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Apr 29, 2024 · KELLY: Matthew Vickers again at Occidental College, which, like so many campuses, saw major protests during the Vietnam War. In April of 1969, hundreds of students protested military...
- Brianna Scott
A protest on campus on May 4 was ordered to disperse, with demonstrators refusing and some throwing rocks at the troops. Continue reading. Some members of the National Guard then fired on the...
Sep 26, 2017 · The anti-war movement may have had its actual beginning with an all-night “teach-in” on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan on March 24, 1965. All classes at the university were cancelled, and a series of seminars and speeches on Vietnam issues continued for 12 hours.
Campus unrest is one of the most-remembered aspects of the Vietnam War era. While college students were not the only ones to protest, student activism played a key role in bringing antiwar ideas to the broader public.
- Antiwar Movement Begins
- Widespread Disillusionment
- Vietnam War Protest Songs
- Political Consequences of Vietnam War Protests
- Silent Majority
- Vietnam War Ends
- Sources
In August 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, and President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. By the time U.S. planes began regular bombings of North Vietnam in February 1965, some critics had begun to question the government’s assertion that ...
By November 1967, American troop strength in Vietnam was approaching 500,000 and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. The Vietnam War was costing the United States some $25 billion per year, and disillusionment was beginning to reach greater sections of the taxpaying public. More casualties were reported in Vietnam every d...
The Vietnam War protest inspired many popular songs that became an anthem for that generation. Phil Ochs wrote “What Are You Fighting For?” in 1963 and “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” in 1965. Other songs whose very titles were a protest themselves included Pete Seeger’s “Bring ‘Em Home” (1966) and Joan Baez’s “Saigon Bride” (1967). Nina Simone’s “Backl...
The launch of the Tet Offensiveby North Vietnamese communist troops in January 1968, and its success against U.S. and South Vietnamese troops, sent waves of shock and discontent across the home front and sparked a most intense period of antiwar protests. By February 1968, a Gallup poll showed only 35 percent of the population approved of Johnson’s ...
The following year, Nixon claimed in a famous speech that antiwar protesters constituted a small—albeit vocal—minority that should not be allowed to drown out the “silent majority” of Americans. Nixon’s war policies divided the nation still further, however: In December 1969, the government instituted the first U.S. draft lottery since World War II...
As antiwar fervor grew, in mid-1971, Daniel Ellsberg brought about the publication of the Pentagon Papers—which revealed previously confidential details about the war’s conduct—and misconduct by government and military officials. Ellsberg called the Pentagon Papers “evidence of a quarter-century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen el...
Vietnam War. Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium: University of Washington. Anti-War Protests of the 1960s-70s. The White House Historical Association. Anti-War Movement. PBS.
But the students all acted from a common belief that the Vietnam War was wrong. As that conflict escalated, the protests grew in strength, and some turned violent. They also triggered a...
Sep 8, 2017 · Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The...
