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A Brief History Of
Anti-War Movements in the U.S.
Vietnam protesters carrying anti-war signs march from Market Street to Golden Gate Park's Kezar Stadium in San Francisco for a rally called "Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam."
By Frances Romero Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009
Oct. 7 marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan a war that has slouched from campaign to crusade to near-quagmire as the U.S. has rethought and redefined its strategy in the War on Terror. According to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, 53% of Americans now say that things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan. And few are saying that as vehemently those who have picked the anniversary as their day to demonstrate. Student organizations on 25 college campuses, along with members of anti-war groups like the coalition Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) and Veterans for Peace, are holding rallies on Oct. 7; others have already descended on Washington. On Oct. 5, 61 people were arrested in a demonstration in the capital, including Cindy Sheehan, the one-time face of the Iraq anti-war movement, who chained herself to the fence of the White House.
Demonstrations such as these against the nation's military adventures have cropped up at nearly every important conflict in U.S. history. The Peace Democrats of the 1860s became pejoratively known as Copperheads after a Southeastern snake that attacks without warning for their opposition to the Civil War. Peace Democrats were mainly recent settlers of the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana and Illinois) with Southern roots and an interest in maintaining the Union, and made common cause with other Northern groups who opposed emancipation and the draft. The anti-draft riots of 1863 dramatized in the 2002 Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York were sparked by opposition to the government's recently-passed Conscription Act and, in part, by fears among Irish immigrants that freed slaves would come North and take jobs away.
Conscription would play a recurring role in protests for the next century. At the start of World War I, Socialists and isolationists opposed the draft on the grounds of civil liberties: Charles Schenck, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of America, was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for distributing leaflets urging men to resist the draft. In the famous Schenck v. the United States, Schenck argued (unsuccessfully) that conscription was the equivalent of "involuntary servitude" and thus prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.
World War II proved less of a platform for anti-war activists; the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, coupled with the global effort to halt Fascism and a determination to pull the country out of the Great Depression combined to limit antiwar sentiment. Vietnam, however, was an entirely different ballgame. Unpopular from the start, the war incited the most vocal and widespread anti-war sentiment in American history. Draft-dodging, protests, the burning of draft-cards and American flags abounded in a protest movement that had something for everyone. Young adults from middle class backgrounds hippies allied with working-class opponents of the war who felt an expensive war in a foreign land did not serve their interests. Antiwar protests built on the momentum of the civil-rights movement and borrowed many of its nonviolent tactics: among the iconic images from the time are flowers in guns, Abbie Hoffman and the Chicago Seven at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, sit-ins, bed-ins, peace-ins and the ubiquitous peace sign. The 1970 shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University during a protest against the invasion of Cambodia became a rallying cry (and the inspiration for Neil Young's haunting song "Ohio").
Not until George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did the peace movement come near the levels of anger that defined the Vietnam War. Cindy Sheehan held vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch, demanding an audience with the man who ordered the war in Iraq that killed her 24-year-old son. Michael Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 created a firestorm of anti-war and anti-Bush sentiment, while thousands of civilian protesters have staged "die-ins" in Washington and across the country to give a vivid picture of the costs of the Iraq war. As that conflict appears to draw to a close, however, the U.S. military is again focusing on Afghanistan. And as it does, those who want the war over are not far behind.
A Brief History Of Anti-War Movements in the U.S. - TIME
Anti-War Movements in the U.S.
Vietnam protesters carrying anti-war signs march from Market Street to Golden Gate Park's Kezar Stadium in San Francisco for a rally called "Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam."
By Frances Romero Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009
Oct. 7 marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan a war that has slouched from campaign to crusade to near-quagmire as the U.S. has rethought and redefined its strategy in the War on Terror. According to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, 53% of Americans now say that things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan. And few are saying that as vehemently those who have picked the anniversary as their day to demonstrate. Student organizations on 25 college campuses, along with members of anti-war groups like the coalition Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) and Veterans for Peace, are holding rallies on Oct. 7; others have already descended on Washington. On Oct. 5, 61 people were arrested in a demonstration in the capital, including Cindy Sheehan, the one-time face of the Iraq anti-war movement, who chained herself to the fence of the White House.
Demonstrations such as these against the nation's military adventures have cropped up at nearly every important conflict in U.S. history. The Peace Democrats of the 1860s became pejoratively known as Copperheads after a Southeastern snake that attacks without warning for their opposition to the Civil War. Peace Democrats were mainly recent settlers of the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana and Illinois) with Southern roots and an interest in maintaining the Union, and made common cause with other Northern groups who opposed emancipation and the draft. The anti-draft riots of 1863 dramatized in the 2002 Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York were sparked by opposition to the government's recently-passed Conscription Act and, in part, by fears among Irish immigrants that freed slaves would come North and take jobs away.
Conscription would play a recurring role in protests for the next century. At the start of World War I, Socialists and isolationists opposed the draft on the grounds of civil liberties: Charles Schenck, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of America, was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for distributing leaflets urging men to resist the draft. In the famous Schenck v. the United States, Schenck argued (unsuccessfully) that conscription was the equivalent of "involuntary servitude" and thus prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.
World War II proved less of a platform for anti-war activists; the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, coupled with the global effort to halt Fascism and a determination to pull the country out of the Great Depression combined to limit antiwar sentiment. Vietnam, however, was an entirely different ballgame. Unpopular from the start, the war incited the most vocal and widespread anti-war sentiment in American history. Draft-dodging, protests, the burning of draft-cards and American flags abounded in a protest movement that had something for everyone. Young adults from middle class backgrounds hippies allied with working-class opponents of the war who felt an expensive war in a foreign land did not serve their interests. Antiwar protests built on the momentum of the civil-rights movement and borrowed many of its nonviolent tactics: among the iconic images from the time are flowers in guns, Abbie Hoffman and the Chicago Seven at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, sit-ins, bed-ins, peace-ins and the ubiquitous peace sign. The 1970 shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University during a protest against the invasion of Cambodia became a rallying cry (and the inspiration for Neil Young's haunting song "Ohio").
Not until George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did the peace movement come near the levels of anger that defined the Vietnam War. Cindy Sheehan held vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch, demanding an audience with the man who ordered the war in Iraq that killed her 24-year-old son. Michael Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 created a firestorm of anti-war and anti-Bush sentiment, while thousands of civilian protesters have staged "die-ins" in Washington and across the country to give a vivid picture of the costs of the Iraq war. As that conflict appears to draw to a close, however, the U.S. military is again focusing on Afghanistan. And as it does, those who want the war over are not far behind.
A Brief History Of Anti-War Movements in the U.S. - TIME
