The March on the Pentagon—A Paradigm Shift in ‘60’s Anti-War Movement

An iconic image of the March on the Pentagon

There were other big marches in Washington in opposition to the Vietnam War.  Starting in 1965 they had practically become a semi-annual event.  There would be more—and larger—ones later.  But the March to Confront the War Makers on October 21, 1967 was different.  It signaled a new phase in the anti-war movement that incorporated the rising youth counter   culture on a large scale for the first time and willingness for more aggressive confrontation of authority.  It also introduced onto a national stage some figures who would become house hold names within a year.

The march was organized, as were previous ones, by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam—universally referred to simply as the Mobe—a shaky coalition of more than 150 organizations including traditional pacifists, Ban the Bomb groups, liberals, the old Left, the New Left, Viet Cong sympathizers, a sliver of the Civil Rights Movement, student groups like the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and anti-war veterans groups.  It was united only in opposition to the war. 

The organization was so shaky that after the tumultuous events of this demonstration it fell apart.  It was re-assembled, minus its less militant components as the New Mobe the following year in time to organize protests at the Democratic National Convention.

The Mobe was led by veteran radical pacifist Dave Dellinger, the fifty-something editor of the Madison, Wisconsin based Progressive magazine.  In order to reach out to more young people—earlier marches, in retrospect seem like the sedate affairs of the middle class—Dellinger recruited California activist Jerry Rubin to be project coordinator for the march.  It was Rubin’s idea to add a March on the Pentagon after the main rally on the National Mall broke up.

The rally and March were just part of a series of actions in and around Washington.  A day earlier a march of hundreds on the Justice Department organized by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and other anti-draft groups presented more than 1,000 returned Draft Cards to a reluctant Assistant Attorney General.  Other small demonstrations and picketing were organized by various component groups in the Mobe around Washington.

A highlight of the Rally on the Mall was to be the arrival of the Peace Torch, lit in Hiroshima on August 6.  It was carried across country from San Francisco in a highly publicized relay reminiscent of the journeys of the Olympic Torch.

Although several Blacks were spoke from the podium of the Mall Rally—mostly long time members of old Left parties—most African Americans boycotted the main demonstration where President Lyndon B. Johnson was sure to come under attack.  Many were grateful for his steadfast support of major Civil Rights legislation.  A separate rally was held at Howard University where opposition to the war was largely separated from opposition to the President.  The most important Black leader to come out strongly against the war, Rev. Martin Luther King, was absent from both events. 

The huge rally was typical of others of its type—a parade of speakers representing the component organizations interspersed with brief entertainment.  Dellinger hinted at a shift in anti-war strategy by saying that it was time to “to go from protest to resistance.”  Norman Mailer, then the most celebrated novelist in America, famously spoke.  His role in the Rally and later events was celebrated in his book Armies of the Night, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. 

The main speaker was Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose baby care book was the bible by which most of the young members of the crowd had been raised.  Spock had supported Johnson in 1964 and felt betrayed by his escalation of the war.  The kindly Spock was one of the last nods at getting the parents of Baby Boomers on board the anti-war movement.  But the days when he and organizations like Another Mother for Peace could be the face of the movement were ending.

When the main Rally broke up, a large portion of the crowd began the two and a half mile march to the Pentagon.  By some estimates as many at 50,000 began the long walk, which took them across the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac and up a long service road to the Defense Department headquarters.  Many did not finish the trip.  The line strung out so that it took well over an hour for everyone to get to the site.

When marchers got there they were confronted with a building encircled by 2,500 Federal troops and 200 U.S. Marshals.  A rope line was set up in advance of the security forces and authorities announced that anyone crossing the line would be arrested.

Marchers also encountered a smaller group already at the Pentagon.  Organized by Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, festooned in an American flag shirt and Uncle Sam hat, the newly formed Youth International Party—the Yippies, an organization that hardly existed except in flyers circulated on college campus in big city youth culture enclaves, were there to supposedly levitate the Pentagon.

