Opposition To United States Involvement In The Vietnam War
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Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating
role of the United States in the Vietnam War A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indivi ...
and grew into a broad
social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...
over the ensuing several years. This movement informed and helped shape the vigorous and polarizing debate, primarily in the United States, during the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s on how to end the war. Many in the
peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...
within the United States were children, mothers, or
anti-establishment An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine ''New Statesman'' ...
youth. Opposition grew with participation by the African-American civil rights, second-wave feminist movements,
Chicano Movement The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States inspired by prior acts of resistance among people of Mexican descent, especially of Pachucos in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Black ...
s, and sectors of organized labor. Additional involvement came from many other groups, including educators, clergy, academics, journalists, lawyers, physicians such as
Benjamin Spock Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist whose book '' Baby and Child Care'' (1946) is one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copie ...
, and military
veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in a military. A military veteran that has ...
s. Their actions consisted mainly of peaceful,
nonviolent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
events; few events were deliberately provocative and violent. In some cases, police used violent tactics against peaceful demonstrators. By 1967, according to
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s, an increasing majority of Americans considered military involvement in Vietnam to be a mistake, echoed decades later by the then-head of American war planning, former Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the Lis ...
.


Background


Causes of opposition

The draft, a system of
conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
that mainly drew from minorities and lower and middle class whites, drove much of the protest after 1965.
Conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
s played an active role despite their small numbers. The prevailing sentiment that the draft was unfairly administered fueled student and
blue-collar A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...
American opposition to the military draft. Opposition to the war arose during a time of unprecedented
student activism Student activism or campus activism is work by students to cause political, environmental, economic, or social change. Although often focused on schools, curriculum, and educational funding, student groups have influenced greater political e ...
, which followed the
free speech movement The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of B ...
and the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
. The military draft mobilized the
baby boomers Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. Th ...
, who were most at risk, but it grew to include a varied cross-section of Americans. The growing opposition to the Vietnam War was partly attributed to greater access to uncensored information through extensive television coverage on the ground in Vietnam. Beyond opposition to the draft, anti-war protesters also made moral arguments against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In May 1954, preceding the later Quaker protests but "just after the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, the Service Committee bought a page in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' to protest what seemed to be the tendency of the USA to step into Indo-China as France stepped out. We expressed our fear that in so doing, America would back into a war." The moral imperative argument against the war was especially popular among American college students, who were more likely than the general public to accuse the United States of having imperialistic goals in Vietnam and to criticize the war as "immoral." Civilian deaths, which were downplayed or omitted entirely by the Western media, became a subject of protest when photographic evidence of casualties emerged. An infamous photo of General
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan Major General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (; 11 December 193014 July 1998) was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police. Loan gained international attention when he summarily executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn ...
shooting an alleged terrorist in handcuffs during the
Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...
also provoked public outcry.Guttmann, Allen. 1969. Protest against the War in Vietnam. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 382. pp. 56–63, Another element of the American opposition to the war was the perception that U.S. intervention in Vietnam, which had been argued as acceptable because of the
domino theory The domino theory is a geopolitical theory which posits that increases or decreases in democracy in one country tend to spread to neighboring countries in a domino effect. It was prominent in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s in the ...
and the threat of
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, was not legally justifiable. Some Americans believed that the communist threat was used as a scapegoat to hide imperialistic intentions, and others argued that the American intervention in South Vietnam interfered with the
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of the country and felt that the war in Vietnam was a civil war that ought to have determined the fate of the country and that America was wrong to intervene. Media coverage of the war also shook the faith of citizens at home as new television brought images of wartime conflict to viewers at home. Newsmen like NBC's Frank McGee stated that the war was all but lost as a "conclusion to be drawn inescapably from the facts." For the first time in American history, the media had the means to broadcast battlefield images. Graphic footage of casualties on the nightly news eliminated any myth of the glory of war. With no clear sign of victory in Vietnam, American military casualties helped stimulate opposition to the war by Americans. In their book ''
Manufacturing Consent ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. It argues that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a ...
'',
Edward S. Herman Edward Samuel Herman (April 7, 1925 – November 11, 2017) was an American economist, media scholar and social critic. Herman is known for his media criticism, in particular the propaganda model hypothesis he developed with Noam Chomsky, a fr ...
and
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
reject the mainstream view of how the media influenced the war and propose that the media instead censored the more brutal images of the fighting and the death of millions of innocent people.


Polarization

The U.S. became polarized over the war. Many supporters of U.S. involvement argued for what was known as the
domino theory The domino theory is a geopolitical theory which posits that increases or decreases in democracy in one country tend to spread to neighboring countries in a domino effect. It was prominent in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s in the ...
, a theory that believed if one country fell to communism, then the bordering countries would be sure to fall as well, much like falling dominoes. This theory was largely held due to the fall of eastern Europe to communism and the Soviet sphere of influence following World War II. However, military critics of the war pointed out that the Vietnam War was political and that the military mission lacked any clear idea of how to achieve its objectives. Civilian critics of the war argued that the government of South Vietnam lacked political legitimacy, or that support for the war was completely immoral. The media also played a substantial role in the polarization of American opinion regarding the Vietnam War. For example, in 1965 a majority of the media attention focused on military tactics with very little discussion about the necessity for a full scale intervention in Southeast Asia.Herman, Edward S. & Chomsky, Noam. (2002) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books. After 1965, the media covered the dissent and domestic controversy that existed within the United States, but mostly excluded the actual view of dissidents and resisters. The media established a sphere of public discourse surrounding the Hawk versus Dove debate. The Dove was a liberal and a critic of the war. Doves claimed that the war was well–intentioned but a disastrously wrong mistake in an otherwise benign foreign policy. It is important to note the Doves did not question the U.S. intentions in intervening in Vietnam, nor did they question the morality or legality of the U.S. intervention. Rather, they made pragmatic claims that the war was a mistake. Contrarily, the Hawks argued that the war was legitimate and winnable and a part of the benign U.S. foreign policy. The Hawks claimed that the one-sided criticism of the media contributed to the decline of public support for the war and ultimately helped the U.S. lose the war. Author William F. Buckley repeatedly wrote about his approval for the war and suggested that "The United States has been timid, if not cowardly, in refusing to seek 'victory' in Vietnam." The hawks claimed that the liberal media was responsible for the growing popular disenchantment with the war and blamed the western media for losing the war in Southeast Asia as communism was no longer a threat for them.


History


Early protests

Early organized opposition was led by American
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
s in the 1950s, and by November 1960 eleven hundred Quakers undertook a silent protest vigil -- the group "ringed the Pentagon for parts of two days". Protests bringing attention to "
the draft Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
" began on May 5, 1965. Student activists at the University of California, Berkeley marched on the Berkeley
Draft board {{further, Conscription in the United StatesDraft boards are a part of the Selective Service System which register and select men of military age in the event of conscription in the United States. Local board The local draft board is a board th ...
and forty students staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States. Another nineteen cards were burnt on May 22 at a demonstration following the Berkeley
teach-in A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific time fr ...
. Draft card protests were not aimed so much at the draft as at the immoral conduct of the war. At that time, only a fraction of all men of draft age were actually
conscripted Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
, but the
Selective Service System The Selective Service System (SSS) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States government that maintains information on U.S. Citizenship of the Unite ...
office ("Draft Board") in each locality had broad discretion on whom to draft and whom to exempt where there was no clear guideline for exemption. In late July 1965, Johnson doubled the number of young men to be drafted per month from 17,000 to 35,000, and on August 31, signed a law making it a crime to burn a draft card. On October 15, 1965, the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam in New York staged the first draft card burning to result in an arrest under the new law. Gruesome images of two anti-war activists who set themselves on fire in November 1965 provided iconic images of how strongly some people felt that the war was immoral. On November 2, 32-year-old
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
Norman Morrison Norman R. Morrison (December 29, 1933 – November 2, 1965) was an American anti-war activist best known for his act of self-immolation at age 31 to protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War. On November 2, 1965, Morrison doused himse ...
set himself on fire in front of
The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
. On November 9, 22-year-old
Catholic Worker Movement The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the United States in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus ...
member Roger Allen LaPorte did the same in front of
United Nations Headquarters The United Nations is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States, and the complex has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1951. It is in the Turtle Bay, Manhattan, Turtle Bay neig ...
in New York City. Both protests were conscious imitations of earlier (and ongoing) Buddhist protests in South Vietnam.


Government reactions

The growing anti-war movement alarmed many in the U.S. government. On August 16, 1966, the
House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
(HUAC) began investigations of Americans who were suspected of aiding the NLF, with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupted the meeting and 50 were arrested.


Shifting opinion

In February 1967, ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'' published " The Responsibility of Intellectuals", an essay by
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
, one of the leading intellectual opponents of the war. In the essay Chomsky argued that much responsibility for the war lay with liberal intellectuals and technical experts who were providing what he saw as
pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
justification for the policies of the U.S. government. The Time Inc magazines ''Time'' and ''Life'' maintained a very pro-war editorial stance until October 1967, when in a ''volte-face'', the editor-in-chief,
Hedley Donovan Hedley Donovan (May 24, 1914 – August 13, 1990) was editor in chief of Time Inc. from 1964 to 1979. In this capacity, he oversaw all of the company's magazine publications, including ''Time'', ''Life'', ''Fortune'', ''Sports Illustrated'', ''Mo ...
, came out against the war. Donovan wrote in an editorial in ''Life'' that the United States had gone into Vietnam for "honorable and sensible purposes", but the war had turned out to be "harder, longer, more complicated" than expected.Karnow, Stanley ''Vietnam'' p. 489. Donovan ended his editorial by writing the war was "not worth winning", as South Vietnam was "not absolutely imperative" to maintain American interests in Asia, which made it impossible "to ask young Americans to die for".


Draft protests

In 1967, the continued operation of a seemingly unfair draft system then calling as many as 40,000 men for induction each month fueled a burgeoning draft resistance movement. The draft favored white, middle-class men, which allowed an economically and racially discriminating draft to force young African American men to serve in rates that were disproportionately higher than the general population. Although in 1967 there was a smaller field of draft-eligible black men, 29 percent, versus 63 percent of white men, 64 percent of eligible black men were chosen to serve in the war through conscription, compared to only 31 percent of eligible white men. On October 16, 1967, draft card turn-ins were held across the country, yielding more than 1,000 draft cards, later returned to the
Justice Department A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
as an act of
civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...
. Resisters expected to be prosecuted immediately, but
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Ramsey Clark William Ramsey Clark (December 18, 1927 – April 9, 2021) was an American lawyer, activist, and federal government official. A progressive, New Frontier liberal, he occupied senior positions in the United States Department of Justice under Presi ...
instead prosecuted a group of ringleaders including Dr.
Benjamin Spock Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist whose book '' Baby and Child Care'' (1946) is one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copie ...
and Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr. in Boston in 1968. By the late 1960s, one quarter of all court cases dealt with the draft, including men accused of draft-dodging and men petitioning for the status of
conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
. Over 210,000 men were accused of draft-related offenses, 25,000 of whom were indicted. The charges of unfairness led to the institution of a draft lottery for the year 1970 in which a young man's birthday determined his relative risk of being drafted (September 14 was the birthday at the top of the draft list for 1970; the following year July 9 held this distinction). However, popular anti-war speculation that most American soldiers, as well as most of American soldiers killed, during the Vietnam War were draftees was discredited in later years, as the large majority of these soldiers were in fact confirmed to be volunteers.


Developments in the war

On February 1, 1968,
Nguyễn Văn Lém Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元)is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...
, a
Vietcong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...
officer suspected of participating in murder of South Vietnamese government officials during the
Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...
, was
summarily executed A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
by General
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan Major General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (; 11 December 193014 July 1998) was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police. Loan gained international attention when he summarily executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn ...
, the South Vietnamese National Police Chief. Loan shot Lém in the head on a public street in
Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...
, despite being in front of journalists. South Vietnamese reports provided as justification after the fact claimed that Lém was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Loan's deputy and close friend. The execution provided an iconic image that helped sway public opinion in the United States against the war. The events of Tet in early 1968 as a whole were also remarkable in shifting public opinion regarding the war. U.S. military officials had previously reported that counter-insurgency in South Vietnam was being prosecuted successfully. While the Tet Offensive provided the U.S. and allied militaries with a great victory in that the Vietcong was finally brought into open battle and destroyed as a fighting force, the American media, including respected figures such as
Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...
, interpreted such events as the attack on the American embassy in Saigon as an indicator of U.S. military weakness. The military victories on the battlefields of Tet were obscured by shocking images of violence on television screens, long casualty lists, and a new perception among the American people that the military had been untruthful to them about the success of earlier military operations, and ultimately, the ability to achieve a meaningful military solution in Vietnam.


1968 presidential election

In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson began his re-election campaign.
Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...
ran against him for the nomination on an anti-war platform. McCarthy did not win the first primary election in
New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, but he did surprisingly well against an incumbent. The resulting blow to the Johnson campaign, taken together with other factors, led the President to make a surprise announcement in a March 31 televised speech that he was pulling out of the race. He also announced the initiation of the Paris Peace Negotiations with Vietnam in that speech. Then, on August 4, 1969, U.S. representative
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
and North Vietnamese representative
Xuan Thuy Xuan () may refer to: * Xuancheng, formerly Xuan Prefecture (Xuanzhou), Anhui, China ** Xuanzhou District, seat of Xuancheng and Xuan Prefecture ** Xuan paper, from Xuan Prefecture * Xuan (surname), Chinese surname * Xuan (given name) Chinese r ...
began secret peace negotiations at the apartment of French intermediary
Jean Sainteny Jean Sainteny or Jean Roger (29 May 1907, in Vésinet – 25 February 1978) was a French politician who was sent to Vietnam after the end of the Second World War in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and to attempt to re-annex V ...
in Paris. After breaking with Johnson's pro-war stance,
Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...
entered the race on March 16 and ran for the nomination on an anti-war platform. Johnson's vice president,
Hubert Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Mi ...
, also ran for the nomination, promising to continue to support the South Vietnamese government.


Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam

In May 1969, ''Life'' magazine published in a single issue photographs of the faces of the roughly 250 or so American servicemen who had been killed in Vietnam during a "routine week" of war in the spring of 1969. Contrary to expectations, the issue sold out with many being haunted by the photographs of the ordinary young Americans killed. On October 15, 1969, hundreds of thousands of people took part in National Moratorium anti-war demonstrations across the United States; the demonstrations prompted many workers to call in sick from their jobs and adolescents nationwide engaged in
truancy Truancy is any intentional, unjustified, unauthorised, or illegal absence from compulsory education. It is a deliberate absence by a student's own free will (though sometimes adults or parents will allow and/or ignore it) and usually does not refe ...
from school. About 15 million Americans took part in the demonstration of October 15, making it the largest protests in a single day up to that point. A second round of "Moratorium" demonstrations was held on November 15 and attracted more people than the first.


Hearts and Minds campaign

The U.S. realized that the South Vietnamese government needed a solid base of popular support if it were to survive the insurgency. To pursue this goal of winning the " Hearts and Minds" of the Vietnamese people, units of the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
, referred to as " Civil Affairs" units, were used extensively for the first time since World War II. Civil Affairs units, while remaining armed and under direct military control, engaged in what came to be known as "
nation-building Nation-building is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation-building aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. According to ...
": constructing (or reconstructing) schools, public buildings, roads and other
infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...
; conducting medical programs for civilians who had no access to medical facilities; facilitating cooperation among local civilian leaders; conducting hygiene and other training for civilians; and similar activities. This policy of attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people, however, often was at odds with other aspects of the war which sometimes served to antagonize many Vietnamese civilians and provided ammunition to the anti-war movement. These included the emphasis on "
body count A body count is the total number of people killed in a particular event. In combat, a body count is often based on the number of confirmed kills, but occasionally only an estimate. Often used in reference to military combat, the term can also r ...
" as a way of measuring military success on the battlefield, civilian casualties during the bombing of villages (symbolized by journalist
Peter Arnett Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietn ...
's famous quote, "it was necessary to destroy the village to save it"), and the killing of civilians in such incidents as the
My Lai massacre My or MY may refer to: Arts and entertainment * My (radio station), a Malaysian radio station * Little My, a fictional character in the Moomins universe * ''My'' (album), by Edyta Górniak * ''My'' (EP), by Cho Mi-yeon Business * Market ...
. In 1974 the documentary ''Hearts and Minds'' sought to portray the devastation the war was causing to the South Vietnamese people, and won an
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
for best documentary amid considerable controversy. The South Vietnamese government also antagonized many of its citizens with its suppression of political opposition, through such measures as holding large numbers of political prisoners, torturing political opponents, and holding a one-man election for President in 1971. Covert counter-terror programs and semi-covert ones such as the
Phoenix Program The Phoenix Program ( vi, Chiến dịch Phụng Hoàng) was designed and initially coordinated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, involving the American, Australian, and South Vietnamese militaries ...
attempted, with the help of anthropologists, to isolate rural South Vietnamese villages and affect the loyalty of the residents.


Increasing polarization

Despite the increasingly depressing news of the war, many Americans continued to support President Johnson's endeavors. Aside from the domino theory mentioned above, there was a feeling that the goal of preventing a communist takeover of a pro-Western government in South Vietnam was a noble objective. Many Americans were also concerned about saving face in the event of disengaging from the war or, as President Richard M. Nixon later put it, "achieving Peace with Honor." In addition, instances of Viet Cong atrocities were widely reported, most notably in an article that appeared in ''
Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
'' in 1968 entitled ''The Blood-Red Hands of Ho Chi Minh''. However, anti-war feelings also began to rise. Many Americans opposed the war on moral grounds, appalled by the devastation and violence of the war. Others claimed the conflict was a war against Vietnamese independence, or an intervention in a foreign
civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
; others opposed it because they felt it lacked clear objectives and appeared to be unwinnable. Many anti-war activists were themselves
Vietnam veteran A Vietnam veteran is a person who served in the armed forces of participating countries during the Vietnam War. The term has been used to describe veterans who served in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and oth ...
s, as evidenced by the organization
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) is an American tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation founded in 1967 to oppose the United States policy and participation in the Vietnam War. VVAW says it is a national veterans' organization ...
.


Later protests

In April 1971, thousands of these veterans converged on the White House in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of them threw their
medal A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...
s and
decorations Decoration may refer to: * Decorative arts * A house painter and decorator's craft * An act or object intended to increase the beauty of a person, room, etc. * An award that is a token of recognition to the recipient intended for wearing Other ...
on the steps of the
United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill ...
. By this time, it had also become commonplace for the most radical anti-war demonstrators to prominently display the flag of the Viet Cong "enemy", an act which alienated many who were otherwise morally opposed to the war.


Characteristics

As the Vietnam War continued to escalate, public disenchantment grew and a variety of different groups were formed or became involved in the movement.


African Americans

African-American leaders of earlier decades like W. E. B. Du Bois were often
anti-imperialist Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is a term used in a variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity (usually in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic so ...
and anti-capitalist.
Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...
weighed in on the Vietnamese struggle in 1954, calling
Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime ...
"the modern day Toussaint L'Overture, leading his people to freedom." These figures were driven from public life by McCarthyism, however, and black leaders were more cautious about criticizing US foreign policy as the 1960s began. By the middle of the decade, open condemnation of the war became more common, with figures like
Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
and
Bob Moses Robert Moses (1888–1981) was an American city planner. Robert Moses may also refer to: * Bob Moses (activist) (1935–2021), American educator and civil rights activist * Bob Moses, American football player in the 1962 Cotton Bowl Classic * Bob M ...
speaking out. Champion boxer
Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...
risked his career and a prison sentence to resist the draft in 1966. Soon
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
,
Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was married to Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she w ...
and
James Bevel James Luther Bevel (October 19, 1936 – December 19, 2008) was a minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then as its Director of Direct ...
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) became prominent opponents of the Vietnam War, and Bevel became the director of the
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which became the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a coalition of American antiwar activists formed in November 1966 to organize large demonstrations in o ...
. The
Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
vehemently opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In the beginning of the war, some African Americans did not want to join the war opposition movement because of loyalty to President Johnson for pushing Civil Rights legislation, but soon the escalating violence of the war and the perceived social injustice of the draft propelled involvement in antiwar groups. In March 1965, King first criticized the war during the
Selma march The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...
when he told a journalist that "millions of dollars can be spent every day to hold troops in South Vietnam and our country cannot protect the rights of Negroes in Selma". In 1965, the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
(SNCC) became the first major civil rights group to issue a formal statement against the war. When SNCC-backed Georgia Representative
Julian Bond Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the e ...
acknowledged his agreement with the anti-war statement, he was refused his seat by the State of Georgia, an injustice which he successfully appealed up to the Supreme Court. SNCC had special significance as a nexus between the student movement and the black movement. At an SDS-organized conference at
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
in October 1966, SNCC Chair
Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the Unite ...
challenged the white left to escalate their resistance to the military draft in a manner similar to the black movement. Some participants in ghetto rebellions of the era had already associated their actions with opposition to the Vietnam War, and SNCC first disrupted an Atlanta draft board in August 1966. According to historians Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, SDS's first Stop the Draft Week of October 1967 was "inspired by Black Power ndemboldened by the ghetto rebellions." SNCC appear to have originated the popular anti-draft slogan: "Hell no! We won't go!" On April 4, 1967, King gave a much publicized speech entitled " Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" at the Riverside Church in New York, attacking President Johnson for "deadly Western arrogance", declaring that "we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor". King's speech attracted much controversy at the time with many feeling that it was ungrateful for him to attack the president who done the most for civil rights for African Americans since Abraham Lincoln had abolished slavery a century before. Liberal newspapers such as the ''Washington Post'' and the ''New York Times'' condemned King for his "Beyond Vietnam" speech while the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People disallowed him. The "Beyond Vietnam" speech involved King in a debate with the diplomat
Ralph Bunche Ralph Johnson Bunche (; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize f ...
who argued that it was folly to associate the civil rights movement with the anti-Vietnam war movement, maintaining that this would set back civil rights for African Americans. This speech also showed how bold King could be when he condemned U.S. "aggression" in Vietnam; and this is considered a milestone in King's critiques against imperialism and militarism. King, during the year of 1966, spoke out that it was hypocritical for Black Americans to be fighting the war in Vietnam, since they were being treated as second-class citizens back home. One of his arguments was that many white middle-class men avoided the draft by college deferments, but his greatest defense was that the arms race and the Vietnam War were taking much needed resources away from the civil rights movement and the War on Poverty. To combat these issues, King selected a strategy of rallying the poor working-class in hopes that the Federal Government would redirect resources toward fighting the War on Poverty. King used the statistic that for the 1967 war budget, the U.S. government underestimated the cost by $10 billion, which was five times the poverty budget. Black antiwar groups opposed the war for similar reasons as white groups, but often protested in separate events and sometimes did not cooperate with the ideas of white antiwar leadership. They harshly criticized the draft because poor and minority men were usually most affected by conscription. In 1965 and 1966, African Americans accounted for 25 percent of combat deaths, more than twice their proportion of the population. As a result, black enlisted men themselves protested and began the resistance movement among veterans. After taking measures to reduce the fatalities, apparently in response to widespread protest, the military brought the proportion of blacks down to 12.6 percent of casualties. African Americans involved in the antiwar movement often formed their own groups, such as Black Women Enraged, National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union, and National Black Draft Counselors. Some of the differences were how Black Americans rallied behind the banner of "Self-determination for Black America and Vietnam", while whites marched under banners that said, "Support Our GIs, Bring Them Home Now!". Within these groups, however, many African American women were seen as subordinate members by black male leaders. Many African American women viewed the war in Vietnam as racially motivated and sympathized strongly with Vietnamese women. Such concerns often propelled their participation in the antiwar movement and their creation of new opposition groups.


Artists

Many artists during the 1960s and 1970s opposed the war and used their creativity and careers to visibly oppose the war. Writers and poets opposed to involvement in the war included
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Denise Levertov Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was a British-born naturalised American poet. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. Early life and influences Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Ess ...
, Robert Duncan, and
Robert Bly Robert Elwood Bly (December 23, 1926 – November 21, 2021) was an American poet, essayist, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement. His best-known prose book is '' Iron John: A Book About Men'' (1990), which spent 62 weeks on ' ...
. Their pieces often incorporated imagery based on the tragic events of the war as well as the disparity between life in Vietnam and life in the United States. Visual artists Ronald Haeberle,
Peter Saul Peter Saul (born August 16, 1934) is an American painter. His work has connections with Pop Art, Surrealism, and Expressionism. His early use of pop culture cartoon references in the late 1950s and very early 1960s situates him as one of the fa ...
, and
Nancy Spero Nancy Spero (August 24, 1926 – October 18, 2009) was an American visual artist. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spero lived for much of her life in New York City. She married and collaborated with artist Leon Golub. As both artist and activist, Nanc ...
, among others, used war equipment, like guns and helicopters, in their works while incorporating important political and war figures, portraying to the nation exactly who was responsible for the violence. Filmmakers such as
Lenny Lipton Leonard Lipton (May 18, 1940 – October 5, 2022) was an American author, filmmaker, lyricist and inventor. At age 19, Lipton wrote the poem that became the basis for the lyrics to the song "Puff, the Magic Dragon". He went on to write books on ...
, Jerry Abrams, Peter Gessner, and David Ringo created documentary-style movies featuring actual footage from the antiwar marches to raise awareness about the war and the diverse opposition movement. Playwrights like
Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...
,
Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any write ...
,
Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...
,
Megan Terry Megan Terry (born July 22, 1932) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre artist. She has produced over fifty works for theater, radio, and television, and is best known for her avant-garde theatrical work from the 1960s. As a found ...
, Grant Duay, and
Kenneth Bernard Kenneth Otis Bernard (May 7, 1930 – August 9, 2020) was an American author, poet, and playwright. Bernard was born in Brooklyn and raised in Framingham, Massachusetts; he lived his adult life in New York City. He married Elaine Ceil Reiss ...
used theater as a vehicle for portraying their thoughts about the Vietnam War, often satirizing the role of America in the world and juxtaposing the horrific effects of war with normal scenes of life. Regardless of medium, antiwar artists ranged from pacifists to violent radicals and caused Americans to think more critically about the war. Art as war opposition was quite popular in the early years of the war, but soon faded as political activism became the more common and most visible way of opposing the war.


