How Did The Anti-War Movement Affect The Civil Rights Movement?

By 1967 over half the country had found a reason to disagree with the War in Vietnam (Lorell, Kelley, & Hensler,1985). The Anti-War Movement attracted individuals from all walks of life, such as college students, middle-class suburban youth, labor union workers, and even government employees (Barringer). The motivations for each individual’s disagreement with the war varied much more than one would imagine. Although the movement was fueled by much more than these objections. It was the rise of counterculture and anti-establishment in the youth that really brought the movement the recognition it receives today. The Anti-War movement was essentially the birth of modern day activism. Along with civil rights movement, it set the precedent for future
The famous March on Washington “in which 200,000 black and whites participated in” (Gallagher) happened in 1963. As a result of the broken draft system “64 percent of all eligible African-Americans were drafted, but only 31 percent of eligible whites” ("Black Opposition to Vietnam.") and several draft boards in the south were entirely white. Martin Luther King Jr. fully opposed the war in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech. As a result he was denounced by 168 major newspaper and destroyed his relationship with President Lyndon Johnson ("The Story Of King's 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech."). In the speech he had stated “Black leaders could not become blind to the rest of the world's issues while engaged solely in problems of domestic race relations” ("Black Opposition to Vietnam."). In April of 1967 he organized a rally of 125,000 in protest against the war. He was able to gain back support after the controversial speech by reminding the nation of the huge amount of money spent on the war instead of being spent on fighting
After a trip to Vietnam, he concluded that the war was unwinnable and a stalemate. Johnson was quoted saying “If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.” (Wicker). Although upon further investigation, Cronkite's report was actually considered to be extremely misrepresentative of the reality of the Tet Offensive, it did not matter to the public. Cronkite at that time was more a trusted source than the President himself. Another famous journalist David Halberstam referred to the report as “the first time in American history a war had been declared over by an anchorman” (Nelson). In 1969 Nixon said in a news conference that the war is coming to a “conclusion as a result of the plan that we have instituted” (History.com Staff). This plan he was referring to was “Vietnamization”.This was the slow withdrawal of U.S. soldiers and building up of South Vietnamese forces in their place. Although it wasn’t until 1973 when the troops were completely