The untold story of the GI movement to end the war in Vietnam.
The Boys Who Said NO!
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
THE BOYS WHO SAID NO! is the first documentary film to profile the young men and women who actively opposed the military draft in order to end the Vietnam War. The film shows how their personal and collective acts of nonviolent resistance, risking arrest and imprisonment for up to 5 years, were a critical part of the antiwar movement, intensifying opposition to the war and eventually forcing an end to both conscription and the war.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, resistance to the American war in Vietnam grew substantially. Hundreds of thousands of draft age men refused to cooperate with the draft. Tens of thousands immigrated to Canada, Sweden and other countries. American soldiers in Vietnam increasingly refused to follow orders and risked court martial and prison for organizing inside the military. Claims for conscientious objector status soared to unprecedented levels. Millions marched against the war.
While an estimated 500,000 young men resisted, evaded or just refused to cooperate with the draft, overloading federal courts, just 10,000 were indicted and 4,000 were imprisoned for their beliefs. These young men were willing to serve long prison sentences on the basis of their beliefs that the war was immoral and human life was sacred.
Drawing on original interviews with more than thirty male and female nonviolent activists and historians, THE BOYS WHO SAID NO! explores the influence of Gandhian nonviolence and the impact of the civil rights movement on Resistance members, a connection illustrated in footage of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting and supporting Joan Baez and others jailed for blocking the Oakland Induction Center in 1967.
The film highlights the prosecution and trials of war resisters. Documentary and news footage capture anti-war demonstrations and marches, anti-draft meetings, and men, young and old, speaking out in support of the resistance movement. Smuggled film shows resisters serving time in Federal prison.
THE BOYS WHO SAID NO! is an overdue and definitive account of the principled and powerful nonviolent resistance to America's most problematic war. These young men risked years in prison to challenge a war of tragic human proportions. Their leadership, personal sacrifices, and example had a direct effect on ending the war, and are an important example for today's movements for social justice and peace.
'Terrific film...An ode to the power of activism.' G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
'Wonderful, truly inspiring and informative, with a powerful message about the necessity of resisting unjust war and the imperative of nonviolence. The linkage to the civil rights movement and the role of Dr. King is brilliant and critically important. A fantastic job on an essential film that everyone who cares about justice and peace will want to see.' David Cortright, Vietnam-era Veteran, Director of Policy Studies, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
'The Boys Who Said No! tells an important story...Theirs was a cause built on fundamental American responsibilities - that we speak truth to power and resist the unjust, unjustifiable, and illegal. It's an engaging, compelling documentary with considerable relevance today. And there's a lesson in it that transcends the Vietnam era: that individual actions can make a difference.' Leonard Steinhorn, Affiliate Professor of History, School of Communication, American University
'There is never a blueprint for social movements - there are templates - and this film is an important one. It's powerful. And it's an excellent classroom resource that beautifully highlights another link on the chain of the long arch of American activism.' Susan Erenrich, Ph.D., Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, School of Professional and Extended Studies, American University
'Finally, an account that shows the diversity of the antiwar movement! History comes alive in this thorough account of draft resistance, its roots in the Civil Rights Movement, and the eventual fusion of the two. Young viewers fighting for equity and a healthy planet will be particularly appreciative of this chance to witness the efficacy of creative nonviolent actions, while those who think they know the Vietnam War era well will learn new details about the coalitions that were formed in the efforts to end it.' Elise Lemire, Professor of Literature, Purchase College SUNY, Author, Battle Green Vietnam: The 1971 March on Concord, Lexington, and Boston
'A stand out film...The Boys Who Said NO! is a playbook for the resistors of conscience putting individual belief in combined effort to change the minds of America. Profound and startling in its revelation of how the revolution to justice starts with one person understanding their power to say no. Fascinating because it is a movement from the beginning to end offering lessons learnt to future fighters for justice.' Annie McLoughlin, Showreel
'Shows how bravery and courage are contagious. As this feature presents, it's when one steps out of the pages of history that people can pave a way for real change. Successful resistance doesn't have to be violent, and social change can start from the smallest of acts. An interesting, thought-provoking and ultimately challenging film, The Boys Who Said NO! is not to be missed.' Joel Kalkopf, Switch