Asian-Americans

Many Asian-Americans were strongly opposed to the Vietnam War. They saw the war as being a bigger action of U.S. imperialism and "connected the oppression of the Asians in the United States to the prosecution of the war in Vietnam." Unlike many Americans in the anti-war movement, they viewed the war "not just as imperialist but specifically as anti-Asian." Groups like the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), the Bay Area Coalition Against the War (BAACAW), and the Asian Americans for Action (AAA) made opposition to the war their main focus. Of these organizations, the Bay Area Coalition Against the War was the biggest and most significant. One of the major reasons leading to their significance was that the BAACAW was "highly organized, holding biweekly ninety-minute meetings of the Coordinating Committee at which each regional would submit detailed reports and action plans." The driving force behind their formation was their anger at "the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong Harbor." Another aspect of the group's prevalence was the support of the Japanese Community Youth Center, members of the Asian Community Center, student leaders of Asian American student unions, etc. who stood behind it. The BAACAW members consisted of many Asian-Americans and they were involved in antiwar efforts like marches, study groups, fundraisers,
teach-in A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific time fr ...
s and demonstrations. During marches, Asian American activists carried banners that read "Stop the Bombing of Asian People and Stop Killing Our Asian Brothers and Sisters." Its newsletter stated, "our goal is to build a solid, broad-based anti-imperialist movement of Asian people against the war in Vietnam." The anti-war sentiment by Asian Americans was fueled by the
racial inequality Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...
that they faced in the United States. As historian Daryl Maeda notes, "the antiwar movement articulated Asian Americans' racial commonality with Vietnamese people in two distinctly gendered ways: identification based on the experiences of male soldiers and identification by women." Asian American soldiers in the U.S. military were many times classified as being like the enemy. They were referred to as
gook Gook ( or ) is a derogatory term for people of East and Southeast Asian descent. Its origin is unclear, but it may have originated among U.S. Marines during the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) and Korean War. Historically, U.S. military p ...
s and had a racialized identity in comparison to their non-Asian counterparts. There was also the hypersexualization of Vietnamese women which in turn affected how Asian American women in the military were treated. "In a Gidra article, prominent influential newspaper of the Asian American movement Evelyn Yoshimura noted that the U.S. military systematically portrayed Vietnamese women as
prostitutes Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
as a way of dehumanizing them." Asian American groups realized in order to extinguish
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, they also had to address sexism as well. This in turn led to women's leadership in the Asian American antiwar movement. Patsy Chan, a "Third World" activist, said at an antiwar rally in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, "We, as
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
women
xpress Xpress may refer to: *Xpress (TV series), an award-winning multi cultural entertainment series *Xpress, a regional passenger bus service provided by the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority in metropolitan Atlanta * X*Press X*Change, an obsol ...
our militant solidarity with our brothers and sisters from Indochina. We, as Third World people know of the struggle the
Indochinese Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
are waging against imperialism, because we share that common enemy in the United States." Some other notable figures were
Grace Lee Boggs Grace Lee Boggs (June 27, 1915 – October 5, 2015) was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. In th ...
and
Yuri Kochiyama was an American civil rights activist. Influenced by her Japanese-American family's experience in an American internment camp, her association with Malcolm X, and her Maoist beliefs, she advocated for many causes, including black separatism, t ...
. Both Boggs and Kochiyama were inspired by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and "a growing number of Asian Americans began to push forward a new era in radical Asian American politics." Much Asian-Americans spoke against the war because of the way that the Vietnamese were referred within the U.S. military by the disparaging term "gook", and more generally because they encountered bigotry because they looked like "the enemy". One Japanese-American veteran, Norman Nakamura, wrote in an article in the June/July issue of ''Gidra'', that during his tour of duty in Vietnam of 1969-70 that there was an atmosphere of systematic racism towards all Vietnamese people, who were seen as less than human, being merely "gooks". Because most white Americans did not make much effort to distinguish between Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, and Filipino-Americans, the anti-Asian racism generated by the war led to the emergence of a pan-Asian American identity. Another Japanese-American veteran, Mike Nakayama, reported to ''Gidra'' in 1971 that he was wounded in Vietnam, he was initially refused medical treatment because he was seen as a "gook" with the doctors thinking that he was a South Vietnamese soldier (who were clothed in American uniforms), and only when he established that he spoke English as his first language that he was recognized as an American. In May 1972, ''Gidra'' ran on its cover a cartoon of a female Viet Cong guerrilla being faced with an Asian-American soldier who is commanded by his white officer to "Kill that gook, you gook!". There were also Asian American musicians who traveled around the United States to oppose the imperialist actions of the American government, specifically their involvement in Vietnam. "The folk trio 'A Grain of Sand' ... consisting of the members JoAnne 'Nobuko' Miyamoto,
Chris Iijima Chris Kwando Iijima (1948–2005) was an American folksinger, educator and legal scholar. He, Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto, and Charlie Chin, were the members of the group ''Yellow Pearl''; their 1973 album, ''A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by ...
, and William 'Charlie' Chin, performed across the nation as traveling troubadours who set the antiracist politics of the Asian American movement to music." This band was so against the imperialistic actions of the United States, that they supported the Vietnamese people vocally through their song 'War of the Flea'. Asian American poets and playwrights also joined in unity with the movement's antiwar sentiments. Melvyn Escueta created the play 'Honey Bucket' and was an Asian American veteran of the war. Through this play, "Escueta establishes equivalencies between his protagonist, a Filipino American soldier named Andy, and the Vietnamese people." "The Asian American antiwar movement emerged from a belief that the mainstream peace movement was racist in its disregard to Asians ... Steve Louie remembers that while the white antiwar movement had 'this moral thing about no killing,' Asian Americans sought to bring attention to 'a bigger issue ... genocide.' ... the broader movement had a hard time with the Asian movement ... because it broadened the issues out beyond where they wanted to go ... the whole question of U.S. imperialism as a system, at home and abroad."


Clergy

The clergy, often a forgotten group during the opposition to the Vietnam War, played a large role as well. The clergy covered any of the religious leaders and members including individuals such as
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
In his speech "Beyond Vietnam" King stated, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent." King was not looking for racial equality through this speech, but tried to voice for an end to the war instead. The involvement of the clergy did not stop at King though. The analysis entitled "Social Movement Participation: Clergy and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement" expands upon the anti-war movement by taking King, a single religious figurehead, and explaining the movement from the entire clergy's perspective. The clergy were often forgotten though throughout this opposition. The analysis refers to that fact by saying, "The research concerning clergy anti-war participation is even more barren than the literature on student activism."Tygart, "Social Movement Participation: Clergy and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement" There is a relationship and correlation between
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
and political opinions and during the Vietnam War, the same relationship occurred between feelings about the war and theology. This article basically was a social experiment finding results on how the pastors and clergy members reacted to the war. Based on the results found, they most certainly did not believe in the war and wished to help end it. Another source, ''Lift Up Your Voice Like A Trumpet: White Clergy And The Civil Rights And Antiwar Movements, 1954–1973'' explains the story of the entire spectrum of the clergy and their involvement. Michael Freidland is able to completely tell the story in his chapter entitled, "A Voice of Moderation: Clergy and the Anti-War Movement: 1966–1967". In basic summary, each specific clergy from each religion had their own view of the war and how they dealt with it, but as a whole, the clergy was completely against the war.


Draft evasion

The first draft lottery since World War II in the United States was held on December 1, 1969, and was met with large protests and a great deal of controversy; statistical analysis indicated that the methodology of the lotteries unintentionally disadvantaged men with late year birthdays. This issue was treated at length in a January 4, 1970 ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' article title
"Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random"
. Various antiwar groups, such as Another Mother for Peace, WILPF, and WSP, had free draft counseling centers, where they gave young American men advice for legally and illegally evading the draft. Over 30,000 people left the country and went to Canada, Sweden, and Mexico to avoid the draft. The Japanese anti-war group
Beheiren Beheiren (ベ平連, short for ベトナムに平和を!市民連合, ''Betonamu ni Heiwa o! Shimin Rengo'', "The Citizen's League for Peace in Vietnam") was a Japanese "New Left" activist group that existed from 1965 to 1974. As a loose coaliti ...
helped some American soldiers to desert and hide from the military in Japan. To gain an exemption or deferment, many men attended college, though they had to remain in college until their 26th birthday to be certain of avoiding the draft. Some men were rejected by the military as 4-F unfit for service failing to meet physical, mental, or moral standards. Still others joined the
National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...
or entered the
Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...
as a way of avoiding Vietnam. All of these issues raised concerns about the fairness of who got selected for involuntary service, since it was often the poor or those without connections who were drafted. Ironically, in light of modern political issues, a certain exemption was a convincing claim of
homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
, but very few men attempted this because of the stigma involved. Also, conviction for certain crimes earned an exclusion, the topic of the anti-war song "
Alice's Restaurant "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", commonly known as "Alice's Restaurant", is a satirical talking blues song by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, released as the title track to his 1967 debut album ''Alice's Restaurant''. The song is a deadpan protest ...
" by
Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...
. Even many of those who never received a deferment or exemption never served, simply because the pool of eligible men was so huge compared to the number required for service, that the draft boards never got around to drafting them when a new crop of men became available (until 1969) or because they had high lottery numbers (1970 and later). Of those soldiers who served during the war, there was increasing opposition to the conflict amongst GIs, which resulted in
fragging Fragging is the deliberate or attempted killing by a soldier of a fellow soldier, usually a superior. U.S. military personnel coined the word during the Vietnam War, when such killings were most often attempted with a fragmentation grenade, some ...
and many other activities which hampered the US's ability to wage war effectively. Most of those subjected to the draft were too young to vote or drink in most states, and the image of young people being forced to risk their lives in the military without the privileges of enfranchisement or the ability to drink alcohol legally also successfully pressured legislators to lower the
voting age A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain before they become eligible to vote in a public election. The most common voting age is 18 years; however, voting ages as low as 16 and as high as 25 currently exist (s ...
nationally and the
drinking age The legal drinking age is the minimum age at which a person can legally consume alcoholic beverages. The minimum age alcohol can be legally consumed can be different from the age when it can be purchased in some countries. These laws vary between ...
in many states. Student opposition groups on many college and university campuses seized campus administration offices, and in several instances forced the expulsion of
ROTC The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Overview While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...
programs from the campus. Some Americans who were not subject to the draft protested the conscription of their tax dollars for the war effort. War tax resistance, once mostly isolated to solitary anarchists like
Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...
and religious
pacifists Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigne ...
like the
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
, became a more mainstream protest tactic. As of 1972, an estimated 200,000–500,000 people were refusing to pay the excise taxes on their telephone bills, and another 20,000 were resisting part or all of their
income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...
bills. Among the
tax resister Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax, or to government policy, or as opposition to taxation in itself. Tax resistance is a form of direct action and, if in violation of the tax ...
s were
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
and
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
.


Environmentalists

Momentum from the protest organizations and the war's impact on the environment became focal point of issues to an overwhelmingly main force for the growth of an
environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists a ...
in the United States. Many of the environment-oriented demonstrations were inspired by
Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental m ...
's 1962 book ''
Silent Spring ''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading d ...
'', which warned of the harmful effects of pesticide use on the earth. For demonstrators, Carson's warnings paralleled with the United States' use of chemicals in Vietnam such as
Agent Orange Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the "tactical use" Rainbow Herbicides. It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It ...
, a chemical compound which was used to clear forestry being used as cover, initially conducted by the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
in
Operation Ranch Hand Operation Ranch Hand was a U.S. military operation during the Vietnam War, lasting from 1962 until 1971. Largely inspired by the British use of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D ( Agent Orange) during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s, it was part of the ov ...
in 1962.


