[77][78] From 1969 to 1970, student protesters attacked 197 ROTC buildings on college campuses. [32] Many African American women viewed the war in Vietnam as racially motivated and sympathized strongly with Vietnamese women. 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. The Anti-war movement became part of a larger protest movement against the traditional American Values and attitudes. 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. 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). Poster advertising the Student strike of 1970. A 1965 Gallup Poll asked the question, "Have you ever felt the urge to organize or join a public demonstration about something? Intellectual growth and gaining a liberal perspective at college caused many students to become active in the antiwar movement. 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). Melvyn Escueta created the play 'Honey Bucket' and was an Asian American veteran of the war. 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 to protest what seemed to be the tendency of the USA to step into Indo-China as France stepped out. [2], Protests bringing attention to "the draft" began on May 5, 1965. 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.

In some cases, police used violent tactics against peaceful demonstrators. Soon Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King and James Bevel 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. [13], 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). Based on the results found, they most certainly did not believe in the war and wished to help end it. Harrison, Benjamin T. (2000)'Roots of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement,' in Hixson, Walter (ed) the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. On February 1, 1968, Nguyn Vn Lm, a Vietcong officer suspected of participating in murder of South Vietnamese government officials during the Tet Offensive, was summarily executed by General Nguyn Ngc Loan, the South Vietnamese National Police Chief. Covert counter-terror programs and semi-covert ones such as the Phoenix Program attempted, with the help of anthropologists, to isolate rural South Vietnamese villages and affect the loyalty of the residents. On November 2, 32-year-old Quaker Norman Morrison set himself on fire in front of The Pentagon. The U.S. became polarized over 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. 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. Opposition grew with participation by the African-American civil rights, second-wave feminist movements, Chicano Movements, and sectors of organized labor. 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. This was the first all female antiwar protest intended to get Congress to withdrawal troops from Vietnam.

"[41] Asian American soldiers in the U.S. military were many times classified as being like the enemy. Shaun Maloney, head of the Seattle's Local 19 of the longshoremen's union, the ILWU, told reporters in 1972 that President Nixons attack on North Vietnam was no different than his attack on American workers living standards at home. Over 10,000 had rallied peacefully in Trafalgar Square but met a police barricade outside the embassy. [53], 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 in the United States. Hendrix had a huge following among the youth culture exploring itself through drugs and experiencing itself through rock music. [21] In 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) became the first major civil rights group to issue a formal statement against the war. Additional involvement came from many other groups, including educators, clergy, academics, journalists, lawyers, physicians such as Benjamin Spock and military veterans. [4], 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 and the threat of communism, was not legally justifiable.

Two weeks later, on May 5, 1971, 1146 people were arrested on the Capitol grounds trying to shut down Congress. [76], College enrollment reached 9 million by the end of the 1960s. [85], Many women in America sympathized with the Vietnamese civilians affected by the war and joined the opposition movement. Click the link below to be taken to each section. [10] 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". Patsy Chan, a "Third World" activist, said at an antiwar rally in San Francisco, "We, as Third World women [express] our militant solidarity with our brothers and sisters from Indochina. 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.

"[68] The anthem "Blowin' in the Wind" embodied Dylan's anti-war, pro-civil rights sentiment. Guttmann, Allen. New York: Pantheon Books. "[4] 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. 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. 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. "[4] For the first time in American history, the media had the means to broadcast battlefield images. According to historians Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, SDS's first Stop the Draft Week of October 1967 was "inspired by Black Power [and] emboldened by the ghetto rebellions." 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' Gatling-gun snare shots. [20], In March 1965, King first criticized the war during the Selma march 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".

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!". "Campus Outbreaks Spread", Martin Arnold.

David Meyers (2007) also explains how the concept of personal efficacy affects mass movement mobilization. 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. Protest against the War in Vietnam. [100] 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.[103]. 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. Ch. genocide.' Early organized opposition was led by American Quakers 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". Inside all branches of the military, soldiers began refusing orders, printing underground antiwar newspapers, and organizing small-scale mutinies, which crippled the militarys ability to function. 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. Courtesy of the Special Collections Library. Protests, strikes and sit-ins continued at Berkeley and across other campuses throughout the year. 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. Protests were held in June on the steps of. The draft, a system of conscription that mainly drew from minorities and lower and middle class whites, drove much of the protest after 1965. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 382. pp. 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. April 4, 1967.

