The story of the 1970 Jackson State College slayings following an unruly anti-war demonstration by black students is pieced together via interviews with students wounded in the gunfire and other eyewitnesses, as well as an examination of public records, court testimony, and newspaper accounts. The events are presented in the context of the history of Jackson, Mississippi, and of the student protests of the 1960s. For the second time in 10 days, law enforcement officials fired upon students on an American college campus. First there had been the killing of four white students by National Guardsmen at Kent State University. Though that event has been remembered as a violent coda to the 1960s, the subsequent killings (two dead and 12 wounded) by law enforcement officials on the black campus in Mississippi have been largely forgotten. However, in Jackson it created a crisis. The story of that town and school is told, noting that litigation in the Jackson State case dragged on for 12 years. Contains about 100 references. (SM)