Musicians

Protest to American participation in the Vietnam War was a movement that many popular musicians shared in, which was a stark contrast to the pro-war compositions of artists during World War II. These musicians included
Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
,
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
,
Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and ...
,
Lou Harrison Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his form ...
,
Gail Kubik Gail Thompson Kubik (September 5, 1914, South Coffeyville, Oklahoma – July 20, 1984, Covina, California) was an American composer, music director, violinist, and teacher. Early life, education, and career Kubik was born to Henry and Evelyn O. K ...
, William Mayer,
Elie Siegmeister Elie Siegmeister (also published under pseudonym L. E. Swift; January 15, 1909 in New York City – March 10, 1991 in Manhasset, New York) was an American composer, educator and author. Early life and education Elie Siegmeister was born January 15 ...
, Robert Fink,
David Noon David Noon (born 23 July 1946) is a contemporary classical composer and educator. He has written over 200 works from opera to chamber music. Noon's composition teachers have included Karl Kohn, Darius Milhaud, Charles Jones, Yehudi Wyner, Ma ...
,
Richard Wernick Richard Wernick (born January 16, 1934, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American composer. He is best known for his chamber and vocal works. His composition ''Visions of Terror and Wonder'' won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Career Wernick b ...
, and John W. Downey. However, of over 5,000 Vietnam War-related songs identified to date, many took a patriotic, pro-government, or pro-soldier perspective. The two most notable genres involved in this protest were Rock and Roll and Folk music. While composers created pieces affronting the war, they were not limited to their music. Often protesters were being arrested and participating in peace marches and popular musicians were among their ranks. This concept of intimate involvement reached new heights in May 1968 when the "Composers and Musicians for Peace" concert was staged in New York. As the war continued, and with the new media coverage, the movement snowballed and popular music reflected this. As early as the summer of 1965, music-based protest against the American involvement in Southeast Asia began with works like P. F. Sloan's
folk rock Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers suc ...
song ''Eve of Destruction'', recorded by
Barry McGuire Barry McGuire (born October 15, 1935) is an American singer-songwriter primarily known for his 1965 hit " Eve of Destruction". Later he would pioneer as a singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian music. Early life McGuire was born in O ...
as one of the earliest musical protests against the Vietnam War. A key figure on the
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
end of the antiwar spectrum was
Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
(1942–1970). Hendrix had a huge following among the youth culture exploring itself through drugs and experiencing itself through rock music. He was not an official protester of the war; one of Hendrix's biographers contends that Hendrix, being a former soldier, sympathized with the anticommunist view. He did, however, protest the violence that took place in the Vietnam War. With the song "
Machine Gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
", dedicated to those fighting in Vietnam, this protest of violence is manifest. David Henderson, author of Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky'', describes the song as "scary funk ... his sound over the drone shifts from a woman's scream, to a siren, to a fighter plane diving, all amid
Buddy Miles George Allen "Buddy" Miles Jr. (September 5, 1947February 26, 2008) was an American composer, drummer, guitarist, vocalist and producer. He was a founding member of the Electric Flag (1967), a member of Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys (1969–197 ...
' Gatling-gun snare shots. ... he says 'evil man make me kill you ... make you kill me although we're only families apart.'" This song was often accompanied with pleas from Hendrix to bring the soldiers back home and cease the bloodshed. While Hendrix's views may not have been analogous to the protesters, his songs became anthems to the antiwar movement. Songs such as "Star Spangled Banner" showed individuals that "you can love your country, but hate the government." Hendrix's anti-violence efforts are summed up in his words: "when the power of love overcomes the love of power ... the world will know peace." Thus, Hendrix's personal views did not coincide perfectly with those of the antiwar protesters; however, his anti-violence outlook was a driving force during the years of the Vietnam War even after his death (1970). The song known to many as the anthem of the protest movement was
The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" is a song by the American psychedelic rock band Country Joe and the Fish, written by Country Joe McDonald, and first released as the opening track on the extended play ''Rag Baby Talking Issue No. 1'', in Oct ...
first released on an EP in the October 1965 issue of ''Rag Baby''by Country Joe and the Fish, one of the most successful protest bands. Although this song was not on music charts probably because it was too radical, it was performed at many public events including the famous
Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
music festival (1969). "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" was a song that used sarcasm to communicate the problems with not only the war but also the public's naïve attitudes towards it. It was said that "the happy beat and insouciance of the vocalist are in odd juxtaposition to the lyrics that reinforce the sad fact that the American public was being forced into realizing that Vietnam was no longer a remote place on the other side of the world, and the damage it was doing to the country could no longer be considered collateral, involving someone else." Along with singer-songwriter
Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and ...
, who attended and organized anti-war events and wrote such songs as "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and "The War Is Over", another key historical figure of the antiwar movement was
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
. Folk and Rock were critical aspects of
counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
during the Vietnam War both were genres that Dylan would dabble in. His success in writing protest songs came from his pre-existing popularity, as he did not initially intend on doing so.
Tor Egil Førland Tor Egil Førland (born 5 May 1959) is professor of history at the University of Oslo. Career Between 2003 and 2004 Førland was Subdean of education at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo, responsible for implementing the Quality ...
, in his article "Bringing It All Back Home or Another Side of Bob Dylan: Midwestern Isolationist", quotes Todd Gitlin, a leader of a student movement at the time, in saying "Whether he liked it or not, Dylan sang for us. ... We followed his career as if he were singing our songs." Førland, Tor Egil.
Bringing It All Back Home or Another Side of Bob Dylan: Midwestern Isolationist
." Journal of American Studies 26.3 (1992): 351. JSTOR. Web. January 26, 2011.
The anthem "
Blowin' in the Wind "Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962. It was released as a single and included on his album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' in 1963. It has been described as a protest song and poses a series of rhetorical questions about ...
" embodied Dylan's anti-war, pro-civil rights sentiment. To complement "Blowin' in the Wind" Dylan's song " The Times they are A-Changin'" alludes to a new method of governing that is necessary and warns those who currently participate in government that the change is imminent. Dylan tells the "senators and congressmen oplease heed the call." Dylan's songs were designed to awaken the public and to cause a reaction. The protesters of the Vietnam War identified their cause so closely with the artistic compositions of Dylan that Joan Baez and Judy Collins performed "The Times they are A-Changin'" at a march protesting the Vietnam War (1965) and also for President Johnson. While Dylan renounced the idea of subscribing to the ideals of one individual, his feelings of protest towards Vietnam were appropriated by the general movement and they "awaited his gnomic yet oracular pronouncements", which provided a guiding aspect to the movement as a whole.
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
, former member of the Beatles, did most of his activism in his solo career with wife
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
. Given his immense fame due to the success of the Beatles, he was a very prominent movement figure with the constant media and press attention. Still being proactive on their honeymoon, the newlyweds controversially held a sit-in, where they sat in bed for a week answering press questions. They held numerous sit-ins, one where they first introduced their song "Give Peace a Chance". Lennon and Ono's song overshadowed many previous held anthems, as it became known as the ultimate anthem of peace in the 1970s, with their words "all we are saying ... is give peace a chance" being sung globally.


Military Members

Within the United States military various servicemembers would organize to avoid military duties and individual actors would also carry out their own acts of resistance. The movement consisted of the self-organizing of active duty members and veterans in collaboration with civilian peace activists. By 1971 the United States military would become so demoralized that the military would have severe difficulties properly waging war.


Students

There was a great deal of civic unrest on college campuses throughout the 1960s as students became increasingly involved in the
Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
,
Second Wave Feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. Wh ...
, and
anti-war movement An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to ...
. Doug McAdam explains the success of the mass mobilization of volunteers for
Freedom Summer Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. ...
in terms of "Biographical Availability", where individuals must have a certain degree of social, economic, and psychological freedom to be able to participate in large scale social movements. This explanation can also be applied to the Anti-War Movement because it occurred around the same time and the same biographical factors applied to the college-aged anti-war protesters. David Meyers (2007) also explains how the concept of personal efficacy affects mass movement mobilization. For example, according to Meyers' thesis, consider that American wealth increased drastically after World War II. At this time, America was a superpower and enjoyed great affluence after thirty years of depression, war, and sacrifice. Benjamin T. Harrison (2000) argues that the post World War II affluence set the stage for the protest generation in the 1960s. His central thesis is that the World Wars and Great Depression spawned a '
beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
' refusing to conform to mainstream American values which lead to the emergence of the ippiesand the counterculture. The Anti-war movement became part of a larger protest movement against the traditional American Values and attitudes. Meyers (2007) builds off this claim in his argument that the "relatively privileged enjoy the education and affirmation that afford them the belief that they might make a difference." As a result of the present factors in terms of affluence, biographical availability (defined in the sociological areas of activism as the lack of restrictions on social relationships of which most likely increases the consequences of participating in a social movement), and increasing political atmosphere across the county, political activity increased drastically on college campuses. In one instance, John William Ward, then president of
Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
, sat down in front of Westover Air Force Base near Chicopee, Massachusetts, along with 1000 students, some faculty, and his wife Barbara to protest against Richard Nixon's escalation of offensive bombing in Southeast Asia. College enrollment reached 9 million by the end of the 1960s. Colleges and universities in America had more students than ever before, and these institutions often tried to restrict student behavior to maintain order on the campuses. To combat this, many college students became active in causes that promoted free speech, student input in the curriculum, and an end to archaic social restrictions. Students joined the antiwar movement because they did not want to fight in a foreign civil war that they believed did not concern them or because they were morally opposed to all war. Others disliked the war because it diverted funds and attention away from problems in the U.S. Intellectual growth and gaining a liberal perspective at college caused many students to become active in the antiwar movement. Another attractive feature of the opposition movement was the fact that it was a popular social event. Most student antiwar organizations were locally or campus-based, including chapters of the very loosely co-ordinated
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
, because they were easier to organize and participate in than national groups. Common antiwar demonstrations for college students featured attempts to sever ties between the war machine and universities through
burning draft cards Draft-card burning was a symbol of protest performed by thousands of young men in the United States and Australia in the 1960s and early 1970s. The first draft-card burners were American men taking part in the opposition to United States involvem ...
, protesting universities furnishing grades to draft boards, and protesting military and Dow Chemical job fairs on campus. From 1969 to 1970, student protesters attacked 197 ROTC buildings on college campuses. Protests grew after the
Kent State shootings The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre,"These would be the first of many probes into what soon became known as the Kent State Massacre. Like the Boston Massacre almost exactly two hundred years bef ...
, radicalizing more and more students. Although the media often portrayed the student antiwar movement as aggressive and widespread, only 10% of the 2500 colleges in the United States had violent protests throughout the Vietnam War years. By the early 1970s, most student protest movements died down due to President Nixon's de-escalation of the war, the economic downturn, and disillusionment with the powerlessness of the antiwar movement.


Women

Women were a large part of the antiwar movement, even though they were sometimes relegated to second-class status within the organizations or faced sexism within opposition groups. Some leaders of anti-war groups viewed women as sex objects or secretaries, not actual thinkers who could contribute positively and tangibly to the group's goals, or believed that women could not truly understand and join the antiwar movement because they were unaffected by the draft. Women involved in opposition groups disliked the romanticism of the violence of both the war and the antiwar movement that was common amongst male war protesters. Despite the inequalities, participation in various antiwar groups allowed women to gain experience with organizing protests and crafting effective antiwar rhetoric. These newfound skills combined with their dislike of sexism within the opposition movement caused many women to break away from the mainstream antiwar movement and create or join women's antiwar groups, such as
Another Mother for Peace Another Mother for Peace (AMP) is a grass-roots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. The association is "dedicated to eliminating the use of war as a means of solving disputes among nations, people and ...
,
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...
(WILPF), and
Women Strike for Peace Women Strike for Peace (WSP, also known as Women for Peace) was a women's peace activist group in the United States. In 1961, nearing the height of the Cold War, around 50,000 women marched in 60 cities around the United States to demonstrate aga ...
(WSP), also known as Women For Peace. Female soldiers serving in Vietnam joined the movement to battle the war and sexism, racism, and the established military bureaucracy by writing articles for antiwar and antimilitary newspapers. Mothers and older generations of women joined the opposition movement, as advocates for peace and people opposed to the effects of the war and the draft on the generation of young men. These women saw the draft as one of the most disliked parts of the war machine and sought to undermine the war itself through undermining the draft. Another Mother for Peace and WSP often held free draft counseling centers to give young men legal and illegal methods to oppose the draft. Members of Women For Peace showed up at the White House every Sunday for 8 years from 11 to 1 for a peace vigil. Such female antiwar groups often relied on maternalism, the image of women as peaceful caretakers of the world, to express and accomplish their goals. The government often saw middle-aged women involved in such organizations as the most dangerous members of the opposition movement because they were ordinary citizens who quickly and efficiently mobilized. Many women in America sympathized with the Vietnamese civilians affected by the war and joined the opposition movement. They protested the use of napalm, a highly flammable jelly weapon created by the
Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastic ...
and used as a weapon during the war, by boycotting Saran Wrap, another product made by the company. Faced with the sexism sometimes found in the antiwar movement, New Left, and Civil Rights Movement, some women created their own organizations to establish true equality of the sexes. Some of frustrations of younger women became apparent during the antiwar movement: they desired more radical change and decreased acceptance of societal gender roles than older women activists. Female activists' disillusion with the antiwar movement led to the formation of the
Women's Liberation Movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
to establish true equality for American women in all facets of life.


Political responses


United Nations intervention

In October 1967 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on resolutions urging President Johnson to request an emergency session of the United Nations security council to consider proposals for ending the war.


Dellums (war crimes)

In January 1971, just weeks into his first term, Congressman
Ron Dellums Ronald Vernie Dellums (November 24, 1935 – July 30, 2018) was an American politician who served as Mayor of Oakland from 2007 to 2011. He had previously served thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Californi ...
set up a Vietnam war crimes exhibit in an annex to his Congressional office. The exhibit featured four large posters depicting atrocities committed by American soldiers embellished with red paint. This was followed shortly thereafter by four days of hearings on " war crimes" in Vietnam, which began April 25. Dellums, assisted by the
Citizens Commission of Inquiry The National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam was founded in New York by Ralph Schoenman in November 1969 to document American atrocities throughout Indochina. The formation of the organization was prompte ...
, had called for formal investigations into the allegations, but Congress chose not to endorse these proceedings. As such, the hearings were ''ad hoc'' and only informational in nature. As a condition of room use, press and camera presence were not permitted, but the proceedings were transcribed. In addition to
on Dellums On, on, or ON may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * On (band), a solo project of Ken Andrews * ''On'' (EP), a 1993 EP by Aphex Twin * ''On'' (Echobelly album), 1995 * ''On'' (Gary Glitter album), 2001 * ''On'' (Imperial Teen album), 200 ...
(Dem-CA), an additional 19 Congressional representatives took part in the hearings, including:
Bella Abzug Bella Savitzky Abzug (July 24, 1920 – March 31, 1998), nicknamed "Battling Bella", was an American lawyer, politician, social activist, and a leader in the women's movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem, ...
(Dem-NY),
Shirley Chisholm Shirley Anita Chisholm ( ; ; November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician who, in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress. Chisholm represented New York's 12th congressional distr ...
(Dem-NY),
Patsy Mink Patsy Matsu Mink (née Takemoto; December 6, 1927 – September 28, 2002) was an American attorney and politician from the U.S. state of Hawaii. Mink was a third-generation Japanese American, having been born and raised on the island of Maui. ...
(Dem-HI),
Parren Mitchell Parren James Mitchell (April 29, 1922 – May 28, 2007) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Congressman affiliated with the Democratic Party representing the 7th congressional district of Maryland from January 3, 1971 to January 3 ...
(Dem-MD),
John Conyers John James Conyers Jr. (May 16, 1929October 27, 2019) was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from Michigan from 1965 to 2017. The districts he represented always included part of western Detroit. ...
(Dem-MI),
Herman Badillo Herman Badillo (pronounced ''bah-DEE-yoh''; August 21, 1929 – December 3, 2014) was an American politician who served as borough president of The Bronx and United States Representative, and ran for Mayor of New York City. He was the first Pu ...
(Dem-NY),
James Abourezk James George Abourezk (born February 24, 1931) is an American attorney and Democratic politician who served as a United States senator and United States representative from South Dakota. He did not seek re-election to the US Senate in 1978. He w ...
(Dem-SD),
Leo Ryan Leo Joseph Ryan Jr. (May 5, 1925 – November 18, 1978) was an American teacher and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. representative from California's 11th congressional district from 1973 until his assassina ...
(Dem-CA),
Phil Burton Phillip Andrew Burton (born 13 March 1974) is a member of the Australian pop vocal band Human Nature with Toby Allen, Andrew Tierney and his brother Michael Tierney since 1989. With Human Nature, he has won an ARIA Music Award for ''Reach O ...
(Dem-CA),
Don Edwards William Donlon Edwards (January 6, 1915 – October 1, 2015) was an American politician of the Democratic Party and a member of the United States House of Representatives from California for 32 years in the late 20th century. Early life Edwar ...
(Dem-CA),
Pete McCloskey Paul Norton McCloskey Jr. (born September 29, 1927) is an American politician who represented San Mateo County, California as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983. Born in Loma Linda, California, McCloskey pursued ...
(Rep-CA),
Ed Koch Edward Irving Koch ( ; December 12, 1924February 1, 2013) was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was may ...
(Dem-NY), John Seiberling (Dem-OH), Henry Reuss (Dem-WI),
Benjamin Stanley Rosenthal Benjamin Stanley Rosenthal (June 8, 1923 – January 4, 1983) was an American Democratic Party politician from New York who represented the northern portion of Queens during twelve Congressional terms, from 1962 until his death. Upon his death ...
(Dem-NY),
Robert Kastenmeier Robert William Kastenmeier (January 24, 1924March 20, 2015) was an American Democratic politician who represented central Wisconsin in the United States House of Representatives for 32 years, from 1959 until 1991. He was a key sponsor of the Co ...
(Dem-WI), and
Abner J. Mikva Abner Joseph Mikva (January 21, 1926 – July 4, 2016) was an American politician, federal judge, lawyer and law professor. He was a member of the Democratic Party. Mikva served in the United States House of Representatives representing Illinois ...
(Dem-IL). The transcripts describe alleged details of U.S. military's conduct in Vietnam. Some tactics were described as "gruesome", such as the severing of ears from corpses to verify body count. Others involved the killing of civilians. Soldiers claimed to have ordered
artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...
strikes on villages which did not appear to have any military presence. Soldiers were claimed to use racist terms such as "gooks", "dinks" and "slant eyes" when referring to the Vietnamese. Witnesses described that legal, by-the-book instruction was augmented by more questionable training by non-commissioned officers as to how soldiers should conduct themselves. One witness testified about " free-fire zones", areas as large as in which soldiers were free to shoot any Vietnamese they encountered after curfew without first making sure they were hostile. Allegations of exaggeration of body count, torture, murder and general abuse of civilians and the psychology and motivations of soldiers and officers were discussed at length.


