Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
21 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
was there a protest or gathering back in the 1970s (Original Post) orleans Jan 2017 OP
Vaguely... Wounded Bear Jan 2017 #1
Look here... there's a list radical noodle Jan 2017 #2
Google: Vietnam Moratorium Images k8conant Jan 2017 #8
Here's more: k8conant Jan 2017 #3
In 1971, the People Didnt Just March on Washington They Shut It Down elleng Jan 2017 #4
Almost circled Pentagon as I recall randr Jan 2017 #5
They tried to levitate the Pentagon! flamingdem Jan 2017 #9
Yes, now I remember, it was incredible randr Jan 2017 #15
True, it has improved flamingdem Jan 2017 #16
Here are the biggest protests Warpy Jan 2017 #6
John Kerry cilla4progress Jan 2017 #17
November 1969: dalton99a Jan 2017 #7
There was an "attempt" to "exorcise" the Pentagon in 1967... GReedDiamond Jan 2017 #10
I'm sorry I wasn't there in the fall of 1969, but... k8conant Jan 2017 #11
Yes, in 1971. The Velveteen Ocelot Jan 2017 #12
Yes, many during Vietnam war. HassleCat Jan 2017 #13
Turkish Style LunaSea Jan 2017 #14
They arrested 13,000 of us in 1971. braddy Jan 2017 #18
I was at a couple of them eleny Jan 2017 #19
Yeah, but............ MyOwnPeace Jan 2017 #20
thanks everyone for these responses orleans Jan 2017 #21

elleng

(130,156 posts)
4. In 1971, the People Didnt Just March on Washington They Shut It Down
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:33 AM
Jan 2017

The most influential large-scale political action of the ’60s was actually in 1971, and you’ve never heard of it. It was called the Mayday action, and it provides invaluable lessons for today.

'If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.

The largest and most audacious direct action in US history is also among the least remembered, a protest that has slipped into deep historical obscurity. It was a protest against the Vietnam War, but it wasn’t part of the storied sixties, having taken place in 1971, a year of nationwide but largely unchronicled ferment. To many, infighting, violence, and police repression had effectively destroyed “the movement” two years earlier in 1969.

That year, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the totemic organization of the white New Left, had disintegrated into dogmatic and squabbling factions; the Black Panther Party, meanwhile, had been so thoroughly infiltrated and targeted by law enforcement that factionalism and paranoia had come to eclipse its expansive program of revolutionary nationalism. But the war had certainly not ended, and neither had the underlying economic and racial injustices that organizers had sought to address across a long decade of protest politics. If anything, the recent flourishing of heterodox new radicalisms—from the women’s and gay liberation movements to radical ecology to militant Native American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Asian-American movements—had given those who dreamed of a world free of war and oppression a sobering new awareness of the range and scale of the challenges they faced.'>>>

https://longreads.com/2017/01/20/in-1971-the-people-didnt-just-march-on-washington-they-shut-it-down/

randr

(12,408 posts)
15. Yes, now I remember, it was incredible
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:45 AM
Jan 2017

Of course the media never presented the actual ideology behind the anti war movement.
They presented it as strange theater dismissing any real discussion.
I wish people today who love to diss the press could have the perspective to see how much better it really is now.
Not sayi g it's perfect, just better.

flamingdem

(39,304 posts)
16. True, it has improved
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:47 AM
Jan 2017

I posted about the levitation - so funny that they got a permit to lift it 3 feet vs the 300 they asked for!

Warpy

(110,913 posts)
6. Here are the biggest protests
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:34 AM
Jan 2017
http://www.curbed.com/2017/1/19/14311548/marches-protests-locations-united-states-history

I think you're thinking of the 1969 anti Vietnam protest in DC wherein vets threw their medals over the White House fence.

I have a feeling these things are going to get bigger and bigger.

Republicans, of course, will sit on their suburban couches and sneer that we all need to go get jobs.

FDT

cilla4progress

(24,589 posts)
17. John Kerry
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:49 AM
Jan 2017

Was there, am I right?

Another example of the alt right doing its nasty against an American hero. War Veteran peace activist.

dalton99a

(81,073 posts)
7. November 1969:
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:34 AM
Jan 2017
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/2000/vietnam092799.htm

Metropolitan Police Lt. Robert Klotz found himself in a thin blue line of officers decked out in riot gear. In front of Klotz that November day in 1969 stood a barricade formed out of 57 city buses. Behind the buses came the constant thrum of thousands of unseen anti-war demonstrators. And behind Klotz was the White House. Richard Nixon was inside, watching the Ohio State-Purdue football game on television.

