𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗜𝗡𝗕𝗔𝗨𝗠, 𝗔𝗦 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗠𝗘𝗫𝗜𝗖𝗢, 𝗔𝗣𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗜𝗭𝗘𝗦 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗚𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗡𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧'𝗦 𝟭𝟵𝟲𝟴 𝗠𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗔𝗖𝗥𝗘 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗟𝗢𝗟𝗖𝗢 𝗦𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗘

1968. . . . by any measure or standard, one Hell of a year!

Students protested government policies all over the world; Egypt, Italy, Yugoslavia, the United States, Uruguay, France and Mexico.

Demonstrations in the U.S. advocating for civil rights, fighting racial segregation and the very unpopular war in Vietnam, were frequently met by police billy clubs and guns.

But, it was the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis that triggered wide scale "rioting" across U.S. cities Washington, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Kansas City, Detroit, New York City, Pittsburg, Cincinnati and others.

Mexico fared no better in that year.

Mexican students, particularly those studying at the National Autonomous University of Mexico(UNAM), were making considerable noise, exposing corruption and contradictions in their government and institutions.

Just 10 days before the Olympic Games of 1968 were scheduled to start in Mexico City, the Mexican army took action, opening fire on hundreds of students gathered in protest in Mexico's Tlatelolco Square, killing at least 300.

Today, October 2, 2024, marks the 56th anniversary of that massacre of students and also the first press conference of newly-installed Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum opened that press conference with an apology of sorts, saying that her own mother had been part of the protest of 1968.

"I have said before, I am a child of '68, she said, "something very painful."

Sheinbaum, as some have noted, is, at times, a woman of few words.