Fulbright (end to war)

In April and May 1971, the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid pro ...
, chaired by Senator
J. William Fulbright James William Fulbright (April 9, 1905 – February 9, 1995) was an American politician, academic, and statesman who represented Arkansas in the United States Senate from 1945 until his resignation in 1974. , Fulbright is the longest serving chair ...
, held a series of 22 hearings (referred to as the
Fulbright Hearing The Fulbright Hearings refers to any of the set of U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Vietnam conducted between 1966 and 1971. This article concerns those held by the U.S. Senate in 1971 relating to the Vietnam War. By April 197 ...
s) on proposals relating to ending the war. On the third day of the hearings, April 22, 1971, future Senator and 2004 presidential candidate
John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...
became the first
Vietnam veteran A Vietnam veteran is a person who served in the armed forces of participating countries during the Vietnam War. The term has been used to describe veterans who served in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and oth ...
to testify before Congress in opposition to the war. Speaking on behalf of
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) is an American tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation founded in 1967 to oppose the United States policy and participation in the Vietnam War. VVAW says it is a national veterans' organization ...
, he argued for the immediate, unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. During nearly two hours of discussions with committee members, Kerry related in some detail the findings of the
Winter Soldier Investigation The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from January 31, 1971, to February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces ...
, in which veterans had described personally committing or witnessing atrocities and war crimes.


Public opinion

The American public's support of the Vietnam War decreased as the war continued on. As public support decreased, opposition grew. The Gallup News Service began asking the American public whether it was a "mistake to send troops to Vietnam" in August 1965. At the time less than a quarter of Americans polled, 24%, believed it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam while 60% of Americans polled believed the opposite. Three years later, in September 1968, 54% of Americans polled believed it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam while 37% believed it was not a mistake. A 1965 Gallup Poll asked the question, "Have you ever felt the urge to organize or join a public demonstration about something?" Positive responses were quite low; not many people wanted to protest anything, and those who did want to show a public demonstration often wanted to demonstrate in support of the Vietnam War. However, when the American Public was asked in 1990, "Looking back, do you wish that you had made a stronger effort to protest or demonstrate against the Vietnam War, or not", 25 percent said they wished they had. A major factor in the American public's disapproval of the Vietnam War came from the casualties being inflicted on US forces. In a Harris poll from 1967 asking what aspect most troubled people most about the Vietnam war the plurality answer of 31% was "the loss of our young men." A separate 1967 Harris poll asked the American public how the war affected their family, job or financial life. The majority of respondents, 55%, said that it had had no effect on their lives. Of the 45% who indicated the war had affected their lives, 32% listed inflation as the most important factor, while 25% listed casualties inflicted. As the war continued, the public became much more opposed to the war, seeing that it was not ending. In a poll from December 1967, 71% of the public believed the war would not be settled in 1968. A year later the same question was asked and 55% of people did not think the war would be settled in 1969. When the American public was asked about the Vietnam-era Anti-War movement in the 1990s, 39% of the public said they approved, while 39% said they disapproved. The last 22% were unsure.


General effects

The opposition to the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War had many effects, which arguably led to the eventual end of the involvement of the United States.
Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...
, a controversial historian, states in his book ''A People's History of the United States'' that, "in the course of the war, there developed in the United States the greatest antiwar movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical role in bringing the war to an end." An alternative point of view is expressed by
Michael Lind Michael Lind (born April 23, 1962) is an American writer and academic. He has explained and defended the tradition of American democratic nationalism in a number of books, beginning with '' The Next American Nation'' (1995). He is currently a pro ...
. Citing public polling data on protests during the war he claimed that: "The American public turned against the Vietnam War not because it was persuaded by the radical and liberal left that it was unjust, but out of sensitivity to its rising costs."


Fewer soldiers

The first effect the opposition had that led to the end of the war was that fewer soldiers were available for the army. The draft was protested and even ROTC programs too. Howard Zinn first provides a note written by a student of Boston University on May 1, 1968, which stated to his draft board, "I have absolutely no intention to report for that exam, or for induction, or to aid in any way the American war effort against the people of Vietnam ..."Howard Zinn, ''A People's History of the United States'' The opposition to the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War had many effects, which led to the eventual end of the involvement of the United States.Howard Zinn, ''A People's History of the United States'' p. 486 This refusal letter soon led to an overflow of refusals ultimately leading to the event provided by Zinn stating, "In May 1969 the Oakland induction center, where draftees reported from all of Northern California, reported that of 4,400 men ordered to report for induction, 2,400 did not show up. In the first quarter of 1970 the Selective Service System, for the first time, could not meet its quota." The fewer numbers of soldiers as an effect of the opposition to the war also can be traced to the protests against the ROTC programs in colleges. Zinn argues this by stating, "Student protests against the ROTC resulted in the canceling of those programs in over forty colleges and universities. In 1966, 191,749 college students enrolled in ROTC. By 1973, the number was 72,459." The number of ROTC students in college drastically dropped and the program lost any momentum it once had before the anti-war movement.


College campuses

A further effect of the opposition was that many college campuses were completely shut down due to protests. These protests led to wear on the government who tried to mitigate the tumultuous behavior and return the colleges back to normal. The colleges involved in the anti-war movement included ones such as, Brown University, Kent State University, and the University of Massachusetts. Even at The College of William and Mary unrest occurred with protests by the students and even some faculty members that resulted in "multiple informants" hired to report to the CIA on the activities of students and faculty members. At the University of Massachusetts, "The 100th Commencement of the University of Massachusetts yesterday was a protest, a call for peace", "Red fists of protest, white peace symbols, and blue doves were stenciled on black academic gowns, and nearly every other senior wore an armband representing a plea for peace." Additionally, "At Boston College, a Catholic institution, six thousand people gathered that evening in the gymnasium to denounce the war." At Kent State University, "on May 4, when students gathered to demonstrate against the war, National Guardsmen fired into the crowd. Four students were killed."Howard Zinn, ''A People's History of the United States'' p. 490 Finally, "At the Brown University commencement in 1969, two-thirds of the graduating class turned their backs when Henry Kissinger stood up to address them." Basically, from all of the evidence here provided by the historians, Zinn and McCarthy, the second effect was very prevalent and it was the uproar at many colleges and universities as an effect of the opposition to the United States' involvement in Vietnam.


American soldiers

Another effect the opposition to the war had was that the American soldiers in Vietnam began to side with the opposition and feel remorse for what they were doing. Zinn argues this with an example in which the soldiers in a POW camp formed a peace committee as they wondered who the enemy of the war was, because it certainly was not known among them. The statement of one of the soldiers reads,
Until we got to the first camp, we didn't see a village intact; they were all destroyed. I sat down and put myself in the middle and asked myself: Is this right or wrong? Is it right to destroy villages? Is it right to kill people en masse? After a while it just got to me.
Howard Zinn provides that piece of evidence to reiterate how all of this destruction and fighting against an enemy that seems to be unknown has been taking a toll on the soldiers and that they began to sense a feeling of opposition as one effect of the opposition occurring in the United States.


Timeline


1964

*On May 12, twelve young men in New York publicly burned their draft cards to protest the war. *August – Prompted by the Gulf of Tonkin incident,
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
passed the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, , was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It is of historic significance because it gave U.S. p ...
. *In December 1964,
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
leads six hundred people in an antiwar demonstration in San Francisco.


1965

*On March 24, organized by professors against the war at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, a
teach-in A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific time fr ...
protest was attended by 2,500 participants. This model was to be repeated at 35 campuses across the country. *On March 16, Alice Herz, an 82-year-old
pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
, set herself on fire in the first known act of self-immolation to protest the Vietnam War. *On April 17, the
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS) and the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
(SNCC), a
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
activist group, led the first of several anti-war marches in Washington, D.C., with about 25,000 protesters. *Draft-card burnings took place at
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
at student demonstrations in May organized by a new anti-war group, the
Vietnam Day Committee The Vietnam Day Committee (VDC) was a coalition of left-wing political groups, student groups, labour organizations, and pacifist religions in the United States of America that opposed the Vietnam War during the counterculture era. It was formed in ...
. Events included a teach-in attended by 30,000, and the burning in
effigy An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certai ...
of president
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
. *A
Gallup poll Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...
in May showed 48% of U.S. respondents felt the government was handling the war effectively, 28% felt the situation was being handled badly, and the rest had no opinion. *May – First anti-Vietnam War demonstration in London was staged outside the U.S. embassy. *Protests were held in June on the steps of
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
, and in August, attempts were made by activists at Berkeley to stop the movement of trains carrying troops. *A Gallup poll in late August showed that 24% of Americans view sending troops to Vietnam as a mistake versus 60% who do not. *By mid-October, the anti-war movement had significantly expanded to become a national and even global phenomenon, as anti-war protests drawing 100,000 were held simultaneously in as many as 80 major cities around the US, London, Paris, and Rome. * On October 15, 1965, the first large scale act of civil disobedience in opposition to the Vietnam War occurred when approximately 40 people staged a
sit-in A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...
at the
Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
draft board {{further, Conscription in the United StatesDraft boards are a part of the Selective Service System which register and select men of military age in the event of conscription in the United States. Local board The local draft board is a board th ...
. They were sentenced to 10 to 15 days in jail. * On November 2,
Norman Morrison Norman R. Morrison (December 29, 1933 – November 2, 1965) was an American anti-war activist best known for his act of self-immolation at age 31 to protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War. On November 2, 1965, Morrison doused himse ...
, a 31-year-old pacifist, set himself on fire below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the Lis ...
at
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
, emulating the actions of the Vietnamese monk
Thích Quảng Đức Thích Quảng Đức (; vi-hantu, , 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the pers ...
. *On November 27,
Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was married to Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she w ...
, SDS President
Carl Oglesby Carl Preston Oglesby (July 30, 1935 – September 13, 2011) was an American writer, academic, and political activist. He was the President of the leftist student organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) from 1965 to 1966. Kauffman, B ...
, and Dr. Benjamin Spock, among others, spoke at an anti-war rally of about 30,000 in Washington, D.C., in the largest demonstration to date. Parallel protests occurred elsewhere around the nation. On that same day, President Johnson announced a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in
Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
, from 120,000 to 400,000 troops.


1966

*In February, a group of about 100 veterans attempted to return their
military decorations Military awards and decorations are distinctions given as a mark of honor for military heroism A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ...
to the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
in protest of the war, but were turned back. *On March 26, anti-war demonstrations were held around the country and the world, with 20,000 taking part in New York City. * A Gallup poll shows that 59% believe that sending troops to Vietnam was not a mistake. Among the age group of 21–29, 71% believe it was not a mistake compared to 48% of those over 50. *On May 15, another large demonstration, with 10,000 picketers calling for an end to the war, took place outside the White House and the
Washington Monument The Washington Monument is an obelisk shaped building within the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, once commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (1775–1784) in the American Revolutionary War and the ...
. *June – The Gallup poll respondents supporting the U.S. handling of the war slipped to 41%, 37% expressed disapproval, and the rest had no opinion. *A crowd of 4,000 demonstrated against the U.S. war in London on July 3 and scuffled with police outside the U.S. embassy. 33 protesters were arrested. *Joan Baez and
A. J. Muste Abraham Johannes Muste ( ; January 8, 1885 – February 11, 1967) was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, antiwar movement, and civil rights movemen ...
organized over 3,000 people across the nation in an antiwar tax protest. Participants refused to pay their taxes or did not pay the amount designated for funding the war. *Protests, strikes and sit-ins continued at Berkeley and across other campuses throughout the year. Three army privates, known as the "
Fort Hood Three The Fort Hood Three were three soldiers of the US Army – Private First Class James Johnson, Jr. Private David A. Samas, and Private Dennis Mora – who refused to be deployed to Vietnam on June 30, 1966. This was the first public refu ...
", refused to deploy in Vietnam, calling the war "illegal and immoral", and were sentenced to prison terms. *Heavyweight boxing champion
Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...
 – formerly known as Cassius Clay – declared himself a
conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
and refused to go to war. According to a writer for ''
Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
'', the governor of
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
,
Otto Kerner, Jr. Otto Kerner Jr. (August 15, 1908 – May 9, 1976) was an American jurist and politician who served as the 33rd governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968 and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circui ...
, called Ali "disgusting" and the governor of
Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...
,
John H. Reed John Hathaway Reed (January 5, 1921 – October 31, 2012) was the List of governors of Maine, 67th Governor of Maine, Governor of Maine, holding office during the 1960s. He was once an Aroostook County, Maine, Aroostook County potato farmer. R ...
, said that Ali "should be held in utter contempt by every patriotic American." In 1967 Ali was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion, but his conviction was later overturned on appeal. In addition, he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years. *In June 1966 American students and others in England meeting at the
London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...
formed the Stop It Committee. The group was prominent in every major London anti-war demonstration. It remained active until the end of the war in April 1975.


