The United States had been involved in the Vietnam War since the early 1960’s. By the turn of the new decade, America had endured enough. Richard Nixon became president and Americans wanted peace. The United States was in a state of chaos and the young faces in communities were beginning to take a stand. The state of Arizona, including the community of Northern Arizona University (NAU), was not exempt from these anti-war movements. NAU was just as involved as the other two major state universities during this time. The Vietnam War protests at NAU aligned the students and the faculty within the state and the national movements. In three major events during the 1969-1970 school year, National Peace Day, Vietnam Moratorium to end the war, and the Kent State shooting, NAU and the national antiwar movement were opposed to the actions of the Nixon administration.
The Vietnam conflict began in 1945 as a result of World War II, and the rise of communism. However, America didn’t enter the war officially until 1961 sending 400 troops to Vietnam to aid France in its colonial war. After France was defeated, the United States began sending troops to Vietnam to stop the spread of communism in the Vietnamese Civil War. America feared that communism would spread throughout the world. Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson sent troops and aid for warfare during their terms. In 1969, Richard Nixon was elected President for his plan to end the war. In reality, not only did he not end the war, but he escalated it, with more than 500,000 U.S. soldiers in country, after the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia in 1970. These actions – not ending the war as promised and the escalation – prompted most of the antiwar protests. In the summer and fall of 1969, students around the country joined in protests. Eventually by 1972 and 1973, Nixon, through secret peace talks ended the war and by 1975 all the U.S. troops had been pulled out of Vietnam.[1]
Because of Nixon’s actions antiwar protests broke out in the communities and on college campuses. These protests were organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. The Moratorium to End the Vietnam War took place on October 15, 1969. Millions of Americans took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war. This was one of the first major demonstrations against the Nixon administration's war tactics. Nixon responded by calling these students "bums blowing up campuses."[2] The second major protest, known as National Peace Day, November 14th and 15th, 1969 crowds estimated up to half a million people participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. The Kent State protest regarding the invasion of Cambodia on May 5th 1970 was the third major protest. This led to the National Guard firing into the crowd killing four students and wounding nine students. Many anti-war groups and campuses protested the shooting and action taken towards the Kent State students. In the week following over 100,000 people proceeded to protest in Washington D.C. in reaction to the Kent State shootings and the invasion of Cambodia.[3]
The history of Northern Arizona University was predominately peaceful until 1969. Prior to the Vietnam War protests the excitement consisted of sporting events, construction, expansion of the growing campus, and parent’s weekend. NAU had never had students and faculty agreeing and coming together to voice their opinion. Flagstaff was a small town in the mountains and people seemed to be more worried about the draft than they were protesting the war. John Blue, a student from 1966 to 1970, stated in an interview that the men in the dorms would go downstairs to watch the draft to see if their birthday was called. NAU’s President J. Lawrence Walkup had intentionally designed the campus to be long and skinny with dining halls on each end of the campus as well as libraries and other student necessities. This allowed for separation and kept NAU’s campus and the quiet little mountain town of Flagstaff peaceful.[4]
University of Arizona and Arizona State University both participated in the National Moratoriums to end the war. Students at the UofA like many universities in the United States started peacefully, but soon newspapers reported that they turned violent. A student stated that there was a great deal of unrest, but the campus was less violent than lots of places.[5] The Arizona Peace Coalition called upon ASU to dismiss classes for the two major moratoriums. The administration refused. Students responded by protesting on the mall. Then another student group, Young Americans for Freedom, were also at the mall to encourage students to stay in class. When the two opposing viewpoints met on the mall, violence erupted, but many were apprehended by their peers.[6] However, ASU took action silently by carrying more than 400 place cards with the names of Arizona of soldiers who were killed. After the moratorium these cards were then mailed to President Nixon.[7]
The first main protest to occur at NAU was the Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam. On October 7, 1969, The Lumberjack reported that the Nationwide Moratorium would take place, but there was no evidence that NAU would be participating.[8] The Vietnam Moratorium Committee had approached over 500 college student body presidents regarding the one day halt. The goal of the Moratorium was not to strike, but to stop and think about the war. The following issue of The Lumberjack on the 14th of October stated that ASNAU supported the Moratorium and would have an open microphone all day with scheduled speakers including the Reverend of a local church and a special mass offered by the local Father of the Newman Center. ASNAU’s advisor, Bill Degroot, said that “Students should feel the need to respond.”[9] He anticipated that students would take advantage of the opportunity to voice their opinion and join the national movement to oppose the war.
