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In 1967 and 1968, a wave of student protest movements broke out across Europe, Japan
and the United States. 1968 became one of the most turbulent years in western history since WW II. In 1968, the entire
post-war order was challenged by a series of protests from Berkeley to London, from New York to Prague. The true effects of
the student protest movement were not felt until well after 1968.
1968 was a year of revolution. That's the year that John Lennon sang Revolution.
It's the year that Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane sang, "Now it's time for you and me to have a revolution" from their
album Volunteers. In a period of unprecedented material prosperity and cultural activity, the sons and daughters of
the most privileged sections of the United States and of Europe decided to make their own revolution. Their parents, many
of them at least, were communists, socialists, Trotskyites, feminists, pacifists or just plain liberals. Their sons and daughters
began to refer to themselves as the New Left.
Why had the typically quiet 1950s suddenly burst forth with the student protest movements
of the 1960s? Well, a partial list would have to include: representative democracy, big business, capitalist technocracy,
and the Vietnam War. These students wanted their voices heard--so, these students marched, demonstrated, they occupied
administration buildings across Europe and the United States.
Those involved in the protests of the time felt that the Vietnam War was worse
than a blunder, it was a crime. Kennedy and Johnson were to share near total responsibility for this war as was Richard Nixon after 1968. In protest, some young men burned their draft cards on the steps of their
local Selective Service office, crowds chanted, "hell no, we won't go," or "hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
The protests were not just limited to the United States, as the protesters felt that the governments of Europe were to blame
as well -- after all, Vietnam was a French problem before it was inherited by the United States. That cold warrior mentality
viewed Southeast Asia as a breeding ground for international communist aggression.
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Anti-Vietnam War
The antiwar movement became a mass crusade in which millions of Americans
participated. It involved people of all ages, organized in hundreds of diverse local and national groups, including the National
Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, Women Strike for Peace, Resistance, American
Friends Service Committee, and Business Executives Move for a Vietnam Peace. Among student groups, the SDS played a vital
role. While antiwar activists came from all elements of American society, most were white, middle class, and well educated.
Colleges and universities were among the most important sites of antiwar activism.
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