1967

The protest on June 23 in Los Angeles is singularly significant. It was one of the first massive war protests in the United States and the first in Los Angeles. Ending in a clash with riot police, it set a pattern for the massive protests which followed and due to the size and violence of this event, Johnson attempted no further public speeches in venues outside military bases. *
Another Mother for Peace Another Mother for Peace (AMP) is a grass-roots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. The association is "dedicated to eliminating the use of war as a means of solving disputes among nations, people and ...
group founded. * January 14 – 20,000–30,000 people staged a "
Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture a ...
" in
Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...
in San Francisco, near the
Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...
neighborhood that had become the center of
hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
activity. * In February, about 2,500 members of
Women Strike for Peace Women Strike for Peace (WSP, also known as Women for Peace) was a women's peace activist group in the United States. In 1961, nearing the height of the Cold War, around 50,000 women marched in 60 cities around the United States to demonstrate aga ...
(WSP) marched to the Pentagon. This was a peaceful protest that became rowdier when the demonstrators were denied a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. * February 8 – Christian groups opposed to the war staged a nationwide "Fast for Peace." * February 23 – ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'' published " The Responsibility of Intellectuals" by
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
as a special supplement. * March 12 – A three-page anti-war ad appeared in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' bearing the signatures of 6,766 teachers and professors. The advertisement spanned two and a quarter pages in Section 4, The Week in Review. The advertisement itself cost around $16,500 and was sponsored by the Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy. * March 17 – a group of antiwar citizens marched to the Pentagon to protest American involvement in Vietnam. * March 25 –
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
, a leader of the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, led a march of 5,000 against the war in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
. * April 4 – Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in New York City. "America rejected
Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime ...
's revolutionary government seeking self-determination. ... " (''See details
here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Technologies, Here Television * Here TV (form ...
''.) * On April 15, 400,000 people organized by the
Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which became the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a coalition of American antiwar activists formed in November 1966 to organize large demonstrations in o ...
marched from
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...
to the UN building in New York City to protest the war, where they were addressed by critics of the war such as Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King Jr., event initiator and director
James Bevel James Luther Bevel (October 19, 1936 – December 19, 2008) was a minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then as its Director of Direct ...
,
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
, and Jan Barry Crumb, a veteran of the war. On the same date 100,000, including
Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was married to Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she w ...
, marched in San Francisco. * On April 24,
Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
led a small group of protesters against both the war and
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
who interrupted the
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
, causing chaos by throwing fistfuls of both real and fake dollars down from the gallery. * May 2 – British philosopher
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
presided over the "
Russell Tribunal The Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal, Russell–Sartre Tribunal, or Stockholm Tribunal, was a private People's Tribunal organised in 1966 by Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and Nobel Prize winner, and ...
" in
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, a mock
war crimes tribunal A war crimes trial is the trial of persons charged with criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law committed during armed conflict. History The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribuna ...
, which ruled that the U.S. and its allies had committed war crimes in Vietnam. The proceedings were criticized as being a "
show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
." * On May 22, the fashionable ''À L'Innovation''
department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
in
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, Belgium burnt down, killing over 300 people amid speculation that the fire was caused by Belgian Maoists against the Vietnam War. * On May Jan 30 Crumb and ten like-minded men attended a peace demonstration in Washington, D.C., and on June 1
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) is an American tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation founded in 1967 to oppose the United States policy and participation in the Vietnam War. VVAW says it is a national veterans' organization ...
was born. * In the summer of 1967,
Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. ...
and various other NASA officials began a tour of South America to raise awareness for space travel. According to '' First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong'', a 2005 biography, during the tour, several college students protested the astronaut, and shouted such phrases as "Murderers get out of Vietnam!" and other anti-Vietnam War messages. * June 23, 1967 President Johnson was met in Los Angeles by a massive anti-war protest on the street outside the hotel where he was speaking at a Democratic fundraiser. Progressive Labor Party and SDS protesters. The
Riot Act The Riot Act (1 Geo.1 St.2 c.5), sometimes called the Riot Act 1714 or the Riot Act 1715, was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which authorised local authorities to declare any group of 12 or more people to be unlawfully assembled and o ...
was read and 51 protesters arrested. This was one of the first massive war protests in the United States and the first in Los Angeles, Ending in a clash with riot police, it set a pattern for the massive protests which followed. The vigor of the response from the
LAPD The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...
, initially intended to prevent the demonstrators from storming the hotel where Johnson was speaking, was to a certain extent based on exaggerated reports from undercover agents which had infiltrated the organizations sponsoring the protest. "Unresisting demonstrators were beaten – some in front of literally thousands of witnesses – without even the pretext of and attempt to make an arrest." A crowd the Los Angeles Times reports at 10,000 clashed with 500 riot police outside President Johnson's fundraiser at the Century City Plaza Hotel. Expecting only 1,000 or 2,000 protesters, the LAPD field commander later told reporters he had been 'astounded' by the size of the demonstration. "Where did all those people come from? I asked myself." Scores were injured, including many peaceful middle-class protesters. "Crowd Battles LAPD as War Protest Turns Violent", http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2009/05/crowd-battles-lapd-as-war-protest-turns-violent-.html Some sources put the crowd as high as 15,000 and noted that the police attacked the marchers with nightsticks to disperse the crowd. ACLU, Southern California Branch, ''Day of Protest, Night of Violence: The Century City Peace March, a Report ''(Los Angeles: Sawyer Press, 1967)
on Scribd
Due to the size and violence of this event, Johnson attempted no further public speeches in venues outside military bases. * July 30 – Gallup poll reported 52% of Americans disapproved of Johnson's handling of the war, 41% thought the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops, and over 56% thought the U.S. was losing the war or at an impasse. * On August 28, 1967, U.S. representative
Tim Lee Carter Tim Lee Carter (September 2, 1910 – March 27, 1987) was an American politician serving as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives for the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1965 until 1981. Background Congressman Car ...
(R-KY) stated before congress: "Let us now, while we are yet strong, bring our men home, every man jack of them. The Vietcong fight fiercely and tenaciously because it is their land and we are foreigners intervening in their civil war. If we must fight, let us fight in defense of our homeland and our own hemisphere." * On September 20, over one thousand members of WSP rallied at the White House. The police used brutal tactics to try to limit it to 100 people (as per the law) or stop the demonstration, and the event tarnished the wholesome and nonviolent reputation of the WSP. * In October 1967, Stop the Draft Week resulted in major clashes at the
Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
military induction center, and saw more than a thousand registrants return their draft cards in events across the country. The cards were delivered to the
Justice Department A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
on October 20. Singer/musician-activist
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
, a longtime critic of the war in Vietnam, was among those arrested in the Oakland demonstrations. * On October 18, 300 students at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...
attempted to prevent
Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastic ...
, the maker of
napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated al ...
, from holding a job fair on campus. The police eventually forced the demonstration to end, but Dow was banned from the campus. Three police officers and 65 students were injured in the event, dubbed "Dow Day". * On October 21, 1967, the
March on the Pentagon The March on the Pentagon was a massive demonstration against the Vietnam War on October 21, 1967. The protest involved more than 100,000 attendees at a rally by the Lincoln Memorial. Later about 50,000 people marched across the city to The Penta ...
took place. A large demonstration organized by the
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which became the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a coalition of American antiwar activists formed in November 1966 to organize large demonstrations in o ...
, a crowd of nearly 100,000 met at the
Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial built to honor the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument, and is in the ...
in Washington, D.C. and at least 30,000 people then marched to the Pentagon for another rally and an all night vigil. Some, including
Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
,
Jerry Rubin Jerry Clyde Rubin (July 14, 1938 – November 28, 1994) was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman. He is known for being one of the ...
, and
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
, attempted to "exorcise" and "levitate" the building, while others engaged in
civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...
on the steps of the Pentagon. These actions were interrupted by clashes with soldiers and police. In all, 647 arrests were made. When a plot to airdrop 10,000 flowers on the Pentagon was foiled by undercover agents, some of these flowers ended up being placed in the barrels of MP's rifles, as seen in famous photographs of the event (such as ''
Flower Power Flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and nonviolence. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The expression was coined by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsber ...
'' and '' The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet'').
Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...
documented the events surrounding the march, and the march on the Pentagon itself, in his
non-fiction novel The non-fiction novel is a literary genre which, broadly speaking, depicts real historical figures and actual events woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwi ...
, ''
The Armies of the Night ''The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel as History'' is a nonfiction novel recounting the October 1967 March on the Pentagon written by Norman Mailer and published by New American Library in 1968. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Ge ...
''. * In November 1967 a non-binding referendum was voted on in San Francisco, California which posed the question of whether there should be an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. The vote was 67% against the referendum, which was taken by a Johnson administration official as support for the war.


1968

* On January 15, 1968, over five thousand women rallied in D.C. in the Jeannette Rankin Brigade protest. This was the first all female antiwar protest intended to get Congress to withdrawal troops from Vietnam. * On January 18, 1968, while in the White House for a conference about juvenile delinquency, black singer and entertainer
Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...
yelled at
Lady Bird Johnson Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson (''née'' Taylor; December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. She previously served as Second Lady from 1961 to 1963 when ...
about the generation of young men dying in the war. * January 30, 1968 –
Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...
was launched and resulted in much higher casualties and changed perceptions. The optimistic assessments made prior to the offensive by the administration and
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
came under heavy criticism and ridicule as the "
credibility gap Credibility gap is a term that came into wide use with journalism, political and public discourse in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, it was most frequently used to describe public skepticism about the Lyndon B. Johnson a ...
" that had opened in 1967 widened into a chasm. * February – Gallup poll showed 35% approved of Johnson's handling of the war; 50% disapproved; the rest, no opinion. YT, 2/14/68In another poll that month, 23% of Americans defined themselves as "doves" and 61% "hawks." * March 12 – anti-war candidate
Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...
received more votes than expected in the
New Hampshire primary The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosi ...
, leading to more expressions of opposition against the war. McCarthy urged his supporters to exchange the ' unkempt look' rapidly becoming fashionable among war opponents for a more clean-cut style to in order not to scare voters. These were known as "Clean Genes." * March 16 –
Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...
joined the race for the US presidency as an anti-war candidate. He was shot and killed on June 5, the morning after he won a decisive victory over McCarthy in the Democratic primary in California. * March 17 – Major rally outside the U.S. Embassy in London's Grosvenor Square turned to a riot with 86 people injured and over 200 arrested. Over 10,000 had rallied peacefully in Trafalgar Square but met a police barricade outside the embassy. A UK Foreign Office report claimed that the rioting had been organized by 100 members of the German SDS who were "acknowledged experts in methods of riot against the police." * In March, Gallup poll reported that 49% of respondents felt involvement in the war was an error. * April 17 – National media films the anti-war riot that breaks out at Columbia University. The over-reaction by the police at Columbia is shown in Berlin and Paris, sparking reactions in those cities. * On April 26, 1968, a million college and high school students boycotted class to show opposition to the war. * April 27 – an anti-war march in Chicago organized by
Rennie Davis Rennard Cordon Davis (May 23, 1940 – February 2, 2021) was an American anti-war activist who gained prominence in the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven defendants charged for anti-war demonstrations and large-scale protests at the 1968 D ...
and others ended with police beating many of the marchers, a precursor to the police riots later that year at the Democratic Convention. * During the
1968 Democratic National Convention The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus making ...
, held August 26 – August 29 in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, anti-war protesters marched and demonstrated throughout the city. Chicago mayor
Richard J. Daley Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was an American politician who served as the Mayor of Chicago from 1955 and the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party Central Committee from 1953 until his death. He has been cal ...
brought to bear 23,000 police and National Guardsman upon 10,000 protesters. Tensions between police and protesters quickly escalated, resulting in a "police riot" and the chant by protesters "
The whole world is watching "The whole world is watching" was a phrase chanted by anti-Vietnam War demonstrators as they were beaten and arrested by police outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The event occurred and ...
". Eight leading anti-war activists were indicted by the
U.S. Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...
and prosecuted in 1969 for conspiracy to riot; the 1970 convictions of the
Chicago Seven The Chicago Seven, originally the Chicago Eight and also known as the Conspiracy Eight or Conspiracy Seven, were seven defendants—Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner—charged b ...
were subsequently overturned on appeal. * August – Gallup poll shows 53% said it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam. *Among the academic or scholarly groups was the
Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS) was founded in 1968 by a group of graduate students and younger faculty as part of the opposition to the American participation in the Vietnam War. They proposed a "radical critique of the assumptio ...
, founded in 1968 by graduate students and junior faculty in Asian studies.