A further effect of the opposition was that many college campuses were completely shut down due to protests. [82] Despite the inequalities, participation in various antiwar groups allowed women to gain experience with organizing protests and crafting effective antiwar rhetoric. 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. One witness testified about "free-fire zones", areas as large as 80 square miles (210km2) in which soldiers were free to shoot any Vietnamese they encountered after curfew without first making sure they were hostile. Martin Luther King and His Opposition to the Vietnam War, Records of Statement on the War in Vietnam are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books, 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, April 15, 1967 Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Human rights movement in the Soviet Union, 1968 student demonstrations in Yugoslavia, Third World Liberation Front strikes of 1968, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_United_States_involvement_in_the_Vietnam_War&oldid=1097284548, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, On May 12, twelve young men in New York publicly, On March 24, organized by professors against the war at the. The protest on June 23 in Los Angeles is singularly significant. "[106] 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.

[59] This concept of intimate involvement reached new heights in May 1968 when the "Composers and Musicians for Peace" concert was staged in New York.

In one instance, John William Ward, then president of Amherst College, 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. 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. In their book Manufacturing Consent, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky 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. ", 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.

New York. [20] 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. Despite the increasingly depressing news of the war, many Americans continued to support President Johnson's endeavors. The movement consisted of the self-organizing of active duty members and veterans in collaboration with civilian peace activists. 127150. [74] His central thesis is that the World Wars and Great Depression spawned a 'beat generation' refusing to conform to mainstream American values which lead to the emergence of the [Hippies] and the counterculture. While composers created pieces affronting the war, they were not limited to their music. Another nineteen cards were burnt on May 22 at a demonstration following the Berkeley teach-in. [88], 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.[89].

Playwrights like Frank O'Hara, Sam Shepard, Robert Lowell, Megan Terry, Grant Duay, and Kenneth Bernard 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. The U.S. realized that the South Vietnamese government needed a solid base of popular support if it were to survive the insurgency. 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. 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. New York: Garland Publishing. Civil Affairs units, while remaining armed and under direct military control, engaged in what came to be known as "nation-building": constructing (or reconstructing) schools, public buildings, roads and other infrastructure; 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. The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America. [10] Contrary to expectations, the issue sold out with many being haunted by the photographs of the ordinary young Americans killed. As public support decreased, opposition grew. 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 justification for the policies of the U.S. government. On April 23, 1971, Vietnam veterans threw away over 700 medals on the West Steps of the Capitol building. Some Americans who were not subject to the draft protested the conscription of their tax dollars for the war effort. In October, 58% of Gallup respondents said U.S. entry into the war was a mistake. Among the age group of 2129, 71% believe it was not a mistake compared to 48% of those over 50. 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.". Speaking on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he argued for the immediate, unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. 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. 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.

Another attractive feature of the opposition movement was the fact that it was a popular social event. he says 'evil man make me kill you make you kill me although we're only families apart. The following year, hundreds of campuses across the country went on strike in protest of Nixons escalation of the war into Cambodia. 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. [25] 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. The transcripts describe alleged details of U.S. military's conduct in Vietnam. 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. [10], 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. 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 for best documentary amid considerable controversy. Contrarily, the Hawks argued that the war was legitimate and winnable and a part of the benign U.S. foreign policy. [45], 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. 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. [80] 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. [20] They harshly criticized the draft because poor and minority men were usually most affected by conscription. Their actions consisted mainly of peaceful, nonviolent events; few events were deliberately provocative and violent. In March, Gallup poll reported that 49% of respondents felt involvement in the war was an error. 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. [71][72], There was a great deal of civic unrest on college campuses throughout the 1960s as students became increasingly involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Second Wave Feminism, and anti-war movement. "Crowd Battles LAPD as War Protest Turns Violent", Bliss, Edward Jr.(1991). Some tactics were described as "gruesome", such as the severing of ears from corpses to verify body count. "[66], Along with singer-songwriter Phil Ochs, 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. Of the 45% who indicated the war had affected their lives, 32% listed inflation as the most important factor, while 25% listed casualties inflicted.