Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)

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rioters fought federal troops for t hree days. There, mobs of whites burned an

orphan asylum for black children, and demolished shops and houses of white

abolitionists along with those of African Americans. Rioters destroyed many

buildings, and estimates of deaths ranged as high as 1,000 or more.

After the Civil War, the onrush of late-19th-century industrialization resulted in

a more aggres sive overseas foreign policy. The opportunity for new markets and

additional territories took place in April 1898, when the U.S. government declared

war on Spain and launched effective military attacks on Spanish holdings in Cuba,

Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Initially, many Americans supported the call for

Cuban independence along with all the other territories under Spanish rule. Senti-

ment quickly changed when it became apparent that the conﬂict would entail con-

quest rather than liberation. Within 10 weeks, the United States had captured

Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and facilitated the annexation of Hawaii.

Later that year, Spanish and American negotiators worked out a settlement in Paris

in which the United States compensated Spain monetarily in return for American

occupation of Cuba (to be granted independence in 1902) and the cession to the

United States of Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

In respons e to these events, a powerful anti-imperialist movement app eared.

The argument that imperialism was subversive of the free-trade basis of competi-

tive capitalism led to the formation of the Anti-Imperialist League in Faneuil Hall,

Boston, on June 15, 1898. League membership included Gamaliel Bradford (the

67-year-old descendant of the Bay Colony’s ﬁrst governor), paciﬁsts Edward

Atkinson and judge Ernest Crosby, reformer and feminist Jane Addams, urban

reformer Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones, African American activist Booker

T. Washington, and educator David Starr Jordan. With such political allies as the

venerable U.S. senator George F. Hoar, William Jennings Bryan, and inﬂuential

suppor ters like philosopher William James, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel G ompers,

Carl Schurz, William Graham Sumner, and General Nelson A. Miles, the Anti-

Imperialist League fomented much of the latent opposition to American

expansionism.

The acquisition of the Philippines aroused the League’s greatest ire. Two weeks

prior to the February 6, 1899, Senate ratiﬁcation of the Treaty of Paris, which

ended the war with Spain, the Filipino-American War broke out. The war would

last almost three and a half years; it cost the United States $170 million and caused

7,000 American deaths. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were killed. The bru-

tality of the Filipino-Am erican War and tales of atrocity quickly transformed the

Anti-Imperialist League into a national movement with a mass constituency.

Working with other anti-imperialist elements, League membership soared to over

30,000 in a growth spurt that made it the largest antiwar organization per capita

in American history.

928 Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s)

Through the League’s periodical, the Anti-Imperialist, the organization exposed

repulsive and ghastly brutalities despite ofﬁcial investigations that tried to hide the

actions of American military personnel. League efforts also resulted in much

criticism leveled at the increased power in the executive department and the devel-

opment of bureaucracy, which further demonstrated how imperialism was contrary

to U.S. Constitutional traditions. Although the anti-imperialists failed to curb

America’s “outwa rd thrust,” it did set in moti on the need to weigh carefully the

nation’s appetite for new markets and overseas territories.

The next major antiwar demonstrations took place during World War I (1914–

1918). Opposition to the war took the form of both individual and organized

resistance. World War I prisoners of conscie nce included civil libertarian Roger

Baldwin, who helped f ound the American Civil Liberties Union (1920), and

socialist leader and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, jailed twice for war

opposition and in prison during the election of 1920. Anarchists Emma Goldman

and Alexander Berkman, who formed a No-Conscription League in 1917, were

two of the more radical war opponents sentenced to two years in jail and later

deported.

The heart and soul of the antiwar movement were conscientious objectors—

those who opposed war based on certain principles or beliefs. Apart from the

4,000 classiﬁed as conscientious objectors, approximately 20,873 were granted

noncombatant classiﬁcation by their local draft boards. Among them were various

types of opponents of war. There were religious objectors, who opposed all wars

and human killing; humanitarian or liberal objectors, who believed t hat all men

were brothers and that fraternal blood should not be shed; and political objectors

such as socialists, anarchists, syndicalists, and other radic als who promoted a n

international revolution of the working class but who objected to participating in

a “capitalist” war.