1969

* March polls indicated that 19% of Americans wanted the war to end as soon as possible, 26% wanted South Vietnam to take over responsibility for the war from the U.S., 19% favored the current policy, and 33% wanted total military victory. * In March, students at
SUNY Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
destroyed a Themis construction site. * On March 5, Senator J. William Fulbright was prevented from speaking at the first
National Convocation on the Challenge of Building Peace The National Convocation on the Challenge of Building Peace was an American organization formed in the late 1960s in response to the Vietnam War. The organization made the master list of Nixon political opponents. The first meeting, sponsored by ...
by members of the Veterans and Reservists to End the War in Vietnam. * On April 6, a spontaneous anti-war rally in
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...
was recorded and later released as
Environments 3 Environments 3 is the third in The Future Sound of London's ''"Environments"'' series of albums, released on 7 June 2010. Unlike previous FSOLDigital releases, the album was not made available as a download several months before the CD release. ...
. * On May 22, the Canadian government announced that immigration officials would not and could not ask about immigration applicants' military status if they showed up at the border seeking permanent residence in Canada. * On July 16, activist David Harris was arrested for refusing the draft, and would ultimately serve a fifteen-month prison sentence; Harris' wife, prominent musician, pacifist and activist
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
, toured and performed on behalf of her husband, throughout the remainder of 1969, attempting to raise consciousness around the issue of ending the draft. * On July 31, ''The New York Times'' published the results of a Gallup poll showing that 53% of the respondents approved of Nixon's handling of the war, 30% disapproved, and the balance had no opinion. * On August 15–18, the
Woodstock Festival Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
was held at
Max Yasgur Max B. Yasgur (December 15, 1919 – February 9, 1973) was an American farmer who was the owner of a dairy farm in Bethel, New York, where the 1969 Woodstock musical festival was held from August 15–18, 1969. He sold his farm in 1971 and ...
's farm in
Bethel, New York :''This is the article about the Sullivan County, New York town. For the Dutchess County, New York hamlet, see Bethel, Pine Plains'' Bethel is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was estimated at 4,255 in 2010. T ...
. Peace was a primary theme in this pivotal popular music event. * On October 15 the
Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later, on November 15, 196 ...
demonstrations took place. Millions of Americans took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war. These were the first major demonstrations against the Nixon administration's handling of the war. * In October, 58% of Gallup respondents said U.S. entry into the war was a mistake. * In November,
Sam Melville Samuel Joseph Melville (born Samuel Joseph Grossman, 1934 – September 13, 1971), was the principal conspirator and bomb setter in the 1969 bombings of eight government and commercial office buildings in New York City. Melville cited his opposi ...
,
Jane Alpert Jane Lauren Alpert (born May 20, 1947) is an American former far left radical who conspired in the bombings of eight government and commercial office buildings in New York City in 1969. Arrested when other members of her group were caught plantin ...
, and several others bombed several corporate offices and military installations (including the Whitehall Army Induction Center) in and around New York City. * On November 15, crowds of up to half a million people participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. and a similar demonstration was held in San Francisco. These protests were organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe) and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (SMC). * On December 7,
The 5th Dimension The 5th Dimension is an American popular music vocal group, whose repertoire includes pop, R&B, soul, jazz, light opera, and Broadway. Formed as the Versatiles in late 1965, the group changed its name to "the 5th Dimension" by 1966. Betwee ...
performed their song "Declaration" on the ''
Ed Sullivan Show ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' is an American television variety show that ran on CBS from June 20, 1948, to March 28, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the '' CBS Sunday Night ...
''. Consisting of the opening of the
Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...
(through "for their future security"), it suggests that the right and duty of revolting against a
tyrannical A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to rep ...
government is still relevant. * In late December, the ''
And babies ''And babies'' (December 26, 1969) is an iconic anti-Vietnam War poster. It is a famous example of "propaganda art" from the Vietnam War, The poster is also discussed in ''Propaganda Prints: A History of Art in the Service of Social and Political ...
'' poster is published – "easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the war in Southeast Asia."M. Paul Holsinger, "And Babies" i
''War and American Popular Culture''
Greenwood Press, 1999, p. 363.
* By end of the year, 69% of students identified themselves as
dove Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...
s.


1970

* On March 4,
Antonia Martínez Antonia Martínez Lagares (April 22, 1949 – March 4, 1970) was a 20-year-old student at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras who was shot and killed by a policeman as she criticized the police violence while watching the 1970 anti-Viet ...
, a 21-year-old student at the
University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
was shot and killed by a policeman while watching and commenting on the anti-Vietnam War and education reform student protests at the University of Puerto Rico. * On March 14, two merchant seamen, claiming allegiance to the SDS, hijacked the ''SS Columbia Eagle,'' a U.S.-flagged merchant vessel under contract with the U.S. government, carrying 10,000 tons of napalm bombs for use by the U.S. Air Force in the Vietnam War. The hijackers forced its master to divert to then-neutral
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
(which promptly was taken over by anti-Communists, who eventually returned to the ship to the U.S.). Andrews, Evan
"6 Famous Naval Mutinies,"
November 6, 2012, ''History in the Headlines'' newsletter, retrieved March 1, 2018 from History.com .
Cronkite, Walter, and
Nelson Benton CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morning'', ''60 Minutes'', and '' 48 Ho ...

"Columbia Eagle / Mutiny / Cambodia," segment #208707
, in transcript: ''
CBS Evening News The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature s ...
for 1970-03-16,'' from the
Vanderbilt Television News Archive The Vanderbilt Television News Archive, founded in August 1968, maintains a library of televised network news programs. It is a unit of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library of Vanderbilt University, a private research university located in Nashvil ...
,
Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
, retrieved March 1, 2018.
Emery, Fred
"Two Who Say They Support S.D.S. Tell How They Hijacked Ship,"
March 26, 1970, ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' archives, retrieved March 1, 2018.
"U.S. Asks Return of Ship,"
March 25, 1970, ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' archives, retrieved March 1, 2018.
"Mutiny Involved 5: Captain,"
, March 19, 1970, ''
Nashville Tennessean ''The Tennessean'' (known until 1972 as ''The Nashville Tennessean'') is a daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett, ...
,'' Page 13 retrieved March 1, 2018 from OCR transcription in Newspapers.com .
Hoffman, Fred S.,
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

"U.S. Bomb Ship Seized in Mutiny: Anchored Off Cambodia"
, March 16, 1970, ''San Bernardino Sun,''
San Bernardino, California San Bernardino (; Spanish for "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a population of 222,101 in the 2020 cen ...
, Volume 76, Number 137, pp.1-2, photocopy at retrieved March 1, 2018 from OCR transcription in '
California Digital Newspaper Collection
.
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

"2 American Ship Hijackers Want to Quit Cambodia,"
written July 3, 1970, published July 4, 1970, ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
,'' retrieved March 1, 2018 from th
Harold Weisberg Archive
,
Hood College , motto_lang = la , mottoeng = With Heart and Mind and Hand , established = , type = Private college , religious_affiliation = United Church of Christ , endowment = $104.5 million (2020) , president = Andrea E. Chapd ...
, Maryland.
* Kent State/ Cambodia Invasion Protest, Washington, D.C.: After the
Kent State shootings The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre,"These would be the first of many probes into what soon became known as the Kent State Massacre. Like the Boston Massacre almost exactly two hundred years bef ...
, on May 4, 100,000
anti-war An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...
demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest the shooting of the students in Ohio and the Nixon administration's incursion into
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
. Even though the demonstration was quickly put together, protesters were still able to bring out thousands to march in the Capital. It was an almost spontaneous response to the events of the previous week. Police ringed the White House with buses to block the demonstrators from getting too close to the executive mansion. Early in the morning before the march, Nixon met with protesters at the
Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial built to honor the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument, and is in the ...
but nothing was resolved and the protest went on as planned. * National Student Strike: more than 450 university, college and high school campuses across the country were shut by student strikes and both violent and non-violent protests that involved more than 4 million students, in the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history. * A Gallup poll in May shows that 56% of the public believed that sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake, 61% of those over 50 expressed that belief compared to 49% of those between the ages of 21–29. * On June 13, President Nixon established the
President's Commission on Campus Unrest On June 13, 1970, President Richard Nixon established the President's Commission on Campus unrest, which became known as the Scranton Commission after its chairman, former Pennsylvania governor William Scranton. Scranton was asked to study the dis ...
. The commission was directed to study the dissent, disorder, and violence breaking out on college and university campuses. * In July 1970. the award-winning documentary '' The World of Charlie Company'' was broadcast. "It showed GIs close to mutiny, balking at orders that seemed to them unreasonable. This was something never seen on television before." The documentary was produced by
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
News. * On August 24, 1970, near 3:40 a.m., a van filled with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture was detonated on the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Sterling Hall bombing. One researcher was killed and three others were injured. * Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life: To avert potential violence arising from planned anti-war protests, a government-sponsored
rock festival A rock festival is an open-air rock concert featuring many different performers, typically spread over two or three days and having a campsite and other amenities and forms of entertainment provided at the venue. Some festivals are singular even ...
was held near
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
from August 28 to September 3, attracting 100,000 participants. The festival, arranged by the People's Army Jamboree (an ''
ad hoc Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.) Com ...
'' group) and Oregon governor
Tom McCall Thomas Lawson McCall (March 22, 1913 January 8, 1983) was an American statesman, politician and journalist in the state of Oregon. A Republican, he was the state's thirtieth governor from 1967 to 1975. A native of Massachusetts, McCall grew up t ...
, was set up when the FBI told the governor that President Nixon's planned appearance at an
American Legion The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is a non-profit organization of U.S. war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militi ...
convention in Portland could lead to violence worse than that seen at the
1968 Democratic National Convention The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus making ...
in Chicago. * The
Chicano Moratorium The Chicano Moratorium, formally known as the National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against The Vietnam War, was a movement of Chicano anti-war activists that built a broad-based coalition of Mexican-American groups to organize opposition to the Vi ...
: on August 29, some 25,000
Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...
s participated in the largest anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles. Police attacked the crowd with billyclubs and
tear gas Tear gas, also known as a lachrymator agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the early commercial aerosol, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the eye to produce tears. In ad ...
; two people were killed. Immediately after the marchers were dispersed, sheriff's deputies raided a nearby bar, where they shot and killed
Rubén Salazar Ruben Salazar (March 3, 1928 – August 29, 1970) was a civil rights activist and a reporter for the ''Los Angeles Times,'' the first Mexican-American journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community. Salazar was killed during t ...
,
KMEX KMEX-DT (channel 34) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the western flagship station of the Spanish-language Univision network. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Ontario, Califor ...
news director and ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' columnist, with a tear-gas projectile.


1971 and after

* On April 23, 1971, Vietnam veterans threw away over 700 medals on the West Steps of the Capitol building. The next day, antiwar organizers claimed that 500,000 marched, making this the largest demonstration since the November 1969 march. * Two weeks later, on May 5, 1971, 1146 people were arrested on the Capitol grounds trying to shut down Congress. This brought the total arrested during the 1971 May Day Protests to over 12,000.
Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
was arrested on charges of interstate travel to incite a riot and assaulting a police officer. * In August 1971, the
Camden 28 The Camden 28 were a group of leftist, Catholic, anti-Vietnam War activists who in 1971 planned and executed a raid on a draft board in Camden, New Jersey, United States. The raid resulted in a high-profile criminal trial of the activists tha ...
conducted a raid on the Camden, New Jersey draft board offices. The 28 included five or more members of the clergy, as well as a number of local blue-collar workers. * Beginning December 26, 1971, 15 anti-war veterans occupied the Statue of Liberty, flying a US flag upside down from her crown. They left on December 28, following issuance of a Federal Court order. Also on December 28, 80 young veterans clashed with police and were arrested while trying to occupy the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. * On March 29, 1972, 166 people, many of them seminarians, were arrested in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in Pe ...
for encircling the Federal Courthouse with a chain, to protest the trial of the
Harrisburg Seven The Harrisburg Seven were a group of religious anti-war activists, led by Philip Berrigan, charged in 1971 in a failed conspiracy case in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, located in Harrisburg. The seven wer ...
. * On April 19, 1972, in response to renewed escalation of bombing, students at many colleges and universities around the country broke into campus buildings and threatened strikes. The following weekend, protests were held in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and elsewhere. * On May 13, 1972, protests again spread across the country in response to President Nixon's decision to mine harbors in North Vietnam and renewed bombing of North Vietnam (
Operation Linebacker Operation Linebacker was the codename of a U.S. Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy Task Force 77 air interdiction campaign conducted against North Vietnam from 9 May to 23 October 1972, during the Vietnam War. Its purpose was to halt or slow the ...
). * On July 6, 1972, four Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur on a White House Tour stopped and began praying to protest the war. In the next six weeks, such kneel-ins became a popular form of protest and led to over 158 protesters' arrests.


