a lengthy criticism of the war. She teaches boys “14-16 years old – so young and helpless and so darn cute and appealing.” “This war is the act of a perverted government of a depraved people willing to destroy everything and everybody for our own supersecurity.” Clearly, she was fed up with what was happening around her. “The injustices I ignore are the injustices I am party to.” The next letter printed was about zoning regulations.
April brought news of the shocking assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Long suppressed racial tension erupted in the grief and anger that followed. There was, of course, no rioting or looting in Exeter. There was only one Black-owned business at the time, Harold’s Place, a small diner on Water Street run by Harold Ward of Lee. The News-Letter described Martin Luther King as “the extremely articulate Negro leader” and decried the looting in major cities. He and “others in the Civil Rights movement have urged haste in cleaning up urban ghettos and extending increased economic opportunities for their inhabitants. This is all well and good. But how fast can social order be revamped after it has been sliding into decay for generations?” The Afro-Exonian Society of Phillips Exeter Academy held a memorial service at Phillips Church the following Sunday. “Many Academy students attended the community service at the Congregational Church.” There was no article written about the community service, just a photo. Helen Tufts noted in her diary that she attended. It was led by an ecumenical gathering of six local pastors.
Thelma Burt took issue with the tone of the editorial on King. She wrote, the following week, “There is a festering sickness at the core of this problem that guns and brute force will not solve. I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I feel we need to take a long hard look at cities that are working this out for new ways to deal with the problem. Our nation may whip down a portion of its population but this will not resolve the problem.” The editorial and letter-writing bickering continued for months. Dr. Sylvia Kennedy and Nora Tuthill advocated a letter-writing campaign. In early May, a group calling themselves “Concerned Citizens for Civil Rights” had formed and began canvassing the region with a petition directed to Congressman Louis Wyman and Senators Norris Cotton and Thomas McIntyre. The group urged support for enforcement of existing civil rights legislation and introduction of measures to ensure equal opportunity of all Americans. The petition was delivered, in late May, with 4,500 signatures. The following week, the nation was shocked again when Robert Kennedy was killed just after the California primary. “The villainous gunning to death of Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy less than five years after an assassin murdered his older brother can only be viewed as part of a massive conspiracy against this country,” wailed the front- page editorial. “Most Americans are so thoroughly angered by this latest act of violence that they will welcome legislation by Congress aimed at turning back the surging tide of crime.”
The news in August brought more accounts of riots and discord. The Democratic Convention, still mourning the loss of a front-running candidate and fractured by the war, failed to gain the support of most party voters. The Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, with a platform of law and order, seemed the better option for voters in November. Two weeks before the election, someone tossed a cigarette butt onto the canvas awning outside Harold’s Place. The fire department arrived and quickly put out the fire. I asked Harold Ward’s son, Michael, whether the family felt it was racially motivated. He said they weren’t sure and there was really no way to prove it either way. It was certainly done on purpose – people don’t throw cigarette buts into the air for no reason. He used an oft-quoted phrase from his mother, Virginia: “Not everybody that doesn’t like you is a racist – some of them are just assholes.” We’ll have to wait to see if 2020 turns out to be a reflection of 1968. In some ways, it does seem like 52 years hasn’t lessened the problems of racial discord in this country. There is still, obviously, a tremendous amount to be done. The only option not available to us is giving up.
Picture: From the Exeter News-Letter, May 30, 1968, “Students and faculty members of Phillips Exeter Academy and several Town of Exeter residents came to Washington last week to present a petition to U.S. Senator Tom McIntyre. Some 4,500 signatures on the petition urged McIntyre and other members of the congressional delegation to give strong support to civil rights legislation and fuller equality for Negroes in the United States. All signatures were from the Seacoast Area. Presenting the petition to the senator were Rev. Harry Ford; Joseph Smith and Gary Woods of PEA; Mrs William Beckett of Exeter; Academy student Hugh Miller, and PEA Instructor Charles Trout.”
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 5, 2020.
The first sign that 1968 was not going to be a good year was when the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive on January 30th. People in Exeter heard about the campaign just as they heard about the death of Corporal Lawrence Bloom, an Exeter High School graduate and Green Beret. Bloom was killed in action four days before the Tet Offensive began. He was the second young man from Exeter to die in this most recent war. The United States had been involved in Vietnam since 1954 and popular tolerance was wearing thin.
