"I Ain't No Fortunate Son"

Students and the Anti-War Movement

Though US involvement in the affairs of Vietnam would begin in 1945, it would take some time before there would be substantial opposition from the public. Protests towards American involvement would begin in the early 1960's as ground troops began to be deployed into Vietnam. As the conflict and the American presence escalated, protests began to grow. In April 1965, 25,000 protesters participated in a march on Washington, D.C. coordinated by Students for a Democratic Society and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, marking one of the marches on the capitol [1]. As the war progressed, opposition continued to grow yet there was little gains being made. Everything would change in the Tet Offensive.
 
In 1968, the Tet Offensive caught the American and South Vietnamese troops off guard as masses of North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces overwhelmed them. Though communist forces had major success at first, they were eventually routed, suffering heavy casualties and were unable to hold onto their gains. Yet the damage had been done as a majority of the American public began to turn on the war. While the US had victory on the ground, the people back home saw only a never ending conflict with massive casualties. A poll showed 50 percent of Americans disapproving of the handling of the war, marking a definitive change in the perception of the war [2]. From 1968 onward, American forces began to lower. This was a victory for the anti-war movement, but it would not be their defining moment just yet.
 
Students were an integral part of the anti-war movement, oftentimes being some of the most active and important members. In 1970, protests erupted across campuses in the United States as the Nixon administration expanded the war into Cambodia. This would be fateful for Kent State University, as violence exploded for days. The violence would continue, eventually necessitating armed National Guard troops to restore peace. On May 3, troops opened fire on a crowd of protesters, killing 4 and wounding 9. The shooting would set off another wave of protests on over 1,000 campuses involving 2 million students [3]. The Kent State massacre would prove to be one of the most infamous moments of the Vietnam War and the zenith for protests as the war slowly began to end. 
 
[1]Heineman, Kenneth J. Campus wars: the peace movement at American state universities in the
Vietnam era. New York: Univ. Press, 2010.
[2] History.com Staff. "Vietnam War Protests." History.com. 2010. Accessed April 23, 2017.
http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-protests.
[3] Heineman, Campus Wars 249

This page has paths:

Contents of this path:

This page references: