Anti War Protests: Student Movement
The Vietnam war was prolonged, and the US involvement expanded with it. With this came protests and more specially the student led movements. Students were fuelled to protest against the Vietnamese War because of the graphic deaths and massacrers that were plastered across the US media. The publics trust in the government and their decisions on war were undermined. Student groups became a huge factor in the anti war movement in the 1960s, they held protests, created placards, and shouted slogans.
In 1970, on the 4th of May a group of Kent State University students were involved in a mass protest against the US bombing Cambodia in the Vietnam War. The university had tried to cancel the protest but 2,000 students still gathered. Because of this the university called the guard to try and disperse the students, when they refused to move they used tear gas which then lead to the guards using rifles. 28 guardsmen fired 67 rounds of bullets in a matter of seconds, this killed 4 students and wounded 9. Protestors were not the only ones hurt but passerby and people just observing the protest. The shooting caused a huge reaction not only on university students, but on the general publics opinion on the role of the US in the Vietnam war.
The event that shook the nation led to the student movement growing rapidly, they took to anti war art to voice their opinions. The University of California played a vital role in this encouraging the university arts department to create thousands of silkscreen prints. On of these prints included a silk screen American Flag by American Artist Robin Repp. The flag included guns and war planes in the American flag. These artworks were plastered around universities by volunteers, the movements started to grow “The atmosphere around Berkeley was initially one of support, with lecturers putting on poster-making workshops, the liberal local community broadly agreeing with the anti-war sentiment.”
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-8/apush-1960s-america/a/the-student-movement-and-the-antiwar-movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jan/30/poster-power-anti-vietnam-war-art-berkeley-california-students-exhibition-shapero-modern
Students protesting the Vietnam War in 1965
14-year-old runaway, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was fatally shot by the Ohio National Guard
The event that shook the nation led to the student movement growing rapidly, they took to anti war art to voice their opinions. The University of California played a vital role in this encouraging the university arts department to create thousands of silkscreen prints. On of these prints included a silk screen American Flag by American Artist Robin Repp. The flag included guns and war planes in the American flag. These artworks were plastered around universities by volunteers, the movements started to grow “The atmosphere around Berkeley was initially one of support, with lecturers putting on poster-making workshops, the liberal local community broadly agreeing with the anti-war sentiment.”
American Flag (untitled) 1970, silkscreen, printed on the blank side of a Carson Morris calendar. Photograph: Courtesy of Shapero Modern, London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jan/30/poster-power-anti-vietnam-war-art-berkeley-california-students-exhibition-shapero-modern
