Protests and Social Movements of the 60s

Antiwar Movement:

The Vietnam War was met with a great amount of outspoken frustration by many organizations in the country. People did not understand why the United States was fighting a war in a country that nobody had even heard of before the war. People did not understand the motives behind the war and simply saw the youth of the United States going off to war in a distant land. People were very frustrated with the situation and many movements voiced their opinion about the war.

Many leaders of the Civil Rights Movement voiced their thoughts about the war and were not pleased with it. Leaders such as Martin Luther King believed the United States needed to focus on the issues at home before they engaged in a war abroad. Leaders also expressed the dissatisfaction with young African Americans being the first to be drafted as well as being placed on the front lines.

The most outspoken and influential group was the youth that were previously involved in the Free Speech Movement. After their victory over the Berkeley administration the Free Speech Movement needed a new challenge and the Vietnam War was a perfect opponent to stand up against. They were also dissatisfied over the drafting of young adults and having to fight a war that they did not really understand.

The Antiwar Movement could also be seen when the two sides of society came to a head when people from the hippies movement and the Free Speech movement came together to protest the war. Each had staged their own movement trying to change or remove themselves from mainstream America but removing the United States from the Vietnam War was a cause that both believed was necessary to fight.

The Students for a Democratic Society was the largest of the many organizations that opposed the Vietnam War. The group gained a large amount of support from college students after it had published the "The Port Huron Statement," which was a lengthy expression of the organization's philosophy. Most of the protests early on where very orderly, legal, and peaceful but the failure to affect American policy caused them to become more violent. People in the movement began to become very frustrated which led to them being involved in unauthorized marches, student strikes, attacks on Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs, and occupation of campus buildings. Furthermore the organization harassed on-campus recruiters representing the military, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Dow Chemical Company that manufactured napalm for the military. The most popular rallying cry for the Student for a Democratic Societies was, “Make Love--Not War!” Which eventually became the motto for the antiwar movement.

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