Fifty years ago, millions of Americans -- including the most important voices of conscience of the time -- joined in what became the largest peace movement in American history. To be in the Vietnam peace movement required moral and physical courage, commitment, and a willingness to sacrifice our own liberty, careers, friends and family relationships.
On May 1-2, 2015, we are gathering again in Washington to talk about how we helped end the Vietnam War, what it was like to be part of the movement, how it changed us, and what lessons we can learn from the experience.
This effort began last Fall in reaction to Pentagon plans for a Vietnam War Commemoration, ostensibly with a mandate to honor Vietnam-era veterans. We were astonished to see that they had created a
website with a one-sided version of the war's history and that they were planning on developing curriculum that would be taught in thousands of schools.
In response we formed the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee to push back. We wrote a
letter to the Pentagon objecting to its one-sided time line of the war's history and its goal to distribute similar classroom materials. The letter struck a chord, quickly gaining 560 co-signers - by now there are 1,470 co-signers and counting. They are
a civilian and military cross section of a tumultuous era of US history,
The New York Times gave the story
front-page coverage, and
all references to classroom materials
were quickly removed from the website. We met with key Pentagon Commemoration officials in January and made progress. They confirmed they were no longer pursuing the curriculum project and intended to revise the time line and seek independent assessment of its content by recognized scholars.
Clearly, the power of Vietnam protest still works. But, we have to remain vigilant. The time line so far has been modified in only limited ways. The official commemoration goes on for a decade and aspires to tens of thousand of
local activities in every part of the US -- including in middle and high schools and on college campuses.
The momentum from this fight motivated us to plan a major conference on May 1-2 and to broaden our goals. Not only do we want to continuing fighting to make sure that the truth is told about what happened during the war and about its enduring human consequences; but we also want to insist that, given the world situation today, the lessons of unnecessary and unmerited military intervention must finally be learned. Most importantly, we want to remind America about the transformative role of the movement against the war for our country and for its victims in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Hundreds of us of us will be gathering at the New York Presbyterian Church in DC -- a church which played a memorable role as a meeting place and staging area for the huge anti-war mobilizations of the late 60s and early 70s. Leaders and activists from the struggle to end the war will join with young justice-fighters to reflect on and raise up the mass movement of 50 years ago and to deepen the links and lessons for the challenges we face today.
Highlights of our conference will include: honoring the Elders of our movement on Friday evening; a commemorative walk past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Martin Luther King Memorial on Saturday afternoon; plenaries, mini-plenaries, workshops and breakout groups for sharing analyses, remembrances and dreams; and songs, poetry, artwork and celebration. Let's transform the experiences of yesterday into a call to action for today.
Join Tom Hayden, Ron Dellums, Cora Weiss, Rosalio Munoz, Holly Near, Dan Ellsberg, Julian Bond, Marge Tabankin, Pat Schroeder and many, many others on May 1-2. You will want to be at this historic and challenging gathering.
