Peace and Freedom. Simon Hall
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dialogue between people active in various “progressive” movements. Approximately 2,000 people attended the AUP, and on August 6 the twentieth anniversary of Hiroshima was marked with a silent vigil outside the White House. Three days later, on the anniversary of Nagasaki, the AUP concluded its activities with an antiwar march of 800 people from the Washington Monument to the Capitol.97 A total of about 350 activists were arrested for engaging in acts of civil disobedience over the weekend.98
Despite the involvement of civil rights figures such as Moses and Cox at the leadership level of the AUP, most SNCC workers were less interested in antiwar protest, preferring to focus their attentions on organizing around civil rights in the black community. Only a handful of southern civil rights workers were actively involved in the AUP, and black movement activists were a “distinct minority” at the Assembly.99 The NAACP, anxious to dissociate the civil rights movement from Vietnam dissent, had attacked the AUP as an attempt to hoodwink civil rights groups into supporting protests against U.S. policy in Vietnam. Roy Wilkins accepted that the AUP’s official call mentioned civil rights, but he argued that the “main emphasis” was on Vietnam, and that “Mississippi” was just a “come-on word”. The NAACP executive director thus warned Branch and Youth Council presidents against becoming involved in the AUP.100
Although Wilkins was being unfair in claiming that the AUP was designed to co-opt the civil rights movement, its goal of generating productive dialogue between various progressive movements remained largely unfulfilled. In part this was because so few civil rights people attended—there was a “busload from Mississippi, two delegates from New Orleans, small groups from other Southern communities, and a few staff members of civil rights organizations,” but that was all. A second reason was that for many of the participants Vietnam was the overriding issue, and many peace activists were prepared to sacrifice the success of the workshops in order to protest against the war. As Anne Braden explained, for opponents of the war, “sitting down in the gates of the White House seemed more urgent” than trying to build constructive working relationships with various groups around a broad range of issues. Consequently, there was a tendency for peace and civil rights activists to meet separately. However, on the occasions when they did get together, there were problems with “intellectuals using big words and dominating conversations.” Only once during the weekend, at the “community people’s workshop,” was productive cooperation achieved—and this was because the people from Mississippi talked and requested that the “intellectuals” just listen.101
Jack Newfield’s report on the AUP was even less positive than Braden’s—he claimed that “all the contradictions and polarities within the new radical movement crystallized during the four picnic-like days of the assembly.” Newfield described an incestuous gathering of movement people that seethed with tensions. There were tensions between black and white, between radical and moderate, and between those who wanted to bear religious witness against Vietnam and those who wished to organize a radical political movement that focused on the war.102
Newfield documented one clash that offers an interesting insight into the tension that existed between the civil rights and peace activists. On the final morning of the Assembly, Clint Hopson, the black activist from McComb whose anti-draft work had recently landed the MFDP in hot water, read a statement urging Mississippi blacks to refuse to register for the draft. He also accused the MFDP of employing “expediency” in its refusal to support the call for draft resistance. Bob Moses, angered by the enthusiastic response of the 800-strong, mostly white crowd, took the floor. He defended the party and criticized what one might term the rhetorical radicalism of many of the delegates. Moses explained that he had “watched MFDP people risk their lives and I’ve heard you folks debate for the last three days about going to jail for a few hours…. Mississippi people have paid a terrible price and I don’t see anybody here doing that. You people should be supporting the Congressional challenge, not attacking the MFDP.”
In many ways the AUP augured the shape of things to come regarding attempts to bring about closer cooperation between the peace and freedom movements. Arguments about emphasis and multi-issuism, the cultural and “intellectual” barriers between white student antiwar activists and black civil rights workers, and interracial tensions would, throughout the decade, plague efforts to build a broad, radical, multiracial, multi-issue antiwar coalition.
The fissures within the antiwar coalition over race, multi-issuism, and exclusionism and the tensions between radicals and liberals came to the fore once again during antiwar activities in the nation’s capital over the 1965 Thanksgiving holiday. Two important events coincided—the first national convention of the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC) which had been founded at the AUP, and a National Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy (SANE)-sponsored peace march.
Sanford Gottlieb, coordinator of the SANE march, had announced that one of his objectives was to keep “kooks, communists or draft-dodgers” out of the demonstration in an attempt to appeal to moderates.103 But despite SANE’s policy of rejecting civil disobedience and discouraging communist support, radicals were not completely alienated from proceedings. Although signs calling for immediate withdrawal were strongly discouraged, for example, they were not banned, and the radicals’ commitment to inclusiveness obliged them to give at least grudging support.104 The NCC decided to support the SANE march for a number of reasons. It was considered important to try to maintain the unity of the peace movement, and there was also a belief that SANE was moving in a radical direction—it was, for example, being less exclusionary than normal. Indeed, during the mid-1960s SANE, which had been founded by radical pacifists and peace liberals in 1957, was wracked by internal divisions between radicals and moderates who disagreed over policy and tactics. As well as seeing the chance to “connect” with the radical segments of SANE’s middle-class constituency, the NCC also saw an opportunity to link the peace and freedom movements. It was rumored that SANE was trying to persuade Martin Luther King to speak at the antiwar rally, and the radicals noted that
Negroes from the South are being mobilized for a demonstration in Washington. If we hope to involve civil rights as a component in a broad struggle for human rights, we can do it only if we have a conference in Washington after a rally at which King speaks of peace. There may never again be such an opportunity … to hear the Southern part of the dialogue.105
However, it is worth noting that, although a number of African Americans attended the NCC convention, only about 5 percent of those participating in the SANE march were black, and, contrary to the King rumor, no important civil rights leader spoke.106
Indeed, the late summer of 1965 had seen a blow to efforts to unite the civil rights and peace movements, as Martin Luther King retreated from his initial opposition to the war in Vietnam. He had first spoken out in March, before making an important speech at an SCLC rally in Petersburg, Virginia, on July 2. Before a cheering crowd of 2,000 at a local football stadium, King declared that “the United States should spare no effort in pursuing” a negotiated settlement to the conflict, even if that meant talking to the Viet Cong. Moreover, King suggested that Americans should hold peace rallies, “just like we have freedom rallies.”107 However, several members of the SCLC board were uneasy over King’s Vietnam comments. While his right to express dissent was confirmed, the board also made it clear that the SCLC did not have enough resources to work for peace as well as civil rights. This did not prevent King from announcing, in early August, a plan to write letters to LBJ and the leaders of the USSR, China, North and South Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front (NLF), calling on them to begin negotiations. He also urged Johnson to consider a bombing pause and to indicate willingness to negotiate with the Viet Cong.
King, though, quickly came under pressure to retreat from his antiwar stance. Johnson chided him for his antiwar comments, and at the beginning of September UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg met with King to bring him “on-side.” The next day, Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd, a close Johnson ally, publicly attacked King for his antiwar remarks and pointed out that it was illegal for private citizens to engage in independent foreign policy ventures. The message was clear—LBJ would brook no dissent over Vietnam. If King persisted with his antiwar activism he could expect a barrage of stinging criticism and frosty relations with