In addition to individual resistance were organized efforts of radical labor

unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Naturally, the Wilson

administration did not take kindly to their antiwar demonstrations. On Septem-

ber 5, 1917, federal agents raided IWW headquarters in 33 different cities between

Chicago and Los Angeles, and following a dramatic trial in the summer of 1918,

96 IWW menbers were tried, convicted, and sent to prison. Among those

convicted was “Big Bill” Haywood, a legendary ﬁgure of the IWW. Poor tenant

farmers and sharecroppers, moreover, protested forced conscription in

August 1917 in Oklahoma. Known as the Green Corn Rebellion, some 450

protesters were held tempor arily at the state prison at McAlester, Oklahoma. The

name Green Corn originated from the fact that the marchers intended to eat green

corn on their way to stage a protest in Washington, D.C.

Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s) 929

One of the most active antiwar organizations was the People’s Council of

America for Democracy and Peace. Support came from trade unions, paciﬁsts,

suffragists, and the Socialist Party’s left wing. Throughout late 1917 and early

1918, the People’s Council enlisted the support of thousands of antiwar supporters

and distributed leaﬂets and other forms of literature callin g for an immediate end

to the war. It also sponsored a number of antiwar demonstrations, mainly in New

York City. However, by the spring of 1918, government suppression of dissenting

groups by state and federal court action—as in the case of the IWW and Socialist

Party—checked the council’s union support. Nearly one-third of the party’s

leadership was sentenced to federal prison. With Wilson’s approval, moreover,

Postmaster Gener al Albert Burleson ba rred from the mails all socialist antiwar

publications—thereby choking off the intellectual lifeline of organized socialism

in the United States, the largest single source of wartime dissent.

Although an effective postwar peace movement emerged in the aftermath of the

most destructive war in history up to that t ime, both World War II (1939–1945)

and the Korean War (1950–1953) generated little opposition. The 1941 Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor solidiﬁed public support to rid the world of fascist aggres-

sion, w hile the haunting specter of McCarthyism and communism kept peace

forces at bay during the Korean conﬂic t. However, during the 1950s, Cold War

hostilities and fears of nuclear war gave rise to a more radical form of civil

disobedience, which found expression during the Vietnam War (1965–1973).

The anti–Vietna m War movement witnessed the most dramatic ac ts of war

protest in American history and assumed three distinct parts as the war dragged

on. First, there were the anti-imperialists who believed that the real enemy was

America’s corporate ruling class; for these protesters, the war represented a

revolutionary struggle for Vietnamese liberation against American imperi alism.

This faction of the movement condoned physical acts of destruction against the

establishment. Second, there were the radical paciﬁsts who saw the war as the real

enemy, and advocated nonviolent me ans to encourage immediate withdrawal of

American troops. Last, there were the mainline peace liberals who emphasized

the traditional means of political pressu re to compel U.S. policymakers to nego-

tiate an end to the war by providing for American withdrawal and a governmental

role for the National Liberation Front in Saigon. Despite differences in substance

and style, the most signiﬁcant characteristic of the antiwar protests were their abil-

ity to coalesce and form new coalitions, which enabled the much larger movement

to sustain its momentum.

Between early 1 965 and late 1967, a ﬂurry of antiwar activity took place on a

number of fronts. Many of the antiwar demonstrations were organized by tenuous

coalitions composed of radical groups like Students for a Democratic Society and

traditional peace organizations such as the Fellowship for Reconciliation,

930 Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s)

Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy, War Resisters League, Women’s

International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Committee for Non Violent

Action. For instance, these groups organized the ﬁrst major peace demonstration,

the March on Washington for Peace in Vietnam, which occurred on November 27,

1965. Nearly 35,000 protesters showed up at the nation’s capital calling for an

immediate end to American military involvement.

This peace protest would be one of many held throughout the war years. The

Fifth Avenue Peace Parade, led by veteran peace activist A. J. Muste, and massive

demonstrations in Washington, D.C., in 1967 and 1968, along with other protests

in major U.S. cities such as Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia,

and Los Angeles were held. Even in local communities, antiwar parades were con-

ducted with protesters holding placards reading “Bring the Troops Home” or

“Immediate Withdrawal” during Memorial Day and Fourth of July festivities.

One of the unique features of the anti–Vietnam War protests were acts of resis-

tance and civil disobedience despite government attempts at suppression. The era

of visible resistance and a ctive obstruction marked many of the demonstrations.

