The Catonsville Nine May 1968
As American involvement in Vietnam increased throughout the 1960s, anti-draft demonstrations and protests grew in cities and on college campuses. An underground railroad for draft evaders was established, with safe houses and other havens identified in Canada. Protesters burned draft cards and urged others not to register for the draft, as was required by law. Inequities in the application of the draft law, including the perceived inequalities over deferments, were a major source of conflict. Protesters against the draft were not merely those of the draft age, many were from other groups, protesting the draft as a means of protesting the war.
Philip Berrigan was a former Josephite priest and opponent of the Vietnam War, who along with an artist named Tom Lewis and two others occupied the draft board in Baltimore in October of 1967, pouring chicken blood (purchased from a nearby market) on draft records. He was out on bail for this offense when he, Lewis, and seven others occupied the Selective Service board offices in Catonsville, Maryland in May 1968. All of the nine were Catholics, one, Thomas Melville, was a former priest and another, Berrigan’s brother Daniel, was a Jesuit Priest.
The Catonsville Nine, as they called themselves, removed 378 records files from the offices and burned them. Tried in October 1968, they were convicted of the destruction of government records and sentenced to eighteen years, after which four of the arsonists, including the Berrigan brothers, went underground rather than show up to serve their sentences. They would surface from time to time – especially Daniel Berrigan – to issue pronouncements or otherwise support antiwar activities. Berrigan became the first Catholic priest to ever occupy a position on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.
The Catonsville Nine were a polarizing group in several different areas. Catholic conservatives decried their activities and their continuing evasion of the authorities. Draft opponents supported their actions while supporters of the Vietnam War and the government in general called for harsher penalties. The Nine were the inspiration for numerous anti-draft protests in which protesters took similar actions, often fleeing the site of the protest to avoid arrest (the burning of a draft card, which is an official government document, was and is a federal crime).
The Catonsville Nine and the many copycat groups they inspired further divided the American people during the summer of 1968 along the lines of support for the war in Vietnam and support of American institutions. By the end of the summer, conservatives were of the opinion any protest against government actions was unpatriotic and providing aid to the enemy, encouraging the otherwise defeated North Vietnamese to keep fighting since America was polluted with enemies within.