The Role Of Student Protest In The 1960s

The 1960s were a tumultuous decade, the country was being rocked by social turmoil, and we were at war in Vietnam. However, out of this tumultuousness the country arose as a more just, culturally diverse, and politically tolerant nation that it had been in the previous decade. A great example of how the country changed for the better are the student movements that took place protesting the war in Vietnam. Never before in the history of the nation had such a group arisen to protest a war that the United States was in. In all previous wars the country had been unified politically, but as Bob Dylan said in his famous 1964 song of the same name “The Times They Are a-Changin” this slogan right here perfectly embodies that type of change that was taking place in the 1960s that was turning the country into a more just, culturally
diverse, and politically tolerant nation.
To understand how these student protest against the war in Vietnam helped the country become a better place we know to know more about the protest. The student protest movement originated in Port Huron, Michigan in 1962 when a group called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was formed. SDS denounced both racism and militarism, and they disagreed with the war in Vietnam, which they viewed as an imperialistic act. They pioneered the protest tactic of staging “teach-ins” to discuss the consequences of further escalation in Vietnam. This idea which at first was limited to elite institutions, and major state universities soon spread throughout academia. The student protest movement, and more specifically SDS contributed to making the United States a more just, culturally diverse, and politically tolerant
nation in a number of ways. First, they denounced racism at time when much of the south was still segregated, which at the time was a bold move. Second, SDS also supported women`s rights. We know this because in 1965 during the first major antiwar rally in Washington, which happened to be sponsored by SDS the speakers linked the Vietnam demonstrations to other issues that were affecting society such as racism, women`s rights, and the role of universities in fostering protest. However, I think what shows that in the 1960s the country was becoming a more tolerant place is the fact that SDS was even allowed to exist. In the previous decades, and in the ones before it groups like this with even the slightest ties to communism would have been squashed almost immediately. While many did not like SDS, and some did not try to put an end to the group for the most part it was tolerated. In conclusion, the despite the tumultuousness the 1960s in America was by far a more just, culturally diverse, and politically tolerant nation than it had been when the decade began. Student groups such as SDS are the perfect example of this. SDS supported the civil rights movement, women’s rights, and an end to the war in Vietnam. Furthermore, the group leaned hard to the left on the politically spectrum. Groups like these helped to make the United States a more diverse, tolerant, and just nation. Also, in previous decades it would have been unfathomable for a group like this to exist in the first place, a group such as this would have been squashed during the red scare by men such as Joe McCarthy. For these reasons it is evident that despite the tumultuousness of the 1960s by the end of the decade the country was a more just, culturally diverse, and politically tolerant nation than it had been when the decade began.