In every war the United States has fought, there have been protesters.
The antiwar movement during the Vietnam War (1954–75) is particularly memorable because it played out at a time when there were actually
two other strong movements taking place: the student movement and
the civil rights movement.
The civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929–1968), began in the mid-1950s and attracted not only blacks but
also the era’s young white middle class. These young people saw the civil
rights movement as part of a larger social movement that questioned the
status quo (the existing state of affairs) in general. Racial segregation and
inequality were two of society’s ills, as was an economy sustained by war
and the exploitation of smaller and poorer countries. Even the quality of
education was in question: Students believed that the system promoted
conformity over creativity and individuality.
Reform-minded student organizations and societies formed across
the country in the early 1960s. Some focused on women’s rights, others
on educational reform or civil rights. By 1965, however, the protest
against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War eclipsed all other concerns.
Early protests
Although the war had begun in 1954, the United States’s involvement
was not significant until 1965. The first antiwar protests were loosely organized student demonstrations in which protesters gathered to share
their concerns. In April 1965, teachers at college campuses across the
country began hosting “teach-ins,” forums in which U.S. foreign policy was explained and criticized. Before the month was over, a national event
in Washington, D.C. was broadcast to more than one hundred colleges.
April also saw the first major demonstration: Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) organized the event, which attracted around fifteen thousand participants to Washington, D.C.
Many opponents of the Vietnam War were protesting the draft. The
draft is a means of building up the military. Males eighteen and older
had to register with the government’s Selective Service, and if their
names were drawn in a lottery, they were required by law to join the military and serve in the Vietnam War. The draft, also known as conscription, was first used during the American Civil War (1861–65). (See also
Conscription Acts.) The first public draft protest of the Vietnam War
took place in October 1965 in New York City. David Miller broke the
law when he burned his draft card, and for his act of protest he was arrested, found guilty, and served two years in jail. Meanwhile, the antiwar
movement gained momentum as it stretched across the globe. Antiwar
protests were held simultaneously in the United States; Paris, France;
Rome, Italy; and London, England.
Focused and determined
By 1967, the antiwar movement had grown so widespread that those
who were only moderately opposed to the war marched alongside those
with more extreme perspectives. The days of a handful of protesters
standing on a street corner waving signs were gone, and in their place
were groups numbering in the thousands. On October 21, 1967, the
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam organized
a rally in Washington, D.C. More than one hundred thousand people
participated in the rally, and thirty-five thousand continued in the
planned march to the steps of the Pentagon.
Protest music played a major role in the antiwar movement. Folk
music was at the height of its popularity, and performers such as Bob
Dylan (1941–), John Lennon (1940–1980), and Peter, Paul, and Mary
loaned their voices to the movement at demonstrations and press statements. Dylan’s 1963 hit “Blowin’ in the Wind” became a theme song of
the movement.
Although most peace activists embraced nonviolence, emotions ran
high, and antiwar slogans such as “Make love, not war,” and “Hell no,
we won’t go!” offended parents, spouses, and friends whose loved ones were fighting overseas. Battles sometimes broke out between protesters
and police, counterprotesters, and armed troops.
Seasons of violence
The violent protests peaked in 1968. The most famous protest of the
year took place in August, just months after the assassination of U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) of New York. The Democratic
National Convention was being held in Chicago, Illinois, that year, and
when it became clear that Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey
(1911–1978) would emerge as the Democratic Party’s presidential
nominee, a coalition of extremist antiwar organizations showed up in
Chicago intent on disrupting the convention.
What they found there were twelve thousand police officers, almost
six thousand Illinois National Guardsmen, and five thousand federal
troops. On the night Humphrey was nominated, rioting broke out all
over Chicago. Some eyewitnesses reported that the authorities provoked the demonstrators to violence. By the time the riots had subsided, more
than one thousand people were wounded and almost seven hundred had
been arrested.
In the most notorious confrontation between protesters and police,
on May 4, 1970, at Ohio’s Kent State University, a peaceful protest
ended in tragedy when four demonstrators were shot and killed by
National Guardsmen who opened fire on the protesters. (See Kent State
Shooting.) Nine other students were wounded. The nation was shocked,
and eight million students protested by going on strike from their colleges and high schools. Five days after the shooting, one hundred thousand people marched in Washington, D.C., to protest the senseless
deaths of the unarmed students. Singer Neil Young (1945–) wrote a
song, “Ohio,” about the tragedy, and the event is referenced in numerous other songs.
From the margins to the middle
As violence increased within the antiwar movement, there was a shift in
public opinion: Older Americans and prominent public figures became
more vocal in their criticism of the continuing
war. Politicians spoke out against the government’s actions, and even some veterans of the
war organized to bring an end to what had become the longest-running war in U.S. history.
The Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon
(1913–1994; served 1969–74), won the presidential election in 1968 with a campaign platform to end the war.
Nixon had no great plan to bring home the
troops, but he did try to bomb the North
Vietnamese into submission. When that failed,
he put into action a plan that eventually turned
over responsibility for the ground war to South
Vietnam. This was known as “Vietnamization,”
and it did allow U.S. troops to gradually withdraw, although U.S. air fighters were still standing by to deploy at a moment’s notice.
Days after the Kent State shooting in 1970,
state police opened fire on student protesters at Jackson State College in Mississippi. Twelve students were injured and
two were killed. One student at a New York school responded to the
Kent State shooting by hanging a banner out a dormitory window that
read “They Can’t Kill Us All.” Nixon’s response was seen as callous by
members of the antiwar movement. He met with about thirty student
protestors at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., just five days
after the shooting, but his attempts at reaching out were condescending
and clumsy.
With the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers—a top-secret,
seven-thousand-page government report on the planning and policy
making before and during the war—most Americans began to support
total withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The report uncovered lies, illegal actions, and other unethical behavior on the part of the president,
the government, and the military. By the time the war officially ended in
1975, nearly all of the United States was a part of the antiwar movement.