The front page featured an editorial, with no byline, in the first column. In 1968, the editorials were primarily given to local issues – mostly those regarding taxation as the town had been rapidly growing since the end of World War II.
To uncover how people were feeling with larger issues, there was a section devoted to “Communications and Clippings” in modern parlance, the letters to the editor. Helen Wusteney Histen, of Epping, began her letter - dripping with sarcasm - “I am a female public high school teacher and as such should do what I’m told when I’m told, not make waves to upset the status quo or the powers that be because they’re so great and I should know it.” She follows this with a lengthy criticism of the war. She teaches boys “14-16 years old – so young and helpless and so darn cute and appealing.” “This war is the act of a perverted government of a depraved people willing to destroy everything and everybody for our own supersecurity.” Clearly, she was fed up with what was happening around her. “The injustices I ignore are the injustices I am party to.” The next letter printed was about zoning regulations.
April brought news of the shocking assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Long suppressed racial tension erupted in the grief and anger that followed. There was, of course, no rioting or looting in Exeter. There was only one Black-owned business at the time, Harold’s Place, a small diner on Water Street run by Harold Ward of Lee. The News-Letter described Martin Luther King as “the extremely articulate Negro leader” and decried the looting in major cities. He and “others in the Civil Rights movement have urged haste in cleaning up urban ghettos and extending increased economic opportunities for their inhabitants. This is all well and good. But how fast can social order be revamped after it has been sliding into decay for generations?” The Afro-Exonian Society of Phillips Exeter Academy held a memorial service at Phillips Church the following Sunday. “Many Academy students attended the community service at the Congregational Church.” There was no article written about the community service, just a photo. Helen Tufts noted in her diary that she attended. It was led by an ecumenical gathering of six local pastors.
Thelma Burt took issue with the tone of the editorial on King. She wrote, the following week, “There is a festering sickness at the core of this problem that guns and brute force will not solve. I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I feel we need to take a long hard look at cities that are working this out for new ways to deal with the problem. Our nation may whip down a portion of its population but this will not resolve the problem.” The editorial and letter-writing bickering continued for months. Dr. Sylvia Kennedy and Nora Tuthill advocated a letter-writing campaign. In early May, a group calling themselves “Concerned Citizens for Civil Rights” had formed and began canvassing the region with a petition directed to Congressman Louis Wyman and Senators Norris Cotton and Thomas McIntyre. The group urged support for enforcement of existing civil rights legislation and introduction of measures to ensure equal opportunity of all Americans. The petition was delivered, in late May, with 4,500 signatures. The following week, the nation was shocked again when Robert Kennedy was killed just after the California primary. “The villainous gunning to death of Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy less than five years after an assassin murdered his older brother can only be viewed as part of a massive conspiracy against this country,” wailed the front- page editorial. “Most Americans are so thoroughly angered by this latest act of violence that they will welcome legislation by Congress aimed at turning back the surging tide of crime.”
The news in August brought more accounts of riots and discord. The Democratic Convention, still mourning the loss of a front-running candidate and fractured by the war, failed to gain the support of most party voters. The Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, with a platform of law and order, seemed the better option for voters in November. Two weeks before the election, someone tossed a cigarette butt onto the canvas awning outside Harold’s Place. The fire department arrived and quickly put out the fire. I asked Harold Ward’s son, Michael, whether the family felt it was racially motivated. He said they weren’t sure and there was really no way to prove it either way. It was certainly done on purpose – people don’t throw cigarette buts into the air for no reason. He used an oft-quoted phrase from his mother, Virginia: “Not everybody that doesn’t like you is a racist – some of them are just assholes.” We’ll have to wait to see if 2020 turns out to be a reflection of 1968. In some ways, it does seem like 52 years hasn’t lessened the problems of racial discord in this country. There is still, obviously, a tremendous amount to be done. The only option not available to us is giving up.
Picture: From the Exeter News-Letter, May 30, 1968, “Students and faculty members of Phillips Exeter Academy and several Town of Exeter residents came to Washington last week to present a petition to U.S. Senator Tom McIntyre. Some 4,500 signatures on the petition urged McIntyre and other members of the congressional delegation to give strong support to civil rights legislation and fuller equality for Negroes in the United States. All signatures were from the Seacoast Area. Presenting the petition to the senator were Rev. Harry Ford; Joseph Smith and Gary Woods of PEA; Mrs William Beckett of Exeter; Academy student Hugh Miller, and PEA Instructor Charles Trout.”
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