Hi I was just wondering what was it like being a college student during the 1960's-70's.How was facing the Vietnam War Protests?Were any witness against the war.I know I have probably asked this already I just want more insight it is all really interesing.Even today their are many college protests just think about England and the tution spikes .Young people are angry because I think my geneeration feels cheated out of having a secure future.
College and protests
by d 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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james_woods
Male JWs at the time were more worried about having to go to prison over the draft than about the protests.
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Band on the Run
I was an antiwar activists. It has a certain romanticism in people's minds but I recall many ugly parts. There was disgust with segregation in the South. Those activists tended to move to the antiwar movement and later the women's movement and gay rights.
My college was shut in 1968 by college strikes. I helped take over a building in 1970. It was childish. Students had these shared middle class values. The Beatles were important and doing well in school was a given. We rubbed shoulders with the old left, however. The building take over was silly but no harm. Some outside agitators joined us. We all wanted to go back to studying to get into Harvard Medical school. The building had exquisite stained glass windows and a priceless library. People ended up staying to protect the place.
The draft was awful but so is a volunteer army recruiting the poor. Most middle class kids who saw a selective service lawyer could get deferments. Not so blacks and poor whites. It was a wide umbrella.
I attended every mass protest in NY and DC. The buses we took to DC were death traps.
Countless books have covered this. I still believe in the core values I had at that point in time. Obama's election was pure triumph. Yet we are still in Afghanistan and iraq. I have no doubt that if the draft were revivied bigger hell would break out.
Many films have covered this, too. When I see my campus on film or documentaries, I break into tears. If I had to do it over again, I would strike harder at the core of the Establishment and pick less on a university that was giving me a first class world education. I would run for office, engage in fund raising. The protest that I respect the most was the Moratorium. A Harvard divinity student conceived of the idea of all Americans taking ten minutes from wherever they were at a certain time and walk out and meet with others in silence. Millions of Americans from sea to shining sea participated. High school kids, factory workers, even some military people. It showed broad based support against the war.
I was shocked b/c all elite colleges competed to have the most dramatic shutdowns and peace-ins ( a group getting together all day with teachers explaining how we got in the war, etc.). The vast majority of college students favored the war in polling. The elites captured the attention of the media. It is sort of like Tianmen Square and the role of Beijing University.
It was also very European, too. France had even bigger protests than the United States in 1968, I believe. Sorbonne students took the lead. Streets were torn up to make weapons. Germany had student terrorists. I don't think Viet Nam explains it all. When I watched Jim Crow on TV and saw the fire hoses turned on little kids in Birmingham, plus the bombings, I had enough. It was respectable to protect.
Most of the Weathermen came in and received minimal sentences. Several were admitted to the NYS bar and became lawyers at large corporate firms.
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miseryloveselders
BOTR, thanks for sharing that. Very interesting.
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JeffT
What BOTR said.
I graduated from high school in 1969 and didn't become a JW until I graduated from college (Washington State University) we had all sorts of protests, sit-ins building take-overs, blocked streets etc. Look back on it I'm sure Richard Nixon was shaking in his boots at what was going on in Pullman, WA. One of the anti-war protests descended into an out and out riot when some Latina gave an impassioned speech about boycotting grapes. We ended up looting three grocery stores to destroy their grapes. Yeah that was real non-violent.
A friend of mine went to jail for torching the National Guard Armory in Lewiston, Idaho.
Obama's election was pure triumph. Yet we are still in Afghanistan and iraq.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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Band on the Run
My favorite WHO song, their closing number in concert. WHO concerts are pure bliss. Today I can purchase WHO albums without worrying about explaining the covers to my mom. Long live Rock!
Remember Blowing in the Wind, 1,2,3,4, we don't want your f......ng war. One sight is right. One side is wrong. We are on the side of the Viet Cong. Hey, hey LBJ, how many boys did you kill today?
I was in the streets after Kent State, attended the funeral of one of the slain students. An emergency march was called for that Saturday in DC. The NYC FM radio rock station coordinated rides and passed on info to the organizers. I was going to march even if no permit was granted. The time was short they did not have a permit. An exemption was granted. People were very angry. As we marched by the White House, I decided to do the tourist thing, too, and checked it out. It was surrounded by a vast sea of buses, about five deep. There were soldiers with rifles positioned on the front lawn. It was so sad. Some ultra left wing nuts or FBI provacateurs started to upend the buses and throw stones. I never ran so fast in my entire life.
The ABA acted as observers. They were position about every eight feet and wore black armbands. Notice I reported it as Kent State, not Jackson State. More people were killed at Jackson State but everyone commented no one would remember them b/c they were black at a black college. Remember the woman bent over the bodies crying in anguish.
I became involved in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine through the grape boycott. Columbia was my undergrad. A few blocks away the largest cathedral in the world exists. B/c it was off-campus and not on Broadway, I never paid attention. The subway went down at Columbia's stop and I had to walk downtown to the next stop. As I walked, I passed this cathedral. A placard announced that Geraldo Rivera and Cesar Chavez were preaching on Sunday. I came in from NJ to see Chavez. I fell into ectasy after my Witness experience.
I purchased a very nice Grape boycott poster. It was my pride on my wall. The graphics of a bunch of grapes were very good. After staring at it for about two and a half years, I one day noticed a skull in the grapes! I tore it off my wall and my younger brother was given a grape boycott. Everyone assumed I saw the skull in the grapes. I did not like lettuce then anyway.
Far left people would tell me it was a great thing to be beaten b/c it radicalizes you. You will no longer be a liberal.