This book recounts the death of two young African Americans, Phillip Gibbs and James Earl Green and the wounding of twelve others when white police and highway patrolmen opened fire on students in front of a dormitory at Jackson State College, a historically black college (HBCU) in May 1970. It situates this story in the broader events of the civil rights and black power eras, emphasizing the role white supremacy played in causing police violence and shaping the aftermath. A state school controlled by an all-white Board of Trustees, Jackson State had a reputation as a conservative campus where students faced expulsion for activism. By 1970, students were pushing back, responding to the evolving movement for African American freedom. Law enforcement attacked this changing campus, reflecting both traditional patterns of repression and the new logic and racially coded rhetoric of “law and order.” After, the victims and their survivors struggled unsuccessfully to find justice or a place in the nation’s public memory. Despite multiple investigations, two grand juries, and a civil suit, no officers were charged, no restitution was paid, and no apologies were offered. Overshadowed by the shooting of white students at Kent State University ten days earlier, the violence was routinely misunderstood as similar in cause, a story that evaded the essential role of race in causing it. Few besides the local African American community proved willing to remember. This book provides crucial context for situating the ongoing crisis of state violence against people of color in its long history.