The Moratorium was seen as a miracle to some students and as a complete failure to others. Jerry Reece, who was the chairman of the campus-centered activities, believed that the Moratorium, also known as National Peace Day, was ‘A Miracle.’ Reece believed the students were “discovering the essence of their lives in regard to the war.” He saw three goals for the protests. First the student body president and faculty advisors wanted to show the students that they feel the war is an important issue on campus. Second they intended to generate more of an interest among the student body regarding the war. Finally they wanted to coordinate with the national effort and show that Northern Arizona University was indeed a part of the community and the anti-war movement.[10]
Lon Miller, the editor of the Lumberjack was skeptical of what good the moratorium would accomplish, and after observing it was not impressed. The Moratorium consisted of two to three hundred students; Miller said the number of students was “good, but not enough to speak in a truly representative manner.” [11] President Nixon publicly declared that he would decline the student’s efforts prior to the protest.[12]
On the same day as the Moratorium an elderly woman who was only known as the “Peace Pilgrim,” made an appearance on NAU’s campus. Students learned that this elderly woman, who looked no older than 40, but was actually 70 years old and had been walking across America for peace. Her goal was to walk 25,000 miles, but by the time she reached NAU her goal had already been met. That night she spoke to students who participated in the Moratorium and other peace walks. She said to the students “I shall remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until I am given shelter and tasting until I am given food.”[13] This was significant, because she was known throughout the nation and in the tiny mountain town of Flagstaff she was more or less a celebrity to those opposed to the war.[14]
The second major protest at NAU occurred a month after the National Peace Day Moratorium, another peaceful demonstration, The Work for Peace Days, were scheduled for November 14th and 15th of 1969. The two day event was an effort to dramatize the efforts that needed to be put forth to end the war. [15] The faculty participated in the moratorium, by speaking throughout the day. The idea behind their involvement was aimed at educating students through informative approach to the Vietnam War. The topic of the discussions quoted in the Arizona Daily Sun, “Vietnam? Where do we go from there?” However, the Work for Peace Days caused controversy among the Arizona Board of Regents. The board criticized the protests, because students boycotted class on National Peace Day. The Regents set strict guidelines for faculty and students. Those who boycotted class would be dismissed from the university, but Walkup denied receiving word of this action. Walkup, who was opposed to protests on the campus, expressed that he didn’t believe that the moratorium was going to cause trouble, but if too many students boycotted classes the administration would take action as they occurred.[16] There was no evidence proving that students and faculty boycotted classes, therefore punishment for the university as a whole was not required.
As part of the first day of the National Peace Day, an attorney, William Smith from California, came to NAU to tell students about how to legally avoid the draft. Ironically on a campus with so much protest less than 100 students attended. One reason for the poor showing may have been the fact that college students could be deferred from the draft simply, because they were in college. However, by the end of 1969 students deferent changed when a lottery draft was implemented in December of 1969 for the month of January. One student at that time told me in an interview that if he had known the circumstances, he probably would have attended the draft protests Perhaps this is true for other students.[17]
The May 1970 protests and killings at Kent State University in Ohio sparked another round of protests on college campuses nationwide. NAU took sufficient action in regards to the Kent State “massacre.” Brent Adams, ASNAU president, scheduled a protest on Tuesday evening that 700-800 students attended. After the march began on south campus the students seemed to lose sight of why they had gathered. The students were stopped before the reached downtown forced to turn around. It soon became an angry mob. The students then proceeded to go to President J. Lawrence Walkup’s lawn, but he was not home. They decided to move to the lawn of north campus.[18]
Once true, the student’s reaction turned the movement into a general campus protest. They began to complain about authorities having guns on campus. They suggested that a university should be a safe place for a student, not one filled with fear and anxiety. They then decided that they would spend the night on the north campus lawn and not go to class the next day. Once the all night affair and the proposed strike was made, shouts of “Let’s have a good time and skip class” replaced the usual phrase of “Give peace a chance.” Students had lost sight of what they were supposed to be supporting or not supporting and turned the night into a party for themselves. [19]
Despite this behavior of students that were supposed to be peacefully protesting the Kent State shootings, many other people on campus acted out without rioting or yelling. NAU Student and fundraising project chairman, Betty Cole organized a fund raiser to help aid civilian rehabilitation in South Vietnam. Cole and other organizations helped raise almost $3,000. through selling baked goods, crafts, and other small trinkets. The Hiking Club did a “Walk for Peace” seven students hiked 40 miles around Northern Arizona and were sponsored to raise money for the event. An American soldier wrote Cole and thanked her, and said that “These children over here really do need help… Good luck.”[20]
In addition to the three main protests, students took action on a smaller scale. In November of 1970 a group of six people attempted to set fire to the NAU Naval Reserve. The six people were believed to be a militant segment of students for a democratic society that called them selves the “Flagstaff Weathermen.” The “Weatherman” emerged as a group of radicals opposed to the war, but became violent throughout the 1970’s. The Flagstaff Weathermen believed that with everything that had been occurring on campuses across the nation that military instillation has no place on a college campus. The article stated that although the “Flagstaff Weathermen” failed miserably, they anonymously told the Arizona Daily Sun that they would try again.[21]
NAU students also protested to the Arizona Board of what was happening on the campus of all Arizona’s universities. The three Arizona universities student body presidents tried to make it so they could be heard at the Board of Regents meetings, but were denied by a vote amongst the board. The board argued that if students could speak then faculty and staff would ask for time to speak as well. However, the faculty and staff are employees of the Board of Regents and students are not. NAU’s student body president said, “It seems with the present state of unrest at universities, across the nation, that the Regents would want an opportunity to talk with student presidents.” [22] The Board of Regents quickly proposed a Code of Conduct after the new school year began. Most of what was being proposed students believed to be taking away their rights. Some of the action taken may be in reaction to the chaos that was observed on the campus in the prior years at NAU and other campuses in regards to the Vietnam War. Taking away freedoms, would allow for a well ordered campus. Students scheduled a referendum in December for January 7th, 1971 to object to the Code of Conduct, specifically dealing with men’s and women’s housing situations.
