We came to end the war
May 19, 1970
Jean Henderson
Newspaper (Digital Archive)
The Mac Weekly
Label Written by Ian Wanger
This college newspaper article describes a protest initiative from students at Macalester College to call for a stop to the Vietnam War. In collaboration with the Minnesota Continuing Presence in Washington (MCPW) committee, students traveled to Washington DC, taking part in workshops and training in lobbying, as well as organizing protests on campus. The article stresses that students’ anger is primarily directed towards Richard Nixon, who students believed was ignoring the wishes of the majority of Americans to continue funding this war. The thesis of the article states effectively “No, Richard Nixon is our President, not our king.”
This article is a capsule of an often repeated theme in American politics. At the time of this label’s creation, the American government is funding war and human rights violations around the world, and an increasingly large amount of the population, especially in younger generations like in the protests described in the article, is calling for an end to involving ourselves internationally in this way. Even with large numbers of voters calling for an end to the current war in Palestine, nearly every American politician is running with a platform guaranteeing its perpetuation. This is a timeless example of the dissonance between the American youth and the government that is meant to represent them.
Resources: https://www.macalester.edu/reunion/wp-content/uploads/sites/61/2021/11/Top_10_Mac_Weekly_Pages.pdf