Vietnam War Protests: National Strike Information Center
The Vietnam War saw widespread protests across the United States as people protested the country’s continued involvement. People marched in demonstrations, protested outside of the White House, and men called to fight burned their draft cards and fled to Canada to avoid fighting in the war. College and university students could be found among these protesters, Brandeis students included. Throughout the United States's involvement in the Vietnam War, particularly following the dramatic increase in the country’s direct military action starting in 1964, many Brandeis students engaged in various acts of protest to condemn the war effort and pressure the U.S. government to end the war. These actions ranged from organizing small local protests on Brandeis’s campus to participating in large, nationwide anti-war events.
In June 1967, 135 Brandeis students signed a “‘We Won’t Go’” statement, pledging their refusal to participate in the military while the U.S. fought in Vietnam.
Brandeis students protested the presence of military recruiters on campus. For example, on November 27, 1967, 60-80 students protested the presence of a U.S. Air Force recruiter by picketing in Gryzmish courtyard, passing out leaflets and carrying signs that criticized the university for its compliance in the Vietnam War by allowing military recruiters to visit.
A newspaper article about a student protest against Dow Chemical Company for their production of napalm for use by the U.S. military in Vietnam. The protest took place when Dow recruiters came to campus and involved picketing, an Angry Arts demonstration in Gryzmish Courtyard, and a sit-in inside Gryzmish (December 6, 1967).
A Justice article that details the the students' actions and the response and includes a photo of Rollins and students in the sanctuary.
Students in the Sanctuary with a sign indicating the phone number to call if someone gets in trouble.
Brandeis students provided sanctuary to John D. Rollins, an AWOL soldier, in Mailman Hall for several days. Rollins would eventually go to Fort Devens to turn himself in.
Hundreds of Brandeis students participated in a class moratorium and protest in Boston Commons on October 15 as the following newspaper describes.
In addition, students participated in a Vietnam Moratorium in Washington, DC on November 15.
National Strike Center
This is a statement by Barry Elkins, the president of the Student Council and co-chairman of the Student Strike Committee, stating that the student body is on strike in support of the three demands first articulated in New Haven.
Following President Richard Nixon’s announcement of the U.S. military’s invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970, student protests against the Vietnam War ramped up both at Brandeis and across the country. On May 2, at a mass meeting held at Yale University (to protest the political repression of Bobby Seale, a Black political activist and co-founder of the Black Panther Party, for his anti-Vietnam War protests, as well as the political repression of the Black Panther Party), forty to fifty Brandeis students suggested a national student strike against the war, with Brandeis hosting a National Strike Center. Over the next couple of days, Brandeis students established a National Strike Information Center in the Pearlman Sociology Building. It served as the national coordinating committee and information clearinghouse, where information on anti-war activities was collected and disseminated to college students at Brandeis and across the country through a daily newsletter. Doing so “served to maintain momentum for the strike and to prevent individual schools from being isolated from what is happening in the rest of the country.”1
At the same time, on May 4, the student body voted by large majority to join other campuses in a strike protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War and attendant political oppression. The Student Council authorized the strike with a 14-4-1 (yea, nay, abstain) vote in support of the nationwide student demands with a strike of indefinite length.
Photo of students attending a strike workshop. May 5, 1970.
Students meeting in one of the university's lecture hall to discuss the student strike to protest the Vietnam War
Brandeis students answering phones in the National Strike Information Center to obtain information about the strike for the daily newsletter that will be sent to colleges and universities participating in the national strike.
The van used by the National Strike Information Center during the nationwide student strike.
Brandeis students remained on campus throughout the summer to continue the Strike Center’s important work under the Brandeis University Summer Institute for the Study of Problems of Contemporary American Society, a student-organized institute. Over the course of the Strike Center’s existence, Brandeis students mailed newsletters to 300 other universities and colleges. While the strike officially lasted until September 15, 1970, there was little anti-war activity on Brandeis’s campus by the end of the summer.
Below are images of issue number one of the newsletter produced by Brandeis's National Strike Information Center on May 5, 1970 to be sent out to colleges and universities participating in the strike.
Visuals of the Strike on Campus
Photos of graffiti on Olin-Sang and Schiffman expressing opposition to the Vietnam War and support for Tim Leary, a psychologist imprisoned for marijuana expression.
Photo of faculty members voting either for or against the resolution to join in solidarity with the students in the nationwide strike.
A resolution concerning whether the faculty would join in solidarity with the students in halting campus activities in support of the nationwide strike against the government's actions at home and in Vietnam. The faculty voted to approve the resolution.
After the Strike
Soon after the end of the strike, three Brandeis students, Katherine Ann Powers, Susan Saxe, and Stanley Bond (was involved in the National Student Strike Center) initiated a plan to arm the Black Panther Party in response to the Vietnam War. Along with two other men, William Gilday and Robert Valeri, who were not affiliated with Brandeis, they first stole weapons and ammunition from the National Guard armory in Newburyport, MA on September 20, 1970. Three days later, they robbed a bank in Brighton in an effort to raise money to overthrow the federal government. They did so with two other people not affiliated with Brandeis, one of whom shot and killed a Boston police officer in the process of committing the robbery. Conventional wisdom states that this event negatively impacted the strike center; however, the strike center officially ended before the robbery occurred.