For example, the peace group Women Strike for Peace staged sit-ins in

congressional ofﬁces and die-ins at draft boards and at the corporate headquarters

of major defense contractors. Protesting the selective service law also reached

widespread proportions as many young men burned their draft cards or ﬂed to

Canada to avoid induction into the military. Numerous Reserve Ofﬁcers Training

Corps buildings on college campuses were the object of physical acts of destruc-

tion. Raiding draft boards and burning selective service ﬁle s or pouring blood on

the ﬁles was another popular tactic of antiwar activists. One of the more spectacu-

lar actions in this regard took place in Catonsville, Maryland, in 1968, led by

Roman Catholic priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan. The African American protest

movement also brought other issues, personnel, and tactics into the antiwar move-

ment. In January 1966, linking the war to domestic oppression, the Student Non-

violent Coordinating Committee’s leaders declared their support for draft

resisters—“Hell No, We Won’t Go”—and attacked President Lyndon Johnso n

for violating international law overseas while neglecting to enforce civil rights

ordinances at home. Most importantly, Martin Luther King Jr.—the civil rights

movement’s spiritual leader and 1964 Nobel Peace Prize r ecipient—disputed the

war policy. In the late 1960s, there was a moratorium movement as well. It urged

Americanstosetasideonedayinamonthtoprotestthewarbynotpurchasing

items supporting the war effort.

Adding to the antiwar dissent was the formation of the Vietnam Veterans Against

the War (VVAW). Its most dramatic protest occurred in Washington, D.C., from

April 19 through April 23, 1971. Dubbed Operation Dewey Canyon III, it was based

upon two short military incursions into Laos. With Gold Star Mothers leading the

Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s) 931

protest march, more than 1,100 veterans walked across the Lincoln Memorial

Bridge to the Arlington National Cemetery. Though refused entrance into the cem-

etery, they conducted a memorial service outside the gates. That evening, protesting

veterans deﬁed a Justice Department injunction banning them from setting up camp

at the Mall. On April 20, some 200 members of VVAW listened to hearings by the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee on proposals to end Ame rican military

involvement, while others marched back to Arlington National Cemetery, w here

they were now permitted to enter as a result of public criticisms of the government’s

actions against the veterans. Additional members performed guerrilla theater on the

Capitol s teps, d epicting combat scenes and search-and-destroy missions. On

April 21, more than 50 veterans marched to the Pentagon and attempted to surren-

der and turn themselves in as war criminals. The foll owing day, large numbers of

the organization’s members demonstrated on the steps of the Supreme Court

demanding to know why it had not ruled on the constitutionality of the Vietnam

War. The ﬁnal day of protest culminated with more than 800 veterans tossing their

medals, ribbons, and combat badges on the steps of the Capitol as a show of deﬁ-

ance and anger at the war.

Despite disagreements involving tactics, values, and the priority of peace versus

wars of liberation, the anti–Vietnam War protests were not only some of the most

spectacular in American history, but also some of the most effective. Although the

broad movement itself was more assembled than organized, its effectiveness

remains indisputable. The antiwar protests of this era did help end the war.

Recovering from the brutal wounds of the Vietnam War, the 1991 Persian Gulf

War ended quickly, thus allowing little time for antiwar activists to demonstrate. In

addition, America’s military success was perceived as a way to atone for the

Vietnam debacle. In 2004, however, that would change with the Iraq War.

Angered by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon , the

George W. Bush administration decided tolaunchanall-outmilitaryoffensive

against the regime of Saddam Hussein based on the misguided assumption that

the Iraqi dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction. From the spring of

2004 to 2008, large antiwar demonstrations continued as did smaller ones in towns

and communities across the nation. For instance, the American Friends Service

Committee initiated its own novel protest, which has been copied by other antiwar

groups. Called “False Pretenses,” AFSC ﬁrst introduced the idea of a memorial by

placing 500 pairs of boots at the Federal Building Plaza in Chicago to symbolize

graphically the number of soldiers killed at that point in the war. Other antiwar

activists built mock cofﬁns and stretched out on busy roads. During the 2004

Repu blican Convention in Manhattan, hundreds of demon strators carried cofﬁns

down Seventh Avenue. During the convention, one member of Code Pink

disru pted Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech. Jodie Evans, cofounder of Code

932 Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s)

Pink, was forcibly removed from the convention ﬂoor when s he showed off her

pink slip with anti-Bush slogans on it. Some 700 to 800 people were arrested at

the convention.

