Fifty-four years ago this week, on May 8, 1970, 4,500 students from nearly a dozen colleges and universities marched on Capitol Square in Raleigh to protest the Vietnam War.

Four days earlier, National Guardsmen had shot and killed four students and injured nine more in protests at Kent State University in Ohio.

Our march, which started at the N.C. State University bell tower and went down Hillsborough Street, was peaceful. We raised fists and chanted antiwar slogans, but there were no arrests or violence – no doubt because I was a volunteer marshal.

Campus protests had erupted around the country after President Richard Nixon expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Every night, the war and the protests dominated the TV news.

Nixon had been elected President in 1968 because the Democratic Party tore itself apart over Vietnam.

Outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that August, antiwar protesters were clubbed, bloodied and tear-gassed by Mayor Richard Daley’s police and the Illinois National Guard (photo). A national commission later called it a “police riot.”

The violence on the streets dominated news coverage of the convention and overshadowed the nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey for President.

In November, many young people refused to vote for Humphrey, as a protest against President Lyndon Johnson and the war.

Humphrey lost to Nixon – narrowly.

The election gave us Nixon and the most criminal presidency in history – until Donald Trump.

Will this year’s protests over the war in Gaza give us Trump again?

If he wins, here’s what Trump and his advisers told Time he’ll do:

• Deport more than 11 million people and erect detention camps.
• Let states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans.
• Fire U.S. Attorneys who don’t carry out his order to prosecute someone.
• Gut the civil service and install Trump acolytes.
• Close the White House pandemic-preparedness office.
• Pardon January 6 insurrectionists.
• Deny aid to allies he doesn’t like if they’re attacked.

Time said “Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.”

This time, he’d be a dictator and sweep aside Congress, the courts and the Constitution.

This year, like in 1968, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago.

This year, I hope this generation doesn’t make the mistake my generation made.

Or we’ll all have a lot to protest the next four years.