As the 30-year-old Klotz stood his ground, a sergeant to his left went down in a heap. A bottle clattered to the pavement nearby.

"When you get involved in a situation where they're throwing things, you don't look straight ahead," recalled Klotz, who retired from the D.C. force as deputy chief in 1980. "You look up."

It has been a long time since D.C. police have had to master the intricacies of rock-and-bottle trajectory. But things were different in the '60s, when Washington served as a fulcrum for the forces that swirled around the divisive war in Vietnam. Every year from 1967 to 1971, a major march occurred in the District, including four of the biggest anti-war demonstrations in American history.

k8conant

(3,030 posts)
11. I'm sorry I wasn't there in the fall of 1969, but...
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:41 AM
Jan 2017

I did go to the U.S. Embassy in Paris with protestors to sign a "protest book". We had to go past a long line of "flics" (cops) in their riot gear to get there.

The Velveteen Ocelot

(115,280 posts)
12. Yes, in 1971.
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:41 AM
Jan 2017

There were many major protests in the late '60s and early '70s but IIRC one of the largest was in '71.

 

HassleCat

(6,409 posts)
13. Yes, many during Vietnam war.
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:43 AM
Jan 2017

Nixon famously snuck ou late one night and chatted with protesters at thevLincoln Memorial. There is debate as to whether or not this really happened, but I knew someone in college who swears he spoke with Nixon. And he's not a UFO, Bigfoot, Elvis sighting type person.

 

braddy

(3,585 posts)
18. They arrested 13,000 of us in 1971.
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:50 AM
Jan 2017

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_May_Day_protests

"10,000 federal troops were quickly moved to various locations in the Washington, D.C. area. At one point, so many soldiers and marines were being moved into the area from bases along the East Coast that troop transports were landing at the rate of one every three minutes at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, about 15 miles from the White House. Among these troops were 4,000 paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division,troops from Marine Barracks lined both sides of the 14th St bridge. These troops were to back up the 5,100 D.C. Metropolitan Police, 2,000 D.C. National Guard and Nixon’s internal security forces that were already in place. Every monument, park and traffic circle in the nation's capital had troops protecting its perimeters. Paratroopers and marines deployed via helicopter to the grounds of the Washington Monument."
(snip)
"While the troops secured the major intersections and bridges, the police roamed through the city making massive arrest sweeps and used tear gas. They arrested anyone who looked like a demonstrator, including construction workers who had come out to support the government. By 8 am 7,000 protesters had been arrested. The city's prisons did not have the capacity to handle that many people thus an emergency detention center surrounded by an 8-foot-high (2.4 m) fence was set up next to RFK Stadium. No food, water, or sanitary facilities were made available by authorities but sympathetic local residents brought supplies. Skirmishes between protesters and police occurred up until about mid-day. In Georgetown, the police herded the protesters and onlookers through the streets to the Georgetown University campus. The police then engaged in a back and forth with the protesters outside the university's main gate on O Street, lobbing tear gas over the gate each time they pushed the crowd back. Other forms of gas were used including pepper based and one that induced vomiting. Police helicopters also dropped tear gas on the university's lower athletic field where protesters had camped the night before. Numerous people were severely injured and treated by volunteers on campus. By afternoon the police had suppressed the disruption efforts and the protesters had mainly dispersed.

Smaller protests continued resulting in the arrests of several thousand more, bringing the total to 12,614 people, making this the largest mass arrest in U.S. history."

eleny

(46,166 posts)
19. I was at a couple of them
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 01:51 AM
Jan 2017

I don't recall surrounding the White House or the Capitol.

But one I attended in 1967 was when the Pentagon was surrounded. A group surged forward and tried to gain entry. Tear gas was fired into the crowd by Nat'l Guardsmen on the hill up from the building. They set up their gas cannon a few yards to my left.
This is one chronicle of what happened that day.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/100000-people-march-on-the-pentagon

orleans

(33,987 posts)
21. thanks everyone for these responses
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 02:33 AM
Jan 2017

i guess my initial thought was a vague memory of the story about levitating the pentagon

the mayday protest was sooo interesting to read about.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»was there a protest or ga...