The Vietnam War An Age of Student Protest
Rise of Student Activism in the 1960s Contributing factors: Early 1960s Baby Boom generation just graduating high school. Postwar prosperity gave many opportunities previous generations didn t have. Rather than going into the workforce after high school, many could afford to go to college = college enrollments swelled in the 1960s as a result Change in the air After conformist 1950s, pop culture (rock-and-roll music, rebellious youth, movies, etc.) indicated that many young people of the 1950s were unsatisfied with their parents values (beatniks) Early 1960s signaled a widening of the generation gap
Influence of the Civil Rights Movement Civil Rights Movement was a steppingstone to other movements for change. Movements like the student movement, anti-war movement, women s movement, Native American Indian movement, Chicano movement were inspired by the African-American civil rights movement (borrowed tactics) Civil rights activists were among those who helped form Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1960. Goals and principles were set forth in the Port Huron Statement written in 1962. It sought to explain some of feelings behind student movement: We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably at the world we inherit. When we were kids, the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss We would replace power rooted in possession, privilege, or circumstance by power and uniqueness rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason, and creativity. As a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation. SDS started small but had a huge influence on the development of a new political movement called the New Left. The New Left believed that problems such as poverty and racism called for radical changes.
Student Activism & the Free Speech Movement Activism led to confrontation at University of CA Berkeley in Sept. 1964 - Students became angry when university administration refused to allow them to hand out civil rights leaflets outside the main gate of the campus. - Students (many of whom had fought for equal rights in the South) argued their right to free speech was being denied > resisted the university s decision - Police sent in to arrest one of student leaders > students surrounded the police car and prevented it from moving (launching the free speech movement). - Administration tried to compromise but the university governing board stepped in > they decided to hold student leaders responsible for their actions and filed charges against some of them. - Dec. 2, 1964, thousands of angry students took over the university administration building > other students, with the support of some faculty members, went on strike and stopped attending classes to show their support for the free speech demonstrations
Berkeley was the most radical campus but activism spread to other colleges & universities around the U.S. Spring 1965, student activists at other schools protested regulations that they thought curbed their freedom. Challenged social restrictions (such as the hours when men and women could visit each other s dorms) and sought greater involvement in college policy-making. Tried to change established curriculum (adding minority studies) Wanted school admin. to be held responsible for its actions in the greater community. All over the USA, students whose requests were initially scoffed at, suddenly were taking over administration buildings, holding sit-ins and issuing long lists of demands. Radical student newspapers popped up encouraging even more students to get involved in the issues of the day.
People s Park Many students left their campuses to work in campaigns to improve conditions in the inner city. Protests on campuses and in the streets were often met with excessive police brutality. In one notorious scenario, students and residents of Berkeley, California turned a dusty campus parking lot into a "People's Park", liberating it and fixing it up for the use of the community. In response, the governor, Ronald Reagan called in the National Guard who fenced off, and guarded the park. When the people took to the streets to protest this action, they were met with a hail of bullets that killed and injured many students and citizens. "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with!" - Gov. Ronald Reagan
People s Park
Students were among the first to protest the Vietnam War. Some were against what they saw as U.S. imperialism, others saw it as a civil war that should be resolved by the Vietnamese alone. They did this in a number of ways, including: As the war escalated, anti-war protestors spoke out against the draft and teach-ins spread: - First teach-in happened at the University of Michigan in March 1965 faculty members decided to make a public statement against the war > roughly 50-60 professors taught a special night session where issues concerning the war could be aired. > Several thousand people showed up and made the night a success. - Initially, supporters and opponents of the war both attended teach-ins, but as the war carried on, anti-war voices took over the sessions.
The Vietnam War was the main, defining event of my young adulthood. It taught me what evil is, in human form. I learned about the seemingly limitless capacity of people to lie, rationalize, and perform every sort of inhumanity. What did I do? Everything I could to try to stop the war. Became more and more radical. It's a familiar story. I found that two very different cultures vied for my allegiance, understanding, and identity: one was the culture of Love and Peace, the hippy vision of nonviolence and creative transformation. The other was that of forceful, determined resistance to institutional violence and exploitation. I felt torn, as I think many of our generation did. Confronted with evil, evil which I as an individual could not abolish or stop from actively hurting others, what was I to do? What could I do? What should I do? These were the questions I lived into being, which consumed me, which defined my life's choices.
Protests continued & intensified each year... 1966-100,000 demonstrated against the war in New York City in April 1966 1967 350,000 anti-war demonstrators marched to the U.N. in NYC -- 700 people were arrested in October 1967 when 50,000 peace demonstrators stormed the Pentagon building 1968 In the first 6 months of 1968, more than 200 major demonstrations broke out at colleges around the U.S. By the end of the year, there had been more than 735 instances of protestors clashing with police at the nation s schools and universities.
1968 Columbia University protest in April 1968 Students saw issues of civil rights and the war to be interconnected: An SDS chapter wanted to get the university to cut its ties with a research institute that did work for the military. AA student organization wanted to stop construction of a gym that would encroach on nearby minority neighbors in Harlem. Together these 2 groups took over the president s office. Finally the president of Columbia University called the police and 100s of students were arrested. A student strike followed and the university closed early that spring.
Anti-War Protests
"What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?" -Dr. Benjamin Spock, pediatrician, author, antiwar activist "The Establishment... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster -- a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation." -George McGovern
Anti-War Posters
Anti-War Music