In August 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, and President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. Anti- war movements began vastly among college campuses, members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) started to put together 'tech-ins' to show their opposition towards the war in Vietnam. Even though there was a large majority of Americans who did support the war movement in Vietnam, these small but strong protesters began to make a voice that soon became louder by the end of 1965. These protesters included many students, prominent artists, intellectuals, and members of the hippie movement, these were people who rejected public authority and encompassed the drug culture. The number of soldiers in Vietnam started to climb by November of 1967, there were more and more casualties being reported everyday. On October 21, 1967, one of the biggest anti- war movements took place at Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. There was about 100,000 protesters, 30,000 of which continued to march on the Pentagon later that night. There was a brutal sight of soldiers and U.S. Marshals guarding the building which resulted in hundred of people being arrested. The anti- war protest were at first a peaceful protest in different areas, but they began to get violent. Some people would burn buildings and more and more protesters were arrested. This made a large impact on America because of the amount of people that were dying in the war.
By Kayla