Archives
- Anti-War Movement: FBI FilesAnti-war movement files from the FBI.
- Antiwar and Radical History Project – Pacific NorthwestWe've collected hundreds of photographs and documents cataloguing the history of protest and activism against war--particularly, the Vietnam War--among students, soldiers, and residents of the Pacific Northwest. The galleries are organized by theme and event. Click on an image below to be taken to a special thematic album.
- Vietnam War: The War at HomeNational Archives collection of the war at home.
The War at Home: Resistance to the Vietnam War
This Oscar-nominated documentary tells the story of the impact of the war in Vietnam on one American town, using the Midwestern city of Madison, Wisconsin as a microcosm for the 1960s Antiwar Movement.
Source: Kanopy
No Greater Cause and Faces of Vietnam Protest
No Greater Cause chronicles the height of the anti-Vietnam war movement in the Bay Area. Footage shows the massive confrontations in Oakland between police and anti-draft protestors in l967; the rally of 100,000 against the war at Kezar Stadium in April, l967. On October 12, 1968, GI's for Peace organized and led a San Francisco march to end the war in Vietnam. Vietnam veteran Donald Duncan told demonstrators, "Protestors are the best friends the soldiers in Vietnam have." Harvey photographed this march led by active duty soldiers in uniform in full defiance of U.S. Army orders not to do that. The march reflected the increased numbers of soldiers rebelling against the war. During 1968, there were 155,536 individuals who were Away Without Leave (AWOL) from the U.S. Army. Of those 53,357 were designated desertions. On October 14, 1968, two days after the march, 27 prisoners in the Presidio brig staged a sit down protest over conditions there. Newspaper headlines read "Mutiny in the Presidio". The sit down protesters sang "We Shall Overcome" and were charged with desertion with a possible death penalty. No Greater Cause presents the speeches of the GI's at the October 12th march and rally at the Civic Center in San Francisco, CA. Included with the movie, is Faces of Vietnam Protest, Harvey Richards' color film of the massive anti-war marches in San Francisco in 1969 and 1970 accompanied by excerpts from the "Beyond Vietnam" speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Source: Kanopy
Perspectives
Put Your Bodies upon the Wheels
What began at colleges in the sixties as a rejection of parental authority and the Vietnam War rapidly evolved into a social movement, one with lasting influences in diverse areas of American life. As anti-Communist and Great Society Democrats lost control of the Vietnam War and the unrest in America's inner cities, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the chief organization of the campus-based New Left, gained strength, ending the decade with 100,000 members. From political protest, SDS and its faculty and intellectual allies moved to violent confrontation with university and government officials. Sit-ins, building takeovers, riots, and strikes hit more than 300 of the nation's 2,000 campuses in the 1960s. Between January 1969 and April 1970, young radicals bombed 5,000 police stations, corporate offices, military facilities, and campus buildings. Twenty-six thousand students were arrested and thousands injured or expelled while engaged in protest activities. Meanwhile 57,000 youths, many of whom lacked the financial means to attend college and secure draft deferments, died in Vietnam. Against a backdrop of student protest, the campus drug culture blossomed. In Put Your Bodies Upon the Wheels (a quote from Free Speech leader Mario Savio), Mr. Heineman plays no favorites in indicting foolishness and absurdity on both left and right. While his account may make us wonder what happened to our common sense in those years, his assessment of the causes and consequences of the sixties revolt is impossible to evade. Heineman's sensible survey of student protest in the 1960s neither celebrates upheaval nor condemns the reform impulse. As a result, members of both camps can read his chronicle of events at Berkeley and elsewhere with nostalgia and for insight. --Dallas Morning News
The War Within
The Vietnam war left a gash in the heart of America that can still be felt today. The War Within is the definitive history of America's internal battle over that war, and it chronicles, as no other book has done, the full story of how a powerful grassroots force--the antiwar movement--changed the course of American history. Tom Wells spent over ten years painstakingly researching government and antiwar-movement documents and interviewing virtually every key player from the Vietnam era--from Dean Rusk, William Westmoreland, and John Ehrlichman to Dave Dellinger, Philip Berrigan, and Daniel Ellsberg. Wells moves from protests at the White House gates to antiwar meeting halls, recreating the activities of the student factions, religious organizations, political splinter groups, and other organizations that waged campaigns of mass protest, draft resistance, civil disobedience, and sometimes political violence. Here, too, are the behind-the-scenes planning sessions of Democratic and Republican administrations as they sought to discredit and subvert the antiwar movement's efforts. Wells demonstrates that Washington took the antiwar movement seriously at every stage of the war and that the movement was instrumental in the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia. He also reveals how the movement's growing influence prompted the Watergate fiasco. And he graphically conveys the internecine conflicts that plagued the antiwar movement and its leaders. In these pages the human drama of the antiwar era unfolds through the words of its participants, both the famous and the forgotten. Wells not only captures the spirit of these tumultuous times but also shows how the events of twenty-five years ago shaped the America of today.
