40th Anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium
OCTOBER 17, 2009 - A National Day of Action
By Paul Krehbiel
Growing numbers of anti-war organizations and activists are joining a call to organize anti-war events in local communities on Saturday, October 17, 2009 to demand an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium. Initiated by the Iraq Moratorium
( www.iraqmoratorium.com. ), as of August 11, 2009, endorsements have come from the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, United for Peace and Justice, and US Labor Against the War. More endorsements are expected.
Despite the black-out by the media, people are still dying and suffering in a devastated Iraq, more US troops are being sent to war in Afghanistan, and billions of dollars are spent on both wars while social services are slashed at home during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Important lessons from the Vietnam Moratorium can help us today. The Vietnam Moratorium, held on Wednesday, October 15, 1969, was the largest one-day anti-war protest in our nation's history. Over 2 million people (some estimates say more than 5 million) participated in thousands of local communities across the country, and brought the anti-war movement into the political mainstream of American society.
I was a local organizer of the Vietnam Moratorium in my hometown of Buffalo, New York, and the outpouring for peace there was astounding. Tens of thousands of people, including the mayor and city council, participated in the Moratorium in a city of less than half a million residents. The daily newspapers ran front-page articles on the Moratorium, along with the schedule of activities for October 15. This was typical of what took place in thousands of cities, towns and villages across the country. What did it look like, and how did it happen?
The Vietnam Moratorium in Buffalo began at 6:30 am. I joined others in distributing thousands of anti-war leaflets at big auto factories, steel mills, hospitals, and government buildings. By 8:00 am, peace breakfasts were held at churches and other venues. Then, beginning at 10 am, I joined one of many teams of Moratorium activists who went to area high schools to participate on panels in school auditoriums to discuss the war and the need to end it. Thousands of high school students heard strong anti-war presentations, many for the first time. At 12 noon, somber chimes were heard from various parts of the city as participating churches rang their bells in support of the Moratorium. At that same time, I joined thousands downtown in a large march and rally, led by City Councilman Charles Black, Reverend Donald Brown of the Presbyterian Churches of Western New York, and local draft and war resister Bruce Beyer. There, over 100 doctors and scientists from the world-renowned Roswell Park Cancer Institute, who work on cancer treatments, submitted signed petitions calling for an end to the war.
At 1 pm, an Ecumenical Service took place at the magnificent 170-year old St. Paul's Cathedral, sponsored by the Council of Churches of Buffalo and Erie County. I was still at the anti-war march, but 1,000 people packed that historic church to hear The Reverend Hugh Carmichael, and Buffalo Mayor Frank Sedita call for ending the war in Vietnam.
Throughout the day, peace activities took place at every university and college in the Buffalo area, and included teach-ins, film showings, and panel discussions, and the presidents of most area universities endorsed the Moratorium activities. At 7 pm, a candlelight march began in Delaware Park, the largest city park, involving over 10,000 people. It was led by city leaders and joined by entire families from every area of the city. Also that evening, numerous Moratorium events were held at churches and synagogues across the city. The daily newspapers and television stations featured these events on the evening news and the next day. What took place in Buffalo was just one of thousands of Moratoriums from coast to coast.
In New York City, 40,000 of 60,000 high school teachers cancelled their classes to support the Moratorium, and 276,000 high school students did not come to school. In Washington, D. C. 1,500 Congressional staffers held a Moratorium peace vigil on the steps of our nation's capitol. In Patterson, New Jersey, workers at the Life Manufacturing Company - makers of bulletproof vest and body bags for the troops in Vietnam, attended a Moratorium rally at City Hall to call for the end of the war in Vietnam.
In Boston, over 100,000 people gathered on the Commons in a Moratorium peace rally, and other Moratorium events took place in scores of cities, towns, and villages across Massachusetts. Marches and rallies were held in most major cities across the country, including 75,000 in Cleveland and 50,000 in Pittsburgh, to name only two. In White Plains, New York, over 4,000 people protested in front of the local Draft Board on Moratorium Day, and 7,000 business people held a peace rally on Wall Street.
The Vietnam Moratorium of October 15, 1969 marked a turning point in the war in Vietnam. It shattered the myth promoted by President Nixon that a "silent majority" of Americans supported his war efforts. It also, for the first time, brought the anti-war movement into the political mainstream of American society. And most importantly, we learned years later from investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that the size and scope of the Vietnam Moratorium stung Nixon so sharply that his war team scrapped secret plans to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
How did such a huge outpouring of anti-war sentiment happen? There is no simple answer. Some believe it was a unique moment in history when several important elements aligned. Perhaps. But there are several elements that were key to success that we may be able to duplicate today. First, there had been years of anti-war organizing in the 1960's against a war so horrible that by 1968 it was killing every month 1,000 American soldiers, and 10,000 - 20,000 Vietnamese. Second, the organizers asked people to stop business as usual on October 15 to express their opposition to the war in whatever way they felt comfortable, and to do it right in their own local communities. This took many forms, from wearing a black armband to going on strike. Third, the organizers had been activists and leaders of two large national organizations and they contacted them first and got their support. One was the National Student Association, and the other was the national network of organizers from Senator Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign of 1968. The organizer's goal was to reach the many millions of people in the political mainstream.
After leaders from both those groups came on board, the organizers talked to the leaders of the established anti-war organizations, religious denominations, elected officials at all levels of government, trade union leaders, and civil rights leaders. As individual organizations from these constituencies endorsed the Vietnam Moratorium, it became easier for others to join. When the organizers got over 1,000 endorsements, they called a press conference in Washington, D. C. The national press came and covered it, and millions of Americans heard about it, and joined it.
The anti-war movement of the 1960's, including the Vietnam Moratorium, helped lay the political foundation for the massive demonstrations that took place in February and March of 2003. Then, over 12 million people marched in countries all over the world, including in many cities in the US, to try to stop President Bush from launching a war against Iraq before the war started. These internationally coordinated mass anti-war demonstrations were unprecedented in scope and participation. This and many other activities and events resulted in the anti-war movement winning majority support from the American people, totaling many tens of millions of people. Yet, a relatively small but committed minority of that large anti-war community has been active in anti-war activities. We must now help the majority find ways to express their public opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have been an organizer with the Iraq Moratorium since it began in September of 2007. We invited people from all walks of life everywhere to stop business as usual on the third weekend of every month to express their opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in whatever ways they choose and in their own local communities. Today our call is for a huge outpouring of anti-war activity on the third weekend of October 2009, especially on October 17. The Iraq Moratorium is aware of over 2,000 local anti-war events that have taken place in a majority of states across the country since we began under the Iraq Moratorium umbrella. While there are differences between the wars in1969 and 2009, there are also important similarities. One is that innocent people were and are being killed and maimed, and countries were and are being destroyed.
Can we recreate something like the Vietnam Moratorium today? We should try. One key lesson from the Vietnam Moratorium is to get large organizations, constituencies and local and national leaders to commit to doing something to express their opposition to these wars and human suffering. If we can all do it at the same time, on October 17, the political impact would be very powerful. The way to begin is to ask them.
____________________________________________
Paul Krehbiel is a member of the National Committee of the Iraq Moratorium. He is the author of Shades of Justice, a coming-of-age story about the development of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War. He has been involved in peace and justice work since, serving as editor of a national union newspaper in the 1980's and as a senior assistant to the Majority Whip of the California Legislature in the 1990's. This article is based on excerpts from Shades of Justice, which is available at: www.autumnleafpress.com.
The book is available at: http://www.autumnleafpress.com .
(Based on excerpts from Shades of Justice, available at: http://www.autumnleafpress.com )
