Protest+Propaganda

= Vietnam War Protest- =

Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1964. The oppositon was headed by students across United States college campues. Student actvism was very effective due to the large number of people that fell under that category. The baby boomers were at the highest risk of being sent to war and had more of a reason to fight the draft than anyone. Increased exposure to the War through television also increased the anti-war movement. Televison allowed everyone to see what was going on in Vietnam and lead to the largest divide in our countries history. Those opposed to the war would attend marches, sit-ins, and mass protests all of which were non-violent in nature.

Reason fo War- Contain communism "domino theory" Opposition to War- "Not our war"

1963
In August 1963, the first organized Vietnam War protests took place in New York and Philadelphia held by American pacifists during the annual commemorations of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings

** 1964 ** On May, 2, 400 to 1000 students marched through Times Square, New York and another 700 in San Fransisco in the first major student demonstration against the war. Smaller numbers also marched in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin.

** 1965 ** 965 The first draft card burnings took place at Univeristy of California, Berkeley at student demonstrations in May organized by a new anti-war group, the Vietnam Day Committee, where a coffin was marched to the local Draft board office, a teach-in was attended by 30,000, and president Lyndon Johnson was burned in effigy.

**1966** Anti-war demonstrations were again held around the country and the world March 26 with 20,000 taking part in New York City. ** 1967 **  January 14 - 20,000-30,000 people staged a "Human be-in" anti-war event in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, near the Haight Ashbury neighborhood that had become the center of hippie activity.

** 1968 **  February: Gallup poll showed 35% approved of Johnson's handling of the war; 50% disapproved; the rest, no opinion. [NYT, 2/14/68] In another poll that month, 23% of Americans defined themselves as "doves" and 61% "hawks". //The Moratorium// demonstrations took place on October 15, 1969. Millions of Americans took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war. These were the first major demonstrations against the Nixon administration's handling of the war. On November 16, 1969 crowds estimated up to half a million people participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. with a similar demonstration being held in San Francisco, these protests being organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe) and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (SMC).
 * 1969**

National Student Strike more than 450 university, college and high school campuses across the country were shut by student strikes and both violent and non-violent protests that involved more than 4 million students in the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history.
 * 1970 **
 * Kent State/Cambodia Incursion Protest, Washington, D.C.** A week after the Kent State Shootings on 4 May 100,000 anit-war demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest the shooting of the students in Ohio and the Nixon administration's incursion into Cambodia. Even though the demonstration was quickly put together, protesters were still able to bring out thousands to march in the Capital. It was an almost spontaneous response to the events of the previous week. Police ringed the White House with buses to block the demonstrators from getting too close to the executive mansion. Early in the morning before the march, Nixon met with protesters briefly at the Lincoln Memorial but nothing was resolved and the protest went on as planned.

Propaganda
The Vietnam War protest propaganda focused on how horrible the war was and used imagery from the war. Many of the propaganda posters which were created were directly meant to frame the government as evil, intrusive and ruthless. Although like all propaganda, it was biased and was not completely true. At the time though these posters were very powerful. http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Exhibits/Track16.html#Poster
 * Click for more posters**