Many of those first on the scene peacefully approached the defense line.  Images of young people putting flowers in the barrels of Army M-15s became iconic.  But soon more militant demonstrators were challenging the line.  Arrests began.  Small groups managed to get partially up the steps of the building.  Others found an unguarded access ramp and charged in.  They were met with rifle butts and sheathed bayonets and particularly by the aggressive batons of Federal Marshals who busted several heads. Tear gas was used on the crowd and there was some chaos and panic.

But the majority of the demonstrators continued to stand by.  Many sang America the Beautiful and other patriotic and anti-war songs as the battle raged.  By 7 pm things had settled down.  Authorizes announced that the permit for the demonstration had expired.  Most of the remaining demonstrators drifted away, but about 7,000 chose to stay.  No move was made to dislodge them, but as overnight temperatures dropped, many more left. 

At dawn a few hundred left to march to the White House to “wake up LBJ.”  There were more arrests there, including those charged with picking flowers in Lafayette Park.  A few hundred others stayed behind to keep a vigil at the Pentagon.  At midnight the remaining 200 were rousted or arrested.

In all 681, including Hoffman and Mailer, were arrested over the two days.  Many demonstrators were bloodied or overcome by tear gas.  Over 100 demonstrators were documented to have been treated for injuries.  Many more were undoubtedly hurt.  In addition some soldiers, marshals, and police sustained minor injuries, mostly from objects thrown at them during the confrontation at the Pentagon or scuffles during arrests.

The events in Washington that weekend set the stage for even more tumultuous and confrontational protests around the country in the next few years.

The Chicano Anti-Vietnam War Protest That Time Forgot

 

This dramatic photo shows an LAPD officer aiming into the Silver Dollar Bar where reporter Rubén Salazar was killed.

We tend to put a pretty white on the Anti-War Movement of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.  Whether we conjure images of student and hippy protestors, older Ban the Bomb demonstrators out for a new round of activism, the ladies of the Another Mother for Peace crowd, or the respectable middle class that began to turn out with the Moratorium, the faces we imagine are uniformly white ones.

Even the demons ratable contributions to the movement by people of color like Martin Luther King’s firmly stated opposition to the War in Vietnam tend to be obscured because we compartmentalize him with Civil Rights and non-violence.  The rising militancy of all kinds of minority and disadvantaged groups in the late ‘60’s is viewed as something apart from the anti-war movement.

But out west the Chicano Moratorium put a Brown face on war protest.  The Chicano Moratorium had its roots in East Los Angeles high schools where students organized walk out protests to the war and military recruiting on campus in 1968.  The students quickly drew the support of the Brown Berets, a militant Chicano—Mexican-American—movement modeled on the Black Panthers.  The Brown Berets were part of an early, loose coalition of such organizations that included Puerto Rican Young Lords in Chicago and New York, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and attempts to organize working class white kids by Rising Up Angry in Chicago and the White Panthers in Detroit.

By 1969 the L.A. students and the Berets had organized the National Chicano Moratorium Committee (NCMC).  Soon groups from throughout the West were joining or lending their support, including Crusade for Justice, led by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales which was headquartered in Denver and active in Chicago as well.  A national organizing conference was held in early December at the Crusade’s Denver office which issued calls for demonstrations against the war and for a national Chicano youth conference the following May.

The first demonstration under the Chicano Moratorium banner was held in East L.A. on December 20 and attracted over 1,000 marchers.  A second demonstration on February 28, 1970 drew more than three times that number despite a pouring rain storm.  A local PBS documentary about that demonstration was used to spread word about the movement and organize new affiliates.

At the May youth conference Moratorium Co-Chair Rosalio Muno presented the resolution that called for a National Chicano Moratorium March in East L.A. for August 29 with supporting demonstrations in other cities.  On that date there were more than 20 demonstrations, most with at least a thousand participants in cities including Houston, Albuquerque, Chicago, Denver, Fresno, San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, Oxnard, San Fernando, San Pedro and Douglas, Arizona.

