The caption reads 'the most dangerous moment in UK's history,' to which Mendes laughs. Now hanging on the wall in Mendes' home- studio are pictures from that turbulent era one, included in the book The University of Kentucky: A Pictorial History, shows Mendes in front of the administration building holding a bullhorn. Mendes said there were several thousand protestors in front of the administration building, and as a symbolic gesture, the cannon out front was turned to face the building and the cowering administrators inside.

Then later that day, we protested at Memorial Hall and stayed overnight.' 'We organized a protest in front of the administration building. 'So the Kernel, which we all worked for at the time, editorialized and called for demonstrations, and low and behold, several thousand people showed up,' continued Mendes. I think we learned from them and from the whole Movement that you can take to the streets, you can get people together in mass, and they can't ignore us. 'We were inspired by the Black Student Union-they were the first protestors. They weren't 'innocent until proven guilty.''īuilding on the success of the Civil Rights Movement and the local Black Student Union, students took action. Four students were busted for having pot in their lockers, and they were kicked out of school, right before the end of the semester-before they were tried and convicted of anything. The first year, it was about student rights-getting out from under in loco parentis, the university as your parent. 'The blue-tail fly was an outgrowth, in a way, of the campus protests of '69 and '70, that closed down campus both years, and cancelled finals. While Mendes, Holwerk, and Salmon, among others, were attending the University of Kentucky, they wrote for The Kentucky Kernel, which at the time, 'was an activist paper,' said Mendes. 'We wanted to change the world, save the world, in a time of war and racial strife.' 'We were crusading journalists,' said Mendes of his literary comrades.

The bluetail fly