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The Free Speech Movement: The Student Movement

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In 1954 America thought it to be their duty as “the watchdog of democracy” to enter into the Vietnam War, in order to fight the impending Fall of Communism. Although as the battle continued American society began to separate, as many people started to oppose the war and question the justification behind it. There were many factors, movements and events that helped facilitate the end of the Vietnam War. Though the Student Movement in particular was a very influential opposing force. This was due to many dynamics, such as the magnitude of their support, the method and nature of their protest and the fact that it was their generation that suffered the greatest losses. To a certain extent the Student Movement played a significant role in forcing …show more content…

So in 1962, the SDS formed the program of the New Left portion of society, which highlighted the failures of the government and the need for a more radical approach to protest America’s involvement. In 1964 The Student Movement, as a whole, gained support nationwide, as a result of the “Free Speech Movement” organized by students fighting for Civil Rights, as it was a physical display of the power that students can have on society if organized correctly. Then in February 1965, the movement gained real momentum due to President Johnson’s announcement of the campaign of sustained bombing across Vietnam, known as “Operation Rolling Thunder”. This sparked outrage all over the country; university campuses even held teach-ins to educate society of the senseless destruction and loss of life caused by American interference in Vietnam. The first physical form of protest against the war was a mass march organized by the SDS in which thousands of students marched in protest of the reckless bombings. The march was largely successful due to the exceptional attendance and non-violent nature, gaining worldwide attention. This put internal and external pressure on the government to adhere to the calls of its people. However Johnson opted to continue with the bombings, causing protest to escalate. Although a large portion of Americans contested the war, many still believed it to be a moral and patriotic goal, which divided the nation into two halves, causing additional pressure on the government. The student movement, stimulated by the success of the first march, organized more and more peace protests, gaining support and promoting widespread disillusionment with the government’s justifications of the

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1) A spate of anti-war activism occurred across the Le Moyne campus during the years of the Vietnam War from the late 1960s into the early 1970s. Such activism included protests against the Kent State shooting and against President Nixon and anti-draft demonstrations. Still, the Le Moyne community wasn’t entire unified behind the anti-war movement. There is a tendency to caricature college campuses during the Vietnam War as having a unified, passionate anti-war movement across the entire campus. In reality, however, not everybody in the Le Moyne community supported the anti-war activism; some viewed the protests as un-patriotic and unnecessarily subversive.

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The 1960’s and early 1970’s was a period when America was involved in many conflicts overseas, including the Vietnam War. This began a time when media spread quickly as well as influenced the public heavily and wars were first televised. These conflicts ultimately caused citizens to protest and question the motives of the federal government. A large number of these protestors were students who sought to combat problems through various tactics to get authority figures to remedy the problems they identified. Student protestors sought to combat many immediate and long-term problems involving this time period and the Vietnam War.

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Organizations like the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) advocated for students to get involved in protests. Students would boycott classes and start marches or demonstrations to show their support for the Anti-War movement. In document 5b, New York Times journalist Frank Prial wrote an article about the closing of schools. Prial wrote that, “A spokesman for the National Student Association said that students have been staying away from classes at almost 300 campuses in the country…” Before the Vietnam War, students were not encouraged or discouraged to take part in active protests. When the Vietnam War started and students started to realize they could make an impact, they began protesting.

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The United States was involved in the Vietnam War in the 1960s in order to support South Vietnam’s fight for an economic and cultural ties to the West. On the other hand, North Vietnam supported the ideas of a communist economy. However, the United States’s involvement in the war caused a million of dollars and lives lost, lost of faith towards the country’s government, and divided the nation instead of uniting as one. More than three million people in the war died, and out of those three million, 58,000 were Americans. The Americans and the people in South Vietnam had fought for their beliefs of a modern Westernized country while North Vietnam had fought for a communist economy.

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The people of the United States wanted to end the Vietnam War and so they began protesting. They began ignoring what the officials wanted and worked towards organizing sit ins to allow freedom of speech whether it was in a work place or a school. The people of the organization (typically a school) would request all participants in the Vietnam War in whatever way they were involved, they had to stop and allow the student to speak their mind and ensure that there would be no behavior that would lead to the Vietnam War developing further. Although the US government had to stay involved, as they did not want North Vietnam to take over South Vietnam through the spread of communism. The previous conflict that the US had with the USSR about the spread of communism was already lost and a great deal of tension for the US.

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The Vietnam War saw over 58,000 United States soldiers lose their lives in the eight years the U.S. was involved. The heavy loss of life ignited a wildfire of outrage in public opinion, causing nationwide protests and distress to end the war and bring the troops back. Many Americans discovered that using their techniques with the arts was the best way to challenge government decisions and influence the collection of Americans who opposed involvement in Vietnam. These actions affected pop culture heavily through the use of public protest, creating anti-war art, and putting.

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The anti-war movement grew increasingly popular in American society, which led to America lost numerous supporters. Some advocates with peaceful wishes advocated the U.S could withdraw troops sent to fight in the Vietnam Wars for the reason that it would contribute to less human bloodshed and less property damage in the region. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its attention in the Geneva Conference of

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The war in Vietnam to do this day has gone down as one of the influential and controversial wars in United States history. The war lasted from 1955 to 1975.The nation as a whole began to uproar over the war and the major consequences of the war. There were many reasons why so many Americans were against the war. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam (Wikipedia). Not to mention, many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and

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The other day I was driving through downtown on my way to a dinner with my family, and I saw a woman holding up a sign asking for food. She had a scruffy coat, and under her dark eyes and dirt covered face I realized she was very young, likely not even 20. I really wanted to stop and give her something, anything. But, I kept driving. I mean, what could I do?

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They expressed their protest by sitting. It was highly effective because it initiated by black students. When Martin Luther King was in jail, the leaders in Birmingham decided a new strategy. A group of black children would march in Birmingham to protest against racism. If the children of Birmingham couldn’t awake American’s conscience, they thought, then nothing would.

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