The way Tom Grace sees it, he is — above all else — an American historian. A fierce interest in sorting out how the past carries us to where we are started for him during his Lyncourt childhood, where he was raised by parents who both nurtured that passion, in different ways.
Yet Grace also understands, through searing first-hand witness, how history sometimes comes looking for you.
He was one of 13 Kent State students shot by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970. Four people died. Grace — now a Buffalo author and history professor — was among nine students who were wounded…