An American Ordeal
An American Ordeal is a comprehensive interpretive history that covers the anti-war movement in the USA throughout the entire Vietnam era. This study offers a narrative of the struggle that took place on the home front, even as the war itself was being waged in South-east Asia. Portraying the movement as a social force that energized people culturally yet failed to develop enduring political strength, the authors view the war as part of the long tradition of peace activism in America, as well as a process that ultimately spurred citizens to take decisive action against their government's policy.
What's Going On?
A turning point in twentieth-century American history, the war in Vietnam raised profound questions that affected every aspect of life in the United States. A dramatic case study of the political passions, spiritual pain, and cultural divisions produced by the war, What's Going On? California and the Vietnam Era provides for the first time a balanced and personal look at the Vietnam years in California, revealing their impact on American life and culture. Wallace Stegner believed that California "is like the rest of the United States, only more so," and in this book we discover the truth behind that sentiment. Conceived in tandem with the Oakland Museum of California's innovative national touring exhibition of the same title, this absorbing collection of essays captures the essence of a unique time and place. The exhibition itself centers on events between 1965 and 1975 and examines the legacy of those years on the state today through some 500 historical artifacts--documents, news accounts, photographs, film clips, musical excerpts, and personal stories presented in multiple formats. These accompanying essays delve deeper into the themes raised by the exhibit, looking into such topics as the relationship between Cold War politics, the Vietnam War, and California's economy; social activism from the Right and the Left; the rise of the feminist, African American, Chicano, and veterans' movements; Vietnamese refugees; media images of the war; and the legacy of those years on the entire nation.
The Catonsville Nine
On May 17th, 1968, a group of Catholic antiwar activists burst into a draft board in suburban Baltimore, stole hundreds of Selective Service records (which they called "death certificates"), and burned the documents in a fire fueled by homemade napalm. The bold actions of the ''CatonsvilleNine'' quickly became international news and captured headlines throughout the summer and fall of 1968 when the activists, defended by radical attorney William Kunstler, were tried in federal court.In The Catonsville Nine, Shawn Francis Peters, a Catonsville native, offers the first comprehensive account of this key event in the history of 1960's protest. While thousands of supporters thronged the streets outside the courthouse, the Catonsville Nine - whose ranks included activist priestsPhilip and Daniel Berrigan - delivered passionate indictments of the war in Vietnam and the brutality of American foreign policy. The proceedings reached a stirring climax, as the nine activists led the entire courtroom (the judge and federal prosecutors included) in the Lord's Prayer. Peters givesreaders vivid, blow-by-blow accounts of the draft raid, the trial, and the ensuing manhunt for the Berrigans, George Mische, and Mary Moylan, who went underground rather than report to prison. He also examines the impact of Daniel Berrigan's play, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, and the largerinfluence of this remarkable act of civil disobedience. More than 40 years after they stormed the draft board, the Catonsville Nine are still invoked by both secular and religious opponents of militarism.Based on a wealth of sources, including archival documents, the activists' previously unreleased FBI files, and a variety of eyewitness accounts, The Catonsville Nine tells a story as relevant and instructive today as it was in 1968.
Disobeying Orders: GI Resistance to the Vietnam War
Disobeying Orders: GI Resistance to the Vietnam War tells the story of Vietnam Veterans who came home from the war committed anti-war activists. Interviews with Black and white veterans, including a Navy nurse who was court-martialed for her opposition to the war, are woven with archival images and music to bring this little know history to the fore.
Source: Kanopy