The War Divides America Chapter 16, Section 3

Anti-war Protests Increase ●1965: most of the soldiers were draftees o Selective Service Act  Over 1.5 million drafted ●most from working-class or poor backgrounds ●deferment (postponement) for college students and men who worked in certain occupations

●Large amount of African Americans fought and died in Vietnam “It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population… We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools.” -Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967

●Inequalities in drafts led to widespread resistance ●College campuses became centers of anti-war sentiment o Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): organization founded in 1960 at the University of Michigan to fight racism and poverty, and eventually the Vietnam War o Students at the University of California at Berkeley fought administration and police to protest on school grounds

Think-Pair-Share Why did some people think the draft was unfair?

●Vietnam became first “living-room war” o Watched lack of progress on national television o “credibility gap”: the American public’s growing distrust of statements made by the government during the Vietnam War Walter Cronkite “We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds… It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience in Vietnam is to end in stalemate.”

Tet Offensive Is the Turning Point ●Tet Offensive: coordinated communist assault on a large number of South Vietnamese cities in early 1968 o Goal: control major cities and get residents to join in an uprising  Fierce fighting but U.S. and South Vietnamese held on  Strategic blow to Americans - showed the communists had not lost their will to fight

Tet Offensive

●Request for more troops in Vietnam to win (meant raising taxes again and increasing drafts) ●March 31, 1968: Johnson announced the U.S. would seek a negotiated settlement to the war and announced he would not run for re-election

Quick Write Why did the anti-war movement grow across the nation?

Violence Rocks 1968 Presidential Race ●Many Americans argued that this was the time to make political and social changes o Optimism died with political differences, violence, and assassinations

●Two leaders assassinated o Martin Luther King, Jr (April 1968) o Robert Kennedy - running for president (June 1968)

Chicago 1968: Politics and Protests ●Democratic convention in Chicago (1968) ●Anger between hawks and doves ●Anti-war protesters clashed with police ●All on national television

●1968 Election: o Richard Nixon (R) o Hubert Humphrey (D) o George Wallace

●Nixon focused on the South gaining many Democratic votes ●Nixon’s win marked the beginning of the Republican domination of the presidency

Exit Ticket What was public opinion on the Vietnam War? How did this impact the 1968 presidential election?