'This inspiring and long-overdue documentary explores a decisive era in recent American history...An excellent service in memorializing this enduring portrait of America during an earlier time of momentous inner conflict.' Emily Mendel, Culture Vulture
'Make it a must-see.' Local News Matters, Bay Area
'Enlightening and absorbing...A film that speaks to the present as eloquently and as urgently to its audience as the resistors did to their audiences 50 years ago. The Boys Who Said No! is too important a film to be missed.' Emily Chase, EatDrinkFilms.com
'An insightful and comprehensive documentary. The film is especially prescient today as it dovetails in with the Civil Rights movement and the current issues relating to the racial divide in America and the rest of the world.' Peter Krausz, Movie Metropolis, WYN-FM Melbourne
'A powerful film. Ninety minutes of goodness.' KTVU, Fox Mornings on 2
'Some films are too important not to see. The Boys Who Said No! is one of those films. There are many different kinds of courage. Having moral and social courage to stand up for what one believes in is perhaps one of the most courageous things anyone can do. Watch The Boys Who Said No! to educate yourself on an important part of American history and watch it to renew your faith in the belief that your voice also has the power to make a lasting difference.' Documentary Drive
'A fascinating documentary about the lengths that a government would go to in order to keep a war machine working, and also the ways in which passive as well as active protest can be a tool of change.' Samaya Boron, Right Now
'A fascinating exploration of the protest movement that helped reinforce draft resistance during the Vietnam War era.' Dov Kornits, Filmink
Citation
Main credits
Foley, Michael S. (narrator)
Ehrlich, Judith (film director)
Ehrlich, Judith (film producer)
Ehrlich, Judith (screenwriter)
Jones, Christopher Colorado (film producer)
Prince, Bill (film producer)
Walton, Scott (editor of moving image work)
Chandler, Michael (screenwriter)
Other credits
Editor, Scott Walton.
Distributor subjects
Activism; American Democracy; American Studies; Citizenship and Civics; History; War and PeaceKeywords
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[helicopter blades spinning]
00:00:15.382 --> 00:00:16.750
[machine gun fire]
00:00:20.253 --> 00:00:22.288
Make no mistake about it
00:00:22.522 --> 00:00:24.657
we are going to win.
00:00:25.992 --> 00:00:27.260
And we don't plan
00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:31.164
to let people pressure
and force us to divide our nation
00:00:31.264 --> 00:00:33.533
in a time of national peril.
00:00:33.967 --> 00:00:35.135
The hour is here.
00:00:35.535 --> 00:00:36.936
[applause]
00:00:37.504 --> 00:00:39.472
[explosion]
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I pray to God that America
will hear this before it's too late
00:00:45.245 --> 00:00:48.581
because today we are fighting a war.
00:00:51.017 --> 00:00:53.853
I'm convinced that it is one
of the most unjust wars
00:00:53.953 --> 00:00:55.221
that has ever been fought
00:00:56.056 --> 00:00:57.590
in the history of the world.
00:00:57.991 --> 00:01:13.106
[somber music playing]
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[applause]
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You may announce your name
to the mic if you wish.
00:01:34.227 --> 00:01:35.395
Joe Stuart, New York.
00:01:37.997 --> 00:01:39.399
Ron, New York.
00:01:40.366 --> 00:01:42.502
Geryl Hutchins, New York City.
00:01:43.570 --> 00:01:45.672
Brian Western from Glen Harris,
New Jersey.
00:01:47.207 --> 00:01:48.875
Phil Murphy, New York.
00:01:50.176 --> 00:01:52.445
Patrick Cunningham, New York City.
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I'd like to try and understand
the act
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and understand what it means today
00:02:00.954 --> 00:02:04.123
to take the position
of non-cooperation with the draft.
00:02:04.424 --> 00:02:06.426
[applause]
00:02:06.693 --> 00:02:08.394
That moment where they decide to go
00:02:08.461 --> 00:02:12.765
and turn in their draft card
and invite prosecution,
00:02:13.466 --> 00:02:15.535
putting themselves
in individual jeopardy
00:02:15.602 --> 00:02:22.475
requires a certain amount of courage,
and poise, and grace.
00:02:23.710 --> 00:02:26.012
I grew up in Fresno, California,
Fresno High School,
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boy of the year 1963.
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I came to Stanford on a scholarship.
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My ancestors fought in the revolution
00:02:34.087 --> 00:02:35.822
and every other war
in American history.
00:02:35.889 --> 00:02:39.092
My father was 20 years
a captain in the army reserves
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and we grew up on our father stories
of World War II.
00:02:41.628 --> 00:02:43.730
We registered for the draft
when we turned 18
00:02:43.796 --> 00:02:46.132
and I did that
without a second thought, really.
00:02:46.466 --> 00:02:50.436
I had my army physical
and was totally clear
00:02:50.537 --> 00:02:52.505
that I wanted to go
into the military,
00:02:52.572 --> 00:02:56.709
I had no anti-military background
or even thought.
