Tens of Thousands of Vietnam War Protesters Picket the White House
Nearly 35,000 people, protesting the Vietnam War on this day, circled the White House for two hours before moving on to the Washington Monument. Renowned pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, Coretta Scott King, and pacifist Presbyterian minister Norman Thomas were among those who gave speeches.
The first march on Washington to protest the Vietnam War occurred on April 17, 1965. The two largest marches were organized by the National Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, on October 15, 1969 and November 15, 1969
The Vietnam War created a number of civil liberties crises. They include (1) the lack of a Congressional Declaration of War as required by the Constitution (June 3, 1970); (2) threats to freedom of the press in the Pentagon Papers case (June 30, 1971); (3) spying on the anti-war movement by the CIA (August 15, 1967); (4) threats to freedom of expression, for example high school student protests (February 24, 1969); censorship of television programs (February 25, 1968); and directly and indirectly some of the events that led to the Watergate Scandal (May 9, 1969; January 27, 1972).
Learn more about the anti-Vietnam War movement: Thomas Powers, The War at Home: Vietnam and the American People, 1964–1968 (1973)
Watch a documentary on how the Vietnam War affected America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGeFPzFNkQg
Learn more: Terry H. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (1995)
Learn more about the history of marching on Washington: Lucy Barber, Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition (2002)