Organizations

*
Committee for NonViolent Action The Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA) was an American anti-war group, formed in 1957 to resist the US government's program of nuclear weapons testing. It was one of the first organizations to employ nonviolent direct action to protest aga ...
(CNVA) – radical
pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
organization that "blended philosophical
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
with
Gandhian The followers of Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest figure of the Indian independence movement, are called Gandhians. Gandhi's legacy includes a wide range of ideas ranging from his dream of ideal India (or ''Rama Rajya)'', economics, environmentalism, ...
pacifism."Debenedette, Charles. (2000). On the Significance of Citizen Peace Activism: America, 1961–1975,' in Hixson, Walter (ed) the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. New York: Garland Publishing The organization used civil disobedience in direct action against military action. *
Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy Peace Action is a peace organization whose focus is on preventing the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, thwarting weapons sales to countries with human rights violations, and promoting a new United States foreign policy based on common sec ...
(SANE) – liberal international organization that was founded in 1957 by a group of nuclear pacifists. They attempted to increase public opinion in favor of their cause in an attempt to influence policy makers to halt atmospheric
nuclear testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by ...
and reversing the arms race and the Cold War. *Another committee was called
SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
 – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. *Black Women Enraged – a
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
antiwar movement. *
National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union The National Black Antiwar Antidraft Union (NBAWADU) was founded in February 1968 by Gwen Patton to protest the Vietnam War and the draft. In order to do this, they allied themselves with two other prominent predominantly Black social movement org ...
(NBAWADU) – led by Gwen Patton and formed from black members of SNCC and socialist parties. *National Black Draft Counselors (NBDC) – led by and created to help young black men avoid being drafted. *
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...
(WILPF) – founded in 1919 after World War I and provided women with an early entry into the antiwar movement. * The League of Women Voters – founded in 1920, was one of the first groups to call for an end to military involvement in Vietnam. *
Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (Congregationis Sororum a Domina Nostra Namurcensi) are a Catholic institute of religious sisters, founded to provide education to the poor. The institute was founded in Amiens, France, in 1804, but the opposi ...
 – popularized the use of kneel-ins and prayer to end the war and stop its escalation. *Bay Area Asian Coalition Against the War (BAACAW) *
Asian American Political Alliance The Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) was a political organization started at University of California, Berkeley in 1968 that aimed to unite all Asian Americans under one identity to push for political and social action. The two main chapte ...
(AAPA) * Asian Americans for Action (AAA) *
Third World Liberation Front In 1968, the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), a coalition of the Black Students Union, the Latin American Students Organization, the Filipino American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE) the Filipino-American Students Organization, the Asian American ...
(TWLF) – Some Asian American student organizations under this were: Filipino American Collegiate (PACE), Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), and Chinese for Social Action (ICSA) *
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) is an American tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation founded in 1967 to oppose the United States policy and participation in the Vietnam War. VVAW says it is a national veterans' organization ...
*
Concerned Officers Movement The Concerned Officers Movement (COM) was an organization of mainly junior officers formed within the U.S. military in the early 1970s whose principal purpose was opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Very quickly, however, it al ...
– an organization of officers formed within the U.S. military. *
Movement for a Democratic Military The Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) was an antiwar and GI rights organization during the Vietnam War. Initially formed in late 1969 as a merger of sailors from San Diego and marines from the Camp Pendleton Marine Base in Oceanside, CA, i ...
– an antiwar and GI rights organization during the Vietnam War. *
GI Coffeehouses GI coffeehouses were a consequential part of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War era, particularly the resistance to the war within the U.S. military. They were mainly organized by civilian anti-war activists as a method of supporting an ...
– coffeehouses created by antiwar activists as a method of supporting antiwar and anti-military sentiment among GIs. *
GI's Against Fascism GI's Against Fascism was a small but formative organization formed within the United States Navy, U.S. Navy during the years of conscription and the Vietnam War. The group developed in mid-1969 out of a number of sailors requesting adequate quart ...
– an organization of antiwar and anti-military GIs formed within the U.S. Navy in San Diego, CA. *
American Writers Against the Vietnam War American Writers Against the Vietnam War was an umbrella organization created in 1965 by American poets Robert Bly and David Ray. The group organized readings, meetings and joined in rallies, teach-ins, and demonstrations against the Vietnam War, ...
*
Americans for Democratic Action Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is a liberal American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA views itself as supporting social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research, and supporting prog ...
*FTA – a group whose initials either stand for Free the Army or Fuck the Army, depending on the situation, was led by
Jane Fonda Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, activist, and former fashion model. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda is the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, sev ...
and
Donald Sutherland Donald McNichol Sutherland (born 17 July 1935) is a Canadian actor whose film career spans over six decades. He has been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films ''Citizen X'' (1995) an ...
. *Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV) *WIN (''Workshop in Nonviolence'') Magazine editors and staff included
Maris Cakars Maris Cakars ( Latvian: Māris Čakars) (1942-1992) is best known as having served as editor of WIN (Workshop in Nonviolence) Magazine, a bi-weekly journal of the nonviolent anti-Vietnam War movement, from 1965 to 1976. During his leadership at WIN ...
,
Marty Jezer Marty Jezer (November 21, 1940 – June 11, 2005) was a well-known activist and author. Born Martin Jezer and raised in the Bronx, he earned a history degree from Lafayette College. He was a co-founding member of the Working Group on Electoral ...
, Paul Johnson, Susan Kent Cakars and
Tad Richards James (Tad) Richards (born March 31, 1940) is an American writer and visual artist. He is also artistic director and former president of Opus 40, the sculpture park in Saugerties, New York. Richards was born in Washington, D.C. in 1940. In 1943 ...
. Published authors such as
Grace Paley Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007) was an American short story author, poet, teacher, and political activist. Paley wrote three critically acclaimed collections of short stories, which were compiled in the Pulitzer Prize and Na ...
, Barbara Deming,
Andrea Dworkin Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo ...
and
Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
. *The Student Libertarian Movement – Libertarian organization that was formed in 1972. The guiding principles of this organization were opposition to the war in Vietnam and opposition to the draft. The organization did not take a strong stand on racial issues. For example, "In virtually hundreds of issues of libertarian newspapers, bulletins, and journals, the civil rights movement, Black nationalism, or race in general composed no more than 1 percent of all articles surveyed." * Students for Democratic Society (SDS) – founded in 1960 and was seen as one of the most active college campus groups of the
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
and the antiwar movement. *
Student Peace Union Student Peace Union (SPU) was a nationwide student organization active on college campuses in the United States from 1959 to 1964. Its national headquarters were located near the campus of the University of Chicago. The SPU was founded by Ken Cal ...
. *
Furman University Furman University is a private liberal arts university in Greenville, South Carolina. Founded in 1826 and named for the clergyman Richard Furman, Furman University is the oldest private institution of higher learning in South Carolina. It became ...
Corps of Kazoos (FUCK) – created to make fun of the military and campus ROTC program at Furman University in South Carolina. Such anti-campus ROTC groups were common throughout the U.S. *Traditional peace groups like
Fellowship of Reconciliation The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR or FOR) is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries. They are linked by affiliation to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR). ...
,
American Friends Service Committee The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (''Quaker'') founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by Am ...
, the Bruderhof,
War Resisters League The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States. History Founded in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I, it is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International. It continues ...
, and the Catholic Workers Movement, became involved in the antiwar movement as well. *Various committees and campaigns for peace in Vietnam came about, including Campaign for Disarmament, Campaign to End the Air War, Campaign to Stop Funding the War, Campaign to Stop the Air War, Catholic Peace Fellowship, and
Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) was a United States nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people avoid or resist military conscription or seek discharge after voluntary enlistment. It was active in supporting consc ...
. *Concerned Americans Abroad, London-based group established by Heinz Norden


Slogans and chants

*"Hell, no, we won't go!" was heard in antidraft and antiwar protests throughout the country. *"Bring the troops home now!" was heard in mass marches in Washington D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, New York, and San Diego. *"Dow shall not kill." and "Making money burning babies!" were two slogans used by students at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
and other colleges to protest the
Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastic ...
, the maker of
napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated al ...
and
Agent Orange Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the "tactical use" Rainbow Herbicides. It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It ...
. and it refers to ''
The Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...
'' *"Stop the war, feed the poor." was a popular slogan used by socially conscious and minority antiwar groups, protesting that the war diverted funds that struggling Americans desperately needed. *"Girls say yes to men who say no." was an antidraft slogan used by the SDS and other organizations. *"War is not healthy for children and other living things" was a slogan of
Another Mother for Peace Another Mother for Peace (AMP) is a grass-roots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. The association is "dedicated to eliminating the use of war as a means of solving disputes among nations, people and ...
, and was popular on posters. *"End the nuclear race, not the human race." was first used by the WSP in antinuclear demonstrations and became incorporated into the antiwar events. *"Not my son, not your son, not their sons." was an antiwar and antidraft slogan used by the WSP during protests. *"Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong are gonna win." was a common anti-war chant during anti-war marches and rallies in the later sixties. *"Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" was especially chanted by students and other marchers and demonstrators in opposition to
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
. *"One, two, three, four, we don't want your fucking war." was chanted in marches from Brisbane to Boston. *"Fuck, fuck, fuck it all. We don't want this anymore." was also chanted in marches from Brisbane to Boston. * "আমার নাম তোমার নাম ভিয়েতনাম" (; ): Slogans chanted by leftists of Calcutta, including future
President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murmu ...
Pranab Mukherjee Dr. Pranab Mukherjee (11 December 193531 August 2020) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 13th president of India from 2012 until 2017. In a political career spanning five decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader in the India ...
, against the American oppression on Vietnam


Gallery


Propaganda

File:LeafletGIs&VetsMarchForPeace12Oct1968.pdf, Leaflet targeting Veterans and GIs. File:Stop the Hawk antiwar sticker.jpg, Stop the Hawk protest sticker. File:FTATicket.png, Ad for an
FTA Show The ''FTA Show'' (or ''FTA Tour'' or ''Free The Army tour''), a play on the common troop expression "Fuck The Army" (which in turn was a play on the army slogan "Fun, Travel and Adventure"), was a 1971 anti-Vietnam War road show for GIs designed ...
. File:Anti-war march flyer, 1975 (14878021090).jpg, 1975 flyer for a protest march. File:Internationale Vietnam-Konferenz 1968.jpg, West German protest poster. File:May 4th Strike Poster.jpg, Poster advertising the
Student strike of 1970 The student strike of 1970 was a massive protest across the United States, that included walk-outs from college and high school classrooms initially in response to the United States expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Nearly 900 campuses ...
. File:Fatigue Press Cover May1970.jpg, ''Fatigue Press'' GI Underground Newspaper May 19701000 GIs march against the war.


Protests

File:Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Sydney, NSW 3.jpg, 1965 protest in Sydney, Australia. File:Anti Vietnam war demonstration. Vancouver. 1968.JPG, Anti-Vietnam War protest.
Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, Canada. 1968. File:Anti Vietnam war demonstration. Vancouver, BC. 1968.JPG, Anti-Vietnam War protest. Vancouver, B.C., Canada. 1968. File:Vietnam War protestors at the March on the Pentagon.jpg,
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which became the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a coalition of American antiwar activists formed in November 1966 to organize large demonstrations in o ...
's march on the Pentagon, October 21, 1967. File:19680810 20 Anti-War March.jpg, 1968 protests in Chicago. File:Boston 1970 protest against the Vietnam War.jpg, 1970 protest in Boston.


See also


References


References

* *Aaron Fountain "The War in the Schools: San Francisco Bay Area High Schools and the Anti–Vietnam War Movement, 1965–1973" pp. 22–41 from California History, Volume 92, Issue 2, Summer 2015 *John Hagan, ''Northern passage: American Vietnam War resisters in Canada'', Harvard University Press, 2001. *Mary Susannah Robbins, ''Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists'', Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. *Robert R. Tomes, ''Apocalypse Then: American Intellectuals and the Vietnam War, 1954–1975'', NYU Press, 2000. *King, Martin Luther Jr. "Beyond Vietnam". New York. April 4, 1967. *Tygart, Clarence. "Social Movement Participation: Clergy and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement." Sociological Analysis Vol. 34. No. 3 (Autumn, 1973): pp. 202–211. Print. *Friedland, Michael B. ''Lift Up Your Voice Like A Trumpet: White Clergy And The Civil Rights And Antiwar Movements, 1954–1973''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. December 15, 2013. *McCarthy, David. "'The Sun Never Sets on the Activities of the CIA': Project Resistance at William and Mary". Routledge Publishing: September 4, 2012. * Patler, Nicholas
Norman's Triumph: the Transcendent Language of Self-Immolation
Quaker History, Fall 2105, 18–39. *Zinn, Howard. ''A People's History of the United States''. New York: HarperCollins Publishing, 2003. Print. *Maeda, Daryl. ''Chains of Babylon: Rise of Asian America''. University of Minnesota Press, 2009. *Lee, Erika. ''The Making of Asian Ameria: A History''. Simon & Schuster, 2015. *Srikanth, Rajini and Hyoung Song, Min. ''The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature''. Cambridge University Press, 2015.


Further reading

* Bates, Tom. ''Rads: The 1970 Bombing of the Army Math Research Center at the University of Wisconsin and Its Aftermath''. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. * Greene, Bob. ''Homecoming''. Putnam, 1989. * Heineman, Kenneth J. ''Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era''. New York: New York University Press, 2010. * * Patler, Nicholas.
Norman's Triumph: the Transcendent Language of Self-Immolation
. ''Quaker History'', Fall 2015, 18–39.


External links


Social Activism Sound Recording Project: Anti-Vietnam War Protests in the San Francisco Bay Area & Beyond
Includes chronology, texts, online audio and video (via UC Berkeley)
Pacific Northwest Antiwar and Radical History Project
multimedia collection of photographs, video, oral histories and essays on Vietnam War resistance.
GI resistance during the Vietnam War

Vietnam War: Disturbing Images
nbsp;– slideshow by ''
Life magazine ''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...
''
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Vietnam War Era Ephemera
This collection contains leaflets and newspapers that were distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s.
As Obama Visits Afghanistan, Tavis Smiley on Rev. Martin Luther King and His Opposition to the Vietnam War
nbsp;– video by ''
Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...
''
Records of Statement on the War in Vietnam are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books''The Boys Who Said NO''
nbsp;– Documentary on draft resistance and its impact during the Vietnam War.
Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee
nbsp;– Organization of Vietnam War peace activists, including veterans and scholars.
''Sir! No Sir!'', a documentary about GI resistance to the Vietnam War

A Matter of Conscience – GI Resistance During the Vietnam War

Waging Peace in Vietnam – US Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War

Waging Peace in Vietnam Interviews with GI resisters
{{DEFAULTSORT:Opposition To The U.S. Involvement In The Vietnam War Vietnam War, Protests against the
United States involvement in the Vietnam War United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
1970s in politics Articles containing video clips
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
1960s in politics African-American history Asian-American history Protests in India