Black Anti-war Activism
Background
The African American anti-war movement surrounding the Vietnam conflict predates Bobby Seale. One of the first prominent African American group to publicly speak out against the war was the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). In July of 1965 the group released a statement, saying that African Americans would not "fight in Vietnam for the white man's freedom, until all the Negro people are free in Mississippi."[1] It is important to recognize that the Black anti-war movement was not separate from the larger Civil Rights Movement of the time, but rather a logical extension of a more general fight against injustice. Initially the majority of the Black community, like broader America, was for the war at its onset, but divisions within the African American community existed. More moderate groups, like the National Urban League and the NAACP initially supported anti-communist intervention.[2] This was in no small part because the groups had a working relationship with President Lyndon Johnson, whose support was critical to their larger goals. More moderate groups like the aforementioned SNCC and the Black Panther Party were quicker to condemn the war and to link it to oppression, and this perspective became more and more prominent as the war went on. Black Americans increasingly linked the war’s detrimental effects to their communities to larger, more systemic, discrimination.
A sign of the changing attitudes of African Americans came in April of 1967, in a seminal speech by Martin Luther King. Although King had spoke out against the war publicly as far back as 1965, saying “millions of dollars can be spent every day to hold troops in South Viet Nam and our country cannot protect the rights of Negroes in Selma”, it was his speech at Riverside Church in Harlem on April 4, 1967 that seemed to finally resonate with mainstream America.[3] In the speech, he denounced the war abroad by linking it to discrimination at home, saying “We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together at the same schools.”[4] King, perhaps more than any other figure, embodied mainstream African American opinion of the time and his statements against the Vietnam war solidified Black opposition to the war. Kings timing also reflects public opinion at large. King’s public statement coincides (within several months depending on the poll) with public support for the war dropping below 50% for the first time.[5] Likely King’s statements finally took hold with the public, as both Blacks and whites were becoming more and more discontented with the war. Although not nearly as stark as the precipitous drop in public support for the war following the Tet Offensive in 1968, overall public opinion was changing and as a result the Black anti-war movement resonated with broader America.[6]
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Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n82rgdbM9G4
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Key Figures and Groups
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
The NAACP was founded in 1909, the first of the major civil rights groups of the Black anti-war movement. Of the groups discussed it is perhaps the most prominent in the present day. Although heavily involved in the anti-war movement, the group's most important contribution to the civil rights movement came much earlier. In 1939, the NAACP created the Legal Defense Fund, offering legal services to disenfranchised African Americans. The most important legal action undertaken by the NAACP was in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, in which the court unanimously found that segregation in public schooling was unconstitutional.
National Urban League
The National Urban League was the second oldest prominent civil right organization involved in the anti-war movement. It was founded in 1910 by Ruth Standish Baldwin and George Edmund Haynes. The group differed more radiacal groups like the SNCC and the Black Panthers in their approach to the civil rights issues of the 1960s. The group was much more willing to work through the system and enjoyed more mainstream acceptance. The group also enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Martin Luther King throughout Civil Rights Movement.
SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)
SNCC was founded in 1960 by Ella Baker, an organizer with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The group brought together a patchwork of college based civil rights groups in the fight against racial discrimination. The group participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides as well as the 1963 March on Washington. Although the group never wielded the same influence of Martin Luther King and others, they remained a strong force on college campuses throughout the 1960s and were key players in the university anti-war movement.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. is undoubtably the most prominent figure of the Civil Rights Movement. King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta Georgia. Son of a minister, King would follow in his fathers footsteps and his ministry gave him a platform to speak on issues of racial injustice. King is best known for his "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered at the March on Washington in 1963. He was a central figurehead throughout the Civil Rights movement and gave a famous speech titled "Beyond Vietnam", which helped garner African American opposition to Vietnam.
Muhammed Ali
Muhammad Ali was perhaps the most important pop cultural figure of the Black anti-war movement. Ali was a cultural icon for both white and Black Americans and used his position to advocate for disenfranchised African Americans at home and abroad. Ali's attitude towards the war reflects many of the attitudes of Black Americans at large. Like many Black Americans, Ali linked the oppression of the war to the oppression faced by Black Americans at home as well as to those facing oppression abroad, saying “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America.”[7] His opinions resonated within the Black community but earned him no favors with mainstream America. Ali faced legal challenges to resistance to the draft and was convicted of violating the Selective Service Act in 1967, but his charges were eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in Clay v. United States (1971). Regardless of backlash on the part of white Americans, Ali remained an important figure within the Black anti-war movement and connected the movement to pop culture and sports.
Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party
Click the link above to go to the Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party page.
[1] “Black Oppposition to Vietnam”, Amistad Digital Resource: Civil Rights Era. https://www.amistadresource.org/civil_rights_era/black_opposition_to_vietnam.html
[2]Christine Knauer, “Race and/in War”, part of At War: The Military and American Culture in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2018) p.184
[3] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/liberation-curriculum/create-your-own-classroom-activity/king-and-vietnam
[4] Nick Witham, “Domestic Politics and Antiwar Activism”, part of At War: The Military and American Culture in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2018) p.56
[5] William L. Lunch and Peter W. Sperlich, “American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam”, The Wester Political Quarterly, Vol.32, No. 1 (March, 1979). p.25
[6] Lunch and Sperlich p.14
[7] Brown, D. (2020, June 12). 'Shoot them for what?' How Muhammad Ali won his Greatest fight. Retrieved May 13, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/06/15/shoot-them-for-what-how-muhammad-ali-won-his-greatest-fight/
[2]Christine Knauer, “Race and/in War”, part of At War: The Military and American Culture in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2018) p.184
[3] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/liberation-curriculum/create-your-own-classroom-activity/king-and-vietnam
[4] Nick Witham, “Domestic Politics and Antiwar Activism”, part of At War: The Military and American Culture in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2018) p.56
[5] William L. Lunch and Peter W. Sperlich, “American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam”, The Wester Political Quarterly, Vol.32, No. 1 (March, 1979). p.25
[6] Lunch and Sperlich p.14
[7] Brown, D. (2020, June 12). 'Shoot them for what?' How Muhammad Ali won his Greatest fight. Retrieved May 13, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/06/15/shoot-them-for-what-how-muhammad-ali-won-his-greatest-fight/