Social+Unrest

Social Unrest

===Many people have heard about the antiwar outbursts that young people were part of during the Vietnam War. In the late 60s college campuses as well as many other places were bursting with antiwar protests. These civil rights movements were not all Vietnam related, people also protested again discrimination of race, sexual orientation, and gender. ===

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College students were not the only ones to protest, but certainly did have protests that shocked the nation. When the Vietnam war expanded to Cambodia, students at Kent State held protests. While most protests were peaceful, some students at Kent State reacted violently by throwing things such as rocks and bottles at campus police officers. These violent riots lead the mayor of Kent to become concerned and request the presence of the Ohio National Guard at the University. After the National Guard arrived, some protesters, which consisted of both students and non students, refused to end their protest. They continued to throw things at the soldiers and a building on campus was set on fire, although it was unclear who actually started it. After a failed attempt of trying to use tear gas to disperse the protesters the National Guard, who were said to have feared their lives, eventually opened fire. A total of sixty-seven shots were fired by twenty-nine soldiers which resulted in nine injured young people and leaving four dead. Two of the students that were killed were not protesters, they were simply innocent bystanders. Students at Kent State were very determined to get there point across even after the shootings. Students hung a banner stating "they can't kill us all" from their dorm room. (celticsmusichotbitches.blogspot.com) (ohiohistory.org) The incident at Kent State showed America that these protests were not only done by "mindless hippies" but education high/middle class young people. America also realized how out of hand these protests were getting as it left kids injured and killed. Below is a video of footage from the protest at Kent State. It is set to the songs "Find The Cost of Freedom" and "Ohio" which was written about the massacre at Kent State.

media type="youtube" key="ENc49KhI8Xk" height="315" width="420"

Young people at universities were not the only people engaged in anti-war protests and uprisings. After the Tet Offensive outburst in Vietnam, LBJ the sitting President at the time announced that he would not be seeking re-election for the following term. This put a huge amount of pressure on the Democratic party to find a candidate in such a controversial time. Protesters gathered together and planned disruption of the Democratic National Convention, where they knew the candidate would be chosen. Anti-war rioters gathered around the outside of the convention and became violent when all of 11,900 police tried to force them out of certain areas they were not permitted to be in. The events turned from bad to worse when police started beating protesters. Media got documentation of the Chicago police severely injuring not only the anti-war rioters but reports, doctors, as well as innocent bystanders. The riot at the convention lead to 119 injured Chicago police and 100 injured protesters. A study was done after the horrific outcomes of the riot to determine how the violence commenced. The results of this study determined that the protest became violent mostly because of the presence and actions of the Chicago police.

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