I.

Introduction

Anti-Vietnam War Movement, political movement protesting United States involvement in the Vietnam War (1959-1975). The anti-Vietnam War movement was the most vocal and sustained antiwar movement in the nation’s history. It began in the early 1960s in response to increased U.S. participation in Vietnam. The movement eventually encompassed thousands of different groups and millions of people who participated in loosely organized protests to convince their fellow citizens, as well as their elected officials, that the war was wrong. By 1972 opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam had become a mainstream, if still controversial, political viewpoint.

The war protesters were inspired, in part, by the citizen-activism of the civil rights movement, in which ordinary people worked to change government policy. Most demonstrators practiced nonviolent tactics that included marches, protest rallies, teach-ins, and petitions. In addition, hundreds of thousands of young men refused to cooperate with the military draft; they burned draft cards and declared themselves conscientious objectors (individuals who refuse to serve in the military because they oppose war in any form). Many refused to obey draft notices telling them to report for possible military duty. A much smaller group of antiwar protesters embraced more radical tactics; they disrupted draft boards, bombed and destroyed government property, and declared their support for America’s Communist enemies in Vietnam.