The Vietnam Anti-War Movement: Its Origins, Activities, and Impact on the War and Later Movements
H&G14-5a-Thu2
Bill Prenovitz
This course will take place in person at 60 Turner Street. The room will be equipped with a HEPA air purifier.
September 12 - October 17
(No Class October 3)
Most BOLLI members lived through the Vietnam War, experiencing the anti-war movement as it occurred. Five decades later, this class will explore the anti-war movement with the benefit of hindsight and using more recently available information. Our working definition of the anti-war movement will be anyone who organized, demonstrated, or contributed to this effort, through donations, voting, etc.
We will begin with a survey of the movement’s origins, including both the earlier anti-war and peace movements in the 20th century and the other contemporaneous protest movements which contributed ideas, people, and energies to the movement. We will then consider the people within the movement: its leaders, participants and supporters. These people include Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, and Muhammad Ali. Then we will explore the activities of the movement from 1964 through 1975. We will also examine polling data and theories of the movement’s impact on both the conduct of the war and public opinion throughout the war. Finally, we will review how this experience influenced future US military engagements and in post-Vietnam American politics.
More facilitated discussion than lecture.
Rethinking the American Anti-War Movement by Simon Hall, Routledge, 2012.
Supplementary Materials (several journal articles, book chapters, and short videos) will be available from links on the course website to provide a broad consideration of the divergent viewpoints about the Movement.
1-2 hours / week
During Bill Prenovitz’s career in the strategic marketing of healthcare and business information, he also taught several undergraduate courses at Boston College and Mass College of Pharmacy and Health Services. Since his retirement, he has studied history at Boston University and the University of Oxford. Bill currently volunteers as a SHINE Medicare Counselor and is an amateur furnituremaker.