New York Times from February 20, 1991:
AMHERST, Mass., Feb. 19 — The vigil began here barely an hour after a man carrying a cardboard peace sign strode to the center of the town common on Monday afternoon, doused himself with paint thinner and perished in a plume of fire seconds after striking a match.
All day and all night in a snow that turned to freezing drizzle, people laid flowers, fruit and candles where the man died, and hundreds of students and townspeople turned out for a memorial service on the common this afternoon, even before the police had released the victim's name.
The public self-immolation of 30-year-old Gregory D. Levey, the third American known to have burned himself to death in apparent protest of United States policy in the Persian Gulf, would probably produce pity and bewilderment anywhere else. But here in a university town that has been a focal point for antiwar activities and other protests, it generated instant martyrdom. [more]
