In 1964, US Destroyer ships were attacked by a Northern Vietnamese fleet, sparking President Johnson to declare war on North Vietnam. Upon initiating the war, many skeptics questioned the motive of war, and if it was actually meant to deter the spread of communism. Among these dissenters was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
The Free Speech Movement, an impetus to the creation of Students for a Democratic Society, first started on the campuses of UC Berkeley, where a ban on the political organization was enacted. In response, many students organized to challenge this rule, leading to similar movements in universities across the US, including the creation of SDS at the University of Michigan. This group went on to issue the Port Huron Statement, which attacked US policy in the Cold War and foreign affairs. This movement set the precedent that students would be an ever-growing force in public opinion and dissent.
The Free Speech Movement, an impetus to the creation of Students for a Democratic Society, first started on the campuses of UC Berkeley, where a ban on the political organization was enacted. In response, many students organized to challenge this rule, leading to similar movements in universities across the US, including the creation of SDS at the University of Michigan. This group went on to issue the Port Huron Statement, which attacked US policy in the Cold War and foreign affairs. This movement set the precedent that students would be an ever-growing force in public opinion and dissent.
In response, the University of Washington later organized a strike to pay tribute to the Kent State Shooting. This protest, led by radical left students, occurred on May 5, 1970, and involved around 6,000 students, all of whom marched on I-5 towards the Federal Courthouse. Many students carried peace signs as well as protest signs, denouncing the Vietnam War while also seeking compensation for those in the Kent State Shooting. Upon arriving at the courthouse, students gave speeches and demonstrations, and then returned to campus, boycotting classes and protesting on school grounds. Following this nonviolent demonstration, however, tensions between the state troopers and students grew. As students began to organize another march the next day, troopers were already prepared on the highway with riot gear, ready to stop the protest. That day, many students were hit with nightsticks or thrown over fences by the police, causing the remaining students to encourage violent action, yelling “smash the state” and other anti-government phrases. In the end, the protest was able to generate noticeable political dissent, and students from the protest met with Nixon, who assured that he would consider their opinion and stop militarily intervening in protests.
Regarding the Vietnam War; Even though Executive Order 9981 officially desegregated the armed forces in 1948, the Vietnam War was the one of the first major conflicts in which black men were fully integrated into the army. Although change was slow, it was only with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 in which black men began to be treated as equals, friends, and brothers. Many white and black men developed close bonds as you might have seen in Tom Hank's Forrest Gump (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rT5fYMfEUc). In this scene, you can see many black men in the same division as Forrest including a black sergeant. The Vietnam War marked greater integration of black men in society, but by no means was segregation completely eliminated.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/opinion/racism-vietnam-war.html
I thought this blog post was really interesting as I had never heard about the Kent State Shootings before. Apparently, the National Guard was called in after half a week of anti-war rallies and other events to protest Nixon's administration. During these events, students burned copies of the Constitution, defaced police vehicles, and broke store windows. I wanted to know what directly caused the guards to fire on a crowd of unarmed students. The National Guard had told the students that the protests were to be dispersed, but the crowd did not listen. The men were somewhat trapped in the common area because of the pressure from the crowd so they were trying to retreat back up a hill. While retreating, they turned around and fired their guns, some into the ground or into the air, but some into the crowd of unarmed students. There is still debate as to whether the guards' lives were actually in danger and their shooting was justified, but they did issue a statement of regret and the state of Ohio negotiated a monetary settlement with the victims and their families. I also was interested by the photograph in your post, which I found is a famous photo by John Filo. It shows the body of the student Jeffrey Miller, one of the victims of the shooting. Filo won a Pulitzer prize for the photo and to this day, it remains a very powerful image and reminder of the event.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy
https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/thirteen_seconds_dozens_of_bullets_one_explosive_photo.php
This post was super interesting to me considering how this all started at UC Berkeley, which is very local. The Vietnam student protests are often referred to when people discuss political action by the young people of this country. It is interesting to me that the school that started a movement called "The Free Speech Movement" made the news in 2017 for protesting an alt-right speaker and having his speech cancelled instead of just allowing the free speech. This shows a shift in the culture on the campus from free political opinion and speech to only allowing left leaning speech.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/01/milo-yiannopoulos-uc-berkeley-event-cancelled