As 1971 began there wasn’t much action on the campus opposing the war. However, since the protests against Kent State shooting the nation was quiet. The approval rating of the war was an at an all time low. There was only one major protest in 1971 called May Day. Opposition to the war took place May 1st through May 3rd in Washington D.C., but was an embarrassment to the Nixon Administration due to the 12,000 arrests of demonstrators. Students at NAU expressed their views about the war by writing to the Lumberjack and publishing their letters or poems. Kenneth Cheek who was a Junior at NAU in 1971 wrote a poem expressing the disparity the country is between the civil rights movement and sending young men to war while Nixon still is head of this nation and the white house, Cheek just calls it “that big white house.”[23]
Northern Arizona University was quite active with protests from 1969-1971. The first two actions, Peace Day and the Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam, were small in comparison to the rest of the country yet unusual for the small mountain campus. The Kent State protest in 1970 was the largest on campus, with about ten percent of the student body, 800-1000 people attending. Students joined with faculty as never before. Although these protests dwindled after Kent State, there were many smaller ones until the war ended in 1975. On the whole, although NAU’s actions were small compared to other protests across the nation, they brought this campus into a national movement that eventually helped end the war.
[1] George D. Moss, Vietnam: An American Ordeal. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1990.
[2] Mitchell K. Hall "The Vietnam Era Antiwar Movement. OAH Magazine of History 18, no. 5 (2004): 13-17.
[3] Allon C. Brownfield "Vietnam: Student Protest: Double Standard. The North American Review 251, No.1 (1966): 9-10.
[4] Brian Blue (student at NAU 1966-1970), interview by Ashley Kurtz, 30 November 2010.
[5] UofA NP
[6] “Arizona students join moratorium,” Arizona Republic, 16 October 1969.
[8]“Nationwide Moratorium Scheduled Oct. 15,” The Lumberjack, 7 October 1969.
[9] Lon Miller, “Campus Endores Peace Efforts,” The Lumberjack, 14 October 1969.; “Arizona students join moratorium,” Arizona Republic, 16 October 1969.
[10]“Moratorium ‘A Miracle’ Says Reece,” The Lumberjack, 17 October 1969.
[11] “The Editor Offers: Learning-Wisdom=Moratorium,” The Lumberjack, 17 October 1969.
[12] “The Editor Offers: Learning-Wisdom=Moratorium,” The Lumberjack, 17 October 1969.
[13]“With Peace Her Mission, Miles Add Up for Pilgrim”, The Lumberjack, 17 October 1969.
[14] Gene Luptak, “Students split over Viet war,” The Arizona Republic, 14 November 1969.
[15] “Quiet Prevails On NAU Campus,” The Arizona Daily Sun, 13 November 1969.
[16]“Regent Action Stirs Students”, The Lumberjack, 12 November 1969.
[17] Brian Blue (student at NAU 1966-1970), interview by Ashley Kurtz, 30 November 2010.
[18]“Students march for Peace,” The Lumberjack, 7 May 1970.
[19]“Students march for Peace,” The Lumberjack, 7 May 1970.
[20]“Peace Proves Itself,” The Lumberjack, 19 May 1970.
[21]“Attempted Arson ‘Failed Miserably’,” The Lumberjack, 5 November 1970.
[22]“Regent Refuse Proposals Of Student Body Presidents,” The Lumberjack, 19 May 1970.
[23] “1971,” The Lumberjack, 11 March 1971.