One antiwar group that captured the national media’s attention is Grandmothers

against the War. In late 2005, 17 grandmothers, ranging in age from 49 to 90, were

arrested. On October 17, these aging but ﬁercely determined activists attempted to

enlist in the military at New York City’s Times Square recruiting station. After

being refused entry into the station, they then sat down and were promptly

arrested. At their arr aignment, one of the prot este rs, 65-year-old Eva-Lee Baird,

called her arrest “a badge of honor.” Their actions inspired other elderly females

to take up the cause in cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

What has separated the current antiwar protests and demonstrations from that of

previous military conﬂicts has been its online organizing, which has helped many

antiwar groups succeed in their efforts to mobilize at the grass roots. Among the

various antiwar groups relying on the Internet to organize, raise money, and inﬂu-

ence politicians and the media through blogs and e-mail messages are Americans

Against Escalation in I raq, MoveOn.org, WHY WAR? ANSWER, and United

for Peace and Justice. There are also antiwar organizati ons, which are more tha n

online organizations. Among those organizations that mobilize online or receive

their initial start through the Internet are Veterans for Common Sense, Operation

Truth, and Iraq Veterans against the War. In contrast to the Vietnam protests, the

current demonstrations have been far less contentious and disruptive due to the

Internet groups’ focus on political persuasion rather than obstructive resistance.

Although the current war in Iraq appeared to be ending with the Barack Obama

administration’s commitment to pull all U.S. forces out by 2011, the war in

Afghanistan began to draw the attention of antiwar activists. Unlike Iraq, however,

the American public has been more patient since it involves waging war against

terrorist groups, which supported or carried out the 9/11 attacks. At present, anti-

war protests have not been large and sustainable since the spring of 2008.

In conclusion, during the War of 1812, dissent forced the Madison

administration to reach a peace agreement in which neither side claimed a cl ear-

cut military victory. The Mexican-American War forced President James K. Polk

to abandon his de sire to obtain further territorial concessions from Mexico. Th e

Anti-Imperialist L eague pressured President William McKinley and later Theo-

dore Roosevelt to end the ﬁghting in the Philippines. The intensity and magnitude

of the anti–Vietnam War protests were unparalleled in American history up to that

time and resulted in passage of the 1973 War Powers Act, imposing a limit on the

number of days the president could commit troops to combat without

congressional authorization. The ongoing unpopularity of the Iraq War resulted

from antiwar groups using the Internet, among other tools, to stimulate discussion

Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s) 933

and mobilize public opinion in favor of a U.S. troop withdrawal. The antiwar

movement in American history has played a vital role, if not always s uccessful,

in calling into question government actions affecting the nation’s foreign policy.

—Charles F. Howlett

See a lso all entries under New York Draft Riots (1863); Women’s Movement (1870s);

Green Corn Rebellion (1917); Bonus Army (1932); Civil Rights Movement (1953–1968);

Feminist Movement (1970s–1980s).

Further Reading

Allen, Devere. The Fight for Peace. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1930.

Alonso, Harriet Hyman. Peace a s a Women’s Issue: A H istory of the U.S. Movement for

World Peace and Women’s Rights. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993.

Brock, Peter. Paciﬁsm in the United States from the Colo nial Era to the First World War.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.

Brock, Peter, and Nigel Young. Paciﬁsm in the Twentieth Century. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse

University Press, 1999.

Chatﬁeld, Charles. “American Insecurity: Dissent from the ‘Long War.’ ” In The Long

War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II,ed.Andrew

Bacevich, 456–516. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Chatﬁeld, Charles. For Peace and Justice: Paciﬁsm in America, 1914–1941. Knoxville:

University of Tennessee Press, 1971.

Chatﬁeld, Charles, with Rober t Kleidman. The American Peace Movement: Ideals and

Activism. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

Conlin, Joseph R., ed. American Antiwar Movements. Bev erly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press, 1968.