Of course the largest demonstration of all was in Los Angeles where participants from as far away as New York City, Mexico, and Puerto Rico joined local activists.  An estimated 30,000 marchers set off that day on a march from Belvedere Park to Laguna Park where a stage and speakers’ platform had been erected for a rally.  

Shortly after leading elements of the march were settling down in front of the stage, Los Angeles police (LAPD), which had a history of attacks on the Chicano community, began dropping tear gas from helicopters and moving into the park with batons swinging.  They claimed that a robbery of a nearby liquor store had been committed by demonstrators.  March monitors and parade marshals resisted the move into the park but the marchers were soon forced back out onto the parade route, Whittier Boulevard and into the surrounding neighborhood.

Demonstrators began throwing tear gas grenades back at the police and some broke away overturning cars and allegedly setting fire to businesses.  Street fighting continued for more than an hour.  When it was over scores were injured, over 150 were arrested, and four were dead.  The dead were Gustav Montag, Lyn Ward, José Diaz and Rubén Salazar.

Montag, a Sephardic Jewish activist marching in support of the Chicano movement was deliberately targeted by police in an ally confrontation when officers armed with rifles opened fire on him at short range when he allegedly picked up something to throw at them. 

The death of Salazar, probably Los Angeles’ best know Mexican-American journalist drew the greatest public attention.  He was a 42 year old award winning reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Times and News Director at the Spanish language T.V. station KMEX who had served as a war correspondent in Vietnam.  Since returning stateside he had covered the growing Chicano movement and on rampant police brutality in Los Angeles.

As the street disturbances wound down police fired teargas canisters from their shotguns directly into the Silver Dollar Bar where Sanchez had taken refuge.  He was sitting at the bar, sipping a cold beer.  The teargas round was not the usual anti-personnel canister, but round designed to pierce walls in barricade situations.  Sanchez was hit in the head and died instantly.  Some believe he was intentionally targeted.  Others believe he was just unlucky.

As the prominent Chicana poet Alurista observed after the fact, “The police called it a people's riot; the people called it a police riot.”

A Federal Attorney brought charges against the police officer that fired the fatal round at Sanchez, but they were dropped after President Richard Nixon fired him.

Tensions in L.A.  remained high.  Over the following year there were numerous demonstrations and school walk-outs.  Arrests were common and beatings of Chicano suspects routine.  The offices of the Chicano Moratorium were marked for harassment. In November 9 activists were arrested as they left the Moratorium office.  By December it was closed.

Demonstrations continued in Los Angeles and around the West, but the Chicano Moratorium faded away over the next year or two, most of its leaders join the ranks of La Raza and other groups.

Eventually Laguna Park, site of the rally, was re-named by the city for Rubén Salazar.  The United States Postal Service even included him in a 2005 set of stamps honoring American journalists.   But outside of L.A and the Latino community, Salazar is largely forgotten and the other dead sunk in even greater anonymity.

Lest we believe that the tensions between the police and Latino residents is a thing of the distant past, the events of August 29, 1970 were echoed on May Day 2007 when a huge crowd of immigration reform marchers were attacked by the LAPD with rubber bullets, tear gas and batons.  Despite the orderly nature of the crowd, which was quite festive and included many children, police charged the rally inside McArthur Park because some on the edge had been blocking the street.  Dozens were injured. 

And police once again seemed to specifically target the press who were documenting the abuse.  Sanjukta Paul, a female National Lawyer's Guild observer, was severely beaten.  Reporters Christina Gonzalez of KTTV Fox 11 News,  Pedro Sevcec of  Telemundo’s National Evening, local CBS reporter Mark Coogan and his cameraman Carl Stein, Patricia Nazario of KPCC, KABC-TV reporter Sid Garcia, and Patti Ballaz, a camerawoman for KTTV were all injured by police.  Garcia was struck by a rubber bullet.

Despite this footage of the attack made national news.  The city launched investigations and at least one high ranking officer was relieved of command.

But it’s funny—the more things change the more they stay the same.