1968 Protests

1968: Year of Protest

1. What was the reasoning behind so many student and youth led demonstrations?

America’s strengths allowed protestors to decry America’s weaknesses.  The reasoning behind student demonstrations was multifaceted.  Peace movements and pacifism were not new to the United States.  Quakers and Unitarians have long held pacifist beliefs.  In 1957 a Quaker led group formed to protest nuclear armaments, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (“SANE”) and its most prominent member was Dr. Benjamin Spock.  In 1959, a group known as the Student Peace Union (“SPU”) formed along similar principals as SANE.  But SPU was not driven like the Students for Democratic Society (“SDS”) and quietly faded away.  The SDS, founded in 1960, was an offshoot from an older socialist organization.  Their statement of purpose read: “We are people of this generation, bred in modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably at the world we inherit.”  The SDS formed a “New Left” with the goals of civil rights, peace, and universal economic security.  In 1962 the “Port Huron Statement,” adopted at the SDS annual convention, criticized the United States for failing to bring about international peace, discrimination and many other facets of American life.  It advocated non-violent civil disobedience and encouraged “participatory democracy,” all with in the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.  After the McCarthy Era, the political pendulum swung back from the right to the left.  University students were being exposed to socialist ideas.  Young, financially stable, away from their parents’ restrictions, and with no life responsibilities, students were free to explore alternative concepts.  The ideals of the Progressives segued well into the heated platforms of the SDS and young people, told they could make a difference in the world, took to the streets with high hopes.  By 1968, agitators had succeeded in radicalizing students across the country and protests hit their peak. 

While the ideals of peace, economic security and the end of segregation and discrimination are very worthy, the movement had a very dark side.  Violent, terrorist groups, like the Weather Underground, a splinter group of the SDS, emerged that bombed buildings and robbed banks.  Their avowed purpose was to destroy the United States.  The popular culture of the time also glamorized the protestors.  Artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and events like the Woodstock festival promoted the “counterculture” movement.  Dr. Timothy Leary advocated LSD and other psychedelic drugs to “develop a higher level of consciousness” and many popular songs advocated drug use (Jefferson Airplane’s refrain “feed your head” being one example).  Protestors included idealists who sincerely wanted to promote traditional Progressive ideals; socialists who wanted to radicalize impressionable students; emerging minority groups advocating their rights; draft eligible young men; and those who were just along for the ride.  There were groups who decided to form communes and live off the land, animal rights groups and popular music lovers coming to hear their favorite groups support the cause and party.  I believe that Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead described it best in his lyric from Truckin’: “lately it occurs to me:  what a long strange trip it’s been.”  It was a time where a large number of young people didn’t have to work or go to war and what began as an idealist movement turned into something darker, and the older, war veteran generation viewed their behavior as self-indulgent, subversive and un-American.

2. Why do you think it was mainly students who led these protests? What was the significance in students leading the demonstrations?

Looking back to the post World War II period and the effect that the G.I. Bill had on higher education, it is easy to understand that by the 1960s, the expectation existed that middle class families would have the wherewithal to send their children to college.  Beginning in the 1950s and early 60s, college students had the time and the resources to volunteer as civil rights activists and assisted leaders like Martin Luther King in non-violent demonstrations in the South.  These students took great risks and often were injured as a result of their presence with black protestors.  The effectiveness of non-violent civil disobedience in the black civil rights movement in the South encouraged other groups to form and enlist students to aid them.  Students had the time, opportunity and idealism needed to propel many grass roots movement off the ground.  Young people, raised in comfort and made aware that they were far better off than the majority of the people in the world felt that it was their duty to work for social justice.  After World War II, with decolonization and the power vacuum that existed in third world countries, congress proposed setting up an organization that brought American technology and know-how to non-industrialized countries.  The idea was that by helping to stabilize the economies of these emerging nations, socialist revolutions could be avoided.  Young college graduates with a zest for non-profit service were viewed as the ideal candidates to enlist in this organization.  In President Kennedy’s inaugural address, he challenged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”  When he founded the Peace Corps in 1961, it became a model for global activism.  This idealism evolved from government driven programs to grass root activities organized and promoted by the students themselves.  Many students in the 60s were disenchanted with the Democratic Party and felt that “the Establishment” was not acting quickly enough for them.  Activist students were excited by the idea of organizing for a cause and feeling the clout of political power.  This was a life lesson in politics and the effectiveness of grassroots organization that has its roots in the Progressive movement of the prior century.  In the 1890s, Progressives were middle class men and women who had the wherewithal to donate their time and efforts.  Now, it was students who picked up the banner.

3. How successful were the student protest movements in bringing reform and resolution to issues of the late 1960s, such as the Vietnam War?

The student protest movements were successful in the sense that they generated a great deal of publicity for their cause.  Media coverage and popular culture encouraged student activists to see their protests as an agent for change.  Occupation of the administration building at Columbia and other “sit ins” yielded results and encouraged similar forms of protest by students.  The media coverage helped bring the topic of the Vietnam war to the public.  However, many public figures were also critical of America’s involvement in Vietnam and spread the message through more traditional avenues.  Walter Cronkite questioned Johnson’s administration’s honesty about the depth of U.S. commitment to the war after the battle of Tonkin.  Student demonstrations and affiliation with a multitude of causes such as the anti-war movement, civil rights, women’s rights entrenched the belief that student activism was a powerful tool for change.  Many ideas of the sixties migrated to mainstream culture and have been adopted.  So in the sense that the protests help bring media attention to various political issues, students helped to bring reform.  Yet, it must be noted that when the American public as a whole viewed the injustices against southern blacks, or the killings at MyLai, they went to the polls and made it known they would no longer tolerate these acts with their votes.

4. If you had been a college student on politically active campus in 1968, would you have joined in the protests explain why or why not?

As a student in 1968, my gender would have much to do with my political activism.  I would have been interested in the Feminist and Women’s Rights movement as well as the peace movement.  I would have been a member of the Peace and Freedom party and hoped that when I graduated, I would be accepted into the Peace Corps.  I must confess that I am a “true believer” and that the call to action for social justice begins with one step, one person at a time, and surely a drop of the ocean will become a tidal wave over time.  The assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy would have devastated and discouraged me; the real horror of violence would be made real right before my eyes through the media.  Then the brutal shock of seeing Jack Ruby murder Lee Harvey Oswald, President Kennedy’s assassin, on the television screen would have a profound impact on my views toward violence and I may well have been a pacifist.  As a pacifist, I would have volunteered as a signature gatherer for petitions and attended political rallies, volunteering for favored candidates, like Bobby Kennedy.  I would not have occupied a campus building nor engaged in rioting because I believe that while those activities may have a short term gain, it is wrong to disrespect the property and the persons of others because they hold different beliefs than you.  I would disagree with the New Left in that they appeared to have no room for discourse and believed in an ideology that was as rigid as the “Establishment” they revolted against.  Further, the cultural symbols of many student movements (free love, drug use and hedonism), promoted the loss of dignity of the individual and cheapened relationships between men and women.  It is the same argument here as the one between the Suffragists and the New Woman in the 1920s.  Does the freedom to behave irresponsibly equal equality?  Kris Kristopherson’s lyrics performed by Janis Joplin express the idea so well:  “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”  In conclusion, I would have been politically involved, but not to the degree that many activists were.  Like Dr. Zhivago, I approved of many of their ideals, but for the "wrong reasons."