Cooney, Robert, and Helen Michalowski, eds. The Power of the People: Active Nonvio-

lence in the United States. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1987.

Cortright, D avid. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. N ew York: Cambridge

University Press, 2008.

Curran, Thomas F. Soldiers of Peace: Civil War Paciﬁsm and the Postwar Radical Peace

Movement. New York: Fordham University Press, 2003.

Curti, Merle. Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636–1936. New York: W. W. Norton

& Co., 1936.

DeBenedetti, Charles. The Peace Reform in American History. Bloomington: Indiana Uni-

versity Press, 1980.

DeBenedetti, Ch arles, with Charles Chatﬁeld. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Move-

ment of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990.

Ekirch, Arthur A., Jr. The Civilian and th e Military. New York: Oxford University Press,

1956.

Howlett, Ch arles F. The American Peace Movement: References and Resources.Boston:

G. K. Hall & Co., 1991.

934 Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s)

Howlett, Charles F., and Robbie Lieberman. A History of the American Peace Movement

from Colonial Times to the Present. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.

Juhnke, James C., and Carol M . Hunter. The Missing Peace: The Search for Nonviolent

Alternatives in Unite d States History. Kitchner, ON: Pandora Press, 2001.

Marchand,C.Roland.The A merican Pe ace Movement and Social Reform, 1898–1918.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Patt erson, David S. Toward a Warless World: The Travail of the American Peace Move-

ment, 1887–1914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.

Pete rson, H. C., and Gilbert C. Fite. Opponents of War, 1917–1918. Madison : University

of Wisconsin Press, 1957.

Wittner, Lawrence S. Rebels against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933–1983.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984.

Antiwar Movement (1960s–1970s) 935

Counterculture

“Counterculture” describes the emergence of a generational rejection of American

lifestyles and commercial veneration marked by drugs, sex, communal living, and

“acid” rock music. Called “hippies,” these young Americans were drawn to the

anti–Vietnam War moveme nt as one avenue to express their dissatisfacti on with

American society. Most veteran peace activists resented their involvement in the

antiwar movement.

Along with the appearance of the rebellious Students for a Democratic Society

and its Port Huron Statement (1962) , the growing opposition to the Vietnam War

gave birth to a popular countercult ure movement. Building coalitions t o end the

war was tricky business, and the inclusi on of counterculturalists added not only

tensions within the movement as a whole, but also problems f or veteran peace

activists who resented these nonconformists wedded to drugs, promiscuity, out-

landish costumes, and a desire to build alternative institutions. One of the most

striking cultural characteristics of the anti–Vietnam War protests was the number

of hippies, schooled in matters of drugs like LSD, open sex, and “natural lifestyle,

who were attracted to the peace cause.” During the mid- 1960s, highlighted by an

overﬂowing population of ﬂower children in the Haight-Ashbury se ction of San

Francisco, many young Americans had no respect for their parents’ skills or

wisdom and had disdain for their money. Generational conﬂict, acerbated by the

war, began to replace social conﬂict as the critically divisive issue.

Representing the nation’s more recent boh emian subculture, th e hippies

shocked the country’s somewhat dour population with their dirty dungarees, long

hair, less-than-acceptable vocabulary, and use of mind-altering drugs, liberated

sexual mores, and “acid” rock music. The Woodstock Festival of 1969 symbolized

the impact that the counterculture movement had in the United States. The coun-

terculturalists argued for simplicity, communal life, and peac e. Turned on by

Ken Kesey, author of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, they considered all poli-

tics a dead end. Between 1965 and 1970, the counterculturalists were easil y

noticeable. Their distinguishing attire including wearing beads, raising their ﬁn-

gers in a V-shape, and simply saying, “Peace.” Their attraction to the antiwar

movement was superﬁ cial at best. However, they d id add color to th e movement

even though their disdain for discipline and organization did not sit well with the

serious-minded antiwar leaders. The antics of Abbie Hoffman and his “yip-

pies”—the political component of the hippies—was more a matter of style t han

substance. Nevertheless, it was though the efforts of Jerry Rubin, Hoffman’s asso-

ciate, that some veteran antiwar activists expanded the vision of a militant, politi-

cized counterculture as part of the antiwar movement. By the late 1960s and early

937