The Protest Movement

1
The Protest Movement

• As it relates to the Vietnam War

2
An Era of Protest

• The idea of civil disobedience as a form of
  protest emerges as successful tactic of African
  American Civil Rights Movement
• Mario Savio leads the first college sit-in at UC
  Berkeley 12/64 protesting campus policies 800
  demonstrators were arrested

3
Vietnam War mobilizes youth

• -Draft 1965 5000 a month -gt 1967 50,000 a month
• -deferments college students
• -conscientious objectors
• -draft dodgers burning draft cards

4
Drafts Deferments

• The Draft made all 18 males eligible
• Men could defer based on education or profession
• This led to the working-class, poor, and
  minorities to be more heavily drafted

5
Ineligible classifications

• 1-A O Conscientious objector for noncombatant
  service only
• 2-S Service deferred enrolled in college
• 2-A Service deferred civilian occupation
• 3-A Service deferred has children
• 4-A Exempt completed military duty
• 4-F Disqualified physical or mental reasons

6
RESISTANCE

• Some became conscientious objectors
• Some refused to register for the draft
• Protesters harassed campus ROTC recruiters
• As draft went from 5000/mo to 50,000/mo, the
  draft resisters swelled

7
SDS Students for a Democratic Society April
1965 20,000 protests in DC Teachers start
protest at Univ. of Mich. 1967 100s of thousands
protest in NYC San Fran. (Doves) April 1968
Columbia Univ. students seize 5 buildings

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Who are the protesters?

• An amalgam
• University students
• Free speech movement at Berkeley and other
  schools
• Rooted in Civil Rights Movement
• 60s Youth
• Reject parents culture
• Leave it to Beaver-culture is viewed as sexist,
  racist, conformist, restrictive
• Poor
• Draft rules call up disproportionate numbers of
  black, Latino, poor white and Native American
  boys high school dropouts by far the most
  likely to serve and die in Vietnam
• Vietnam Veterans

9
-70 of American believe protests are acts of
disloyalty -Jan 1968 Hawks 62, Doves
22 -March 1968 Hawks 41, Doves 42
10
Democratic Convention - 1968

• A series of battles between protestors and
  Chicago police
• 598 arrests, 119 police injured, 100 police
  injured

11
Kent State
1970 -- protests erupt at Kent State Burn down
ROTC building Governor calls in National Guard,
students ordered to disperse Protestors throw
stones, sticks at soldiers Soldiers open fire --
4 students killed
12
Generation gap
Their parents WWII, Great Depression, trust in
govt., New Deal Them nuclear war, Vietnam,
affluence, comfortable, rock music, energetic

13
-Hippies rejection of conservative values -drug
use (LSD) -chaste v. free love, hardworking v.
unemployed materialistic v. inward looking,
sober v. drugs, homes v. crash pads, sedate v.
vibrant

14
Medias impact on attitudes

• Media becomes increasingly critical after Tet
  Offensive
• Cronkite in 68 not closer to victory
• June 1968 Life publishes photos of 242 Americans
  killed in Vietnam in one week

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Implications?

• Increased uneasiness in the U.S.
• Greater division between Hawks and Doves
• Increasing numbers consider themselves Doves
• Also fueled growing Conservatism as a reaction to
  the New Left
• Greater political pressure to get out of Vietnam