Thomas, Charles A.

Charles A. Thomas was born on Aug. 8, 1942. After service in the U.S. Army, he receive a B.A. degree from Temple University in 1965. He received a master's degree in history from Duke University in 1966. Mr. Thomas was subsequently employed by the National Archives in Washington, D.C. from 1968-1980. Mr. Thomas became interested in Kent State in the early 1970s while working as a Specialist in the Audiovisual Archives Division of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where he was assigned the task of archiving the files of the Scranton Commission. In 1976, after analyzing motion pictures of the May 1970 events at Kent State, Thomas viewed a film that previously had been presented before the President's Commission on Campus Unrest during the summer of 1970. He raised questions as to whether the original version of the film had been tampered with, and he charged this openly in a Cleveland Plain Dealer article. During this time period, Thomas became involved in a major research project on the shootings. Thomas conducted research on the Kent State shootings for over twenty-five years and produced a number of book-length manuscripts on the topic (none has ever been published commercially). Additionally, Thomas wrote several novels, also unpublished. He died on Dec. 2, 2003, at the age of 61.

From the description of Papers, 1970-2003. (Kent State University). WorldCat record id: 40765570