Antiwar Protests Among Black Communities

Another protest, which took place August 25_30, 1968, coincided with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. This protest resulted in one death, incurred 658 arrests, and required medical attention for 425. The leaders of participating groups such as SDS, Youth International Party (Yippies), the Black Panther Party (BPP), National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (the Mobe), and two academics were arrested and became known as the Chicago Eight, later changed to the Chicago Seven when the trial of Bobby Seale, a Black Panther, was separated from the trial of the other seven-David Dellenger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and John Friones. The SDS was a force in the antiwar movement, although it collapsed by 1969 when the Weathermen, an extremist faction of SDS, emerged. Proclaimed anticapitalists, they promoted revolution by the use of violence, which occurred during the Days of Rage in Chicago during the conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven in October 1969. In a four-day spree, they inflicted much property damage on the Gold Coast of Chicago; later they were responsible for bombings, actions that damaged the nonviolent peace movement’s image, as people did not separate them from the nonviolent protestors. Weathermen leaders Mark Rudd, Bernadine Dohrn, Cathy Wilkerson, and John Jacobs surrendered themselves in the 1980s.

Campuses across America erupted in protests after the deadly confrontation that left four dead and nine wounded at Kent State University during a confrontation between students and the National Guard, who were called in on May 4, 1970. The action prompted eighty colleges to close. Fourteen days later in Mississippi, two Jackson State College students were killed by the National Guard, and twelve were wounded. Nevertheless, most antiwar protests were nonviolent. The effectiveness of the protests in stopping the war is still being debated by scholars, but most agree that the sustained dissent to governmental policy is notable. See also Vietnam War and Race Riots.