Letter to the alumni Author:john hersey John Hersey has written this urgent letter to those no longer in college in an attempt to help us rediscover our sons and daughters-and ourselves-before it is too late to matter. — Using as a loose framework, the events leading up to and including Yale's historic Mayday weekend in the spring of 1970, when to everyone's surprise the university was... more » not burned down, he reflects on the ugly polarizations that have lately been taking place in the country; he illuminates the pervasive yet ill-understood thrust into white lives of the black awakening; and he speculates on the future of American universities. But above all, John Hersey's Letter to the Alumni offers-with affection, understanding, humor, concern, and distress-the insights of a novelist who has lived in intimate contact with young people for five years, insights into their complex wants and ways.
His letter suggests that if this country, white and black, does rediscover its youth, white and black, and its youth rediscovers its own best self, there is a chance of a good future for us all; but that if neither rediscovery takes place, we can expect only reaction, violence, and the death of such liberty as we now have.« less