Jack Drake, Ralph Knowles, and George Dean statement

On May 6, 1970, University of Alabama students set fire to an abandoned building on the UA campus, touching off nearly two weeks of unprecedented unrest at the Capstone. The protest against the deaths of four students killed in an anti-war rally at Kent State University led to the arrest of dozens of students by UA police, Tuscaloosa police and the Alabama National Guard.

Details of the chaos of that night, which included student occupation of two buildings on campus, slowly unraveled in court during the next year. Charlie Grimm, at the time a member of the Crimson Tide wrestling team, was alleged to be an FBI informant and an agent provocateur in the torching of Dressler Hall (the building had served as the ROTC headquarters on campus and was scheduled for demolition.)

At the time of the incidents at UA, the anti-war effort was nearing its peak, after the revelations that the United States had secretly made incursions from Vietnam into Cambodia without authorization from Congress.

Jerry Rubin, one of the Chicago Seven acquitted of conspiracy and incitement to riot charges at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, spoke at Foster Auditorium on the UA campus on May 3. His speech is remembered as a call to arms just one day before National Guard troops opened fire on student protesters at Kent State in Ohio, killing four of them.

Source: "'Days of Rage' Conference Revisits Unrest of May 1970" by Tommy Stevenson. Tuscaloosa News, Oct. 20, 2010 http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20101020/NEWS/101019519 (accessed 02/27/2013)