19. The Vietnam War Protests
Although most people associate the protests against the Vietnam War with the mid-to-late 1960s, the first occurred in the United States in 1955. American merchant seamen protested the use of American ships to transport foreign troops and equipment to Vietnam. Public burning of draft cards began in the spring of 1964. By the end of that year, coordinated nationwide protests against the war took place. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson was hung in effigy during an anti-war protest at Berkeley. In 1967 Vietnam Veterans against the war formed to participate in protests. Some protests became violent, incited by both police and outside agitators.
Americans of earlier generations, the veterans of World War II and Korea, were largely dismayed by the protests. America became polarized about the war, with conservatives largely supporting it and liberals in opposition. Most liberals also supported the Civil Rights Movement, another divisive issue, in both North and South. Protests which occurred in the 1967 summer of riots, and the following year after the assassination of Martin Luther King, often turned into violent confrontations. In 1968 the world saw the police response to an anti-war protest at the Democratic National Convention disintegrate into what one journalist called a “police riot“. Later investigations placed the blame for the violence squarely on the Chicago Police. Television showed it all.