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We were all spawned
of the Second World War
00:02:58.878 --> 00:03:00.780
where America was so great
00:03:01.147 --> 00:03:04.751
and so victorious
and made us all so very proud,
00:03:04.951 --> 00:03:08.321
but this in Vietnam seemed
to be a betrayal of all of that.
00:03:09.489 --> 00:03:10.823
It was a full evolution
00:03:10.924 --> 00:03:16.129
from patriotism to a stance
of resistance
00:03:16.229 --> 00:03:19.832
against a very ugly, vicious,
an amoral war.
00:03:20.433 --> 00:03:23.469
I felt really good
about returning my draft card
00:03:23.570 --> 00:03:26.573
and making the decision
to resist it no matter what.
00:03:27.340 --> 00:03:29.342
And so at that point in time
00:03:29.442 --> 00:03:32.278
I knew I was going to go to prison,
I mean, I knew it.
00:03:34.013 --> 00:03:36.349
I'm there, I'm 20 years old.
00:03:36.916 --> 00:03:38.985
And it's me nose to nose
00:03:39.052 --> 00:03:41.154
with the American government
for Christ's sake.
00:03:42.021 --> 00:03:43.523
There's lots of fear.
00:03:44.123 --> 00:03:46.826
The issue isn't whether
you get scared,
00:03:47.093 --> 00:03:48.828
the issue's what you do
after you're scared.
00:03:49.495 --> 00:04:07.347
[Study War No More playing]
00:04:14.387 --> 00:04:17.357
I grew up largely in Orange County.
00:04:17.790 --> 00:04:20.393
I was an all-American kid,
I love the country,
00:04:20.927 --> 00:04:22.929
I played left field
for Garden Grove
00:04:23.029 --> 00:04:24.163
little league baseball team
00:04:24.230 --> 00:04:26.366
but other than that
I was never lefty.
00:04:28.101 --> 00:04:30.870
It's hard to really know
what motivates us
00:04:30.937 --> 00:04:32.405
at any one time, I mean,
00:04:32.772 --> 00:04:33.773
I was a frat boy.
00:04:34.407 --> 00:04:35.675
I was a ball player.
00:04:36.442 --> 00:04:37.610
You play USC,
00:04:37.677 --> 00:04:39.479
you run out on the field
there's 100,000 people
00:04:39.545 --> 00:04:41.281
in the stands in the stadium.
00:04:41.381 --> 00:04:44.651
The energy is just,
you're not even touching the ground,
00:04:44.717 --> 00:04:47.987
you're flying,
it's just quite a moment.
00:04:49.288 --> 00:04:51.991
At the same time, the same moment,
50,000 marines
00:04:52.091 --> 00:04:54.360
were hitting the beach
at Cam Ranh Bay.
00:04:55.895 --> 00:04:59.832
I mean, if we're really at war
and I'm an American and a patriot,
00:04:59.899 --> 00:05:03.036
and it challenged me,
it called into question
00:05:03.102 --> 00:05:04.737
where I belong,
what I should be doing.
00:05:08.641 --> 00:05:10.209
Daily the war was brought
00:05:10.310 --> 00:05:12.111
to our front rooms
on the television
00:05:12.178 --> 00:05:13.746
so there was no excuse.
00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:15.248
TV was very instrumental
00:05:15.314 --> 00:05:19.552
in influencing how I felt
about the war
00:05:19.819 --> 00:05:23.656
documenting horrendous footage
of Buddhist monks
00:05:23.723 --> 00:05:25.491
burning themselves in protest.
00:05:26.626 --> 00:05:29.796
This guy lit himself on fire
because of this,
00:05:29.896 --> 00:05:31.230
what's going on here?
00:05:32.031 --> 00:05:33.299
And that famous picture
00:05:33.366 --> 00:05:36.402
of where the police chief
was shooting the guy in the head.
00:05:39.739 --> 00:05:40.973
And...
00:05:44.010 --> 00:05:47.080
Napalm bombs obliterating villages,
00:05:47.880 --> 00:05:50.183
the young girl with the napalm
on her back
00:05:50.249 --> 00:05:53.753
screaming running down the road,
it's like...
00:05:54.053 --> 00:05:56.089
I mean, geopolitics aside,
00:05:56.155 --> 00:05:59.358
I don't care what the plan is,
who rules the world
00:05:59.425 --> 00:06:01.294
and all that, but don't practice
that kind of violence
00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:02.762
against innocent people.
00:06:02.995 --> 00:06:04.464
And there was a connection
00:06:04.530 --> 00:06:07.700
that I started making,
these are American boys
00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:10.069
and I'm going to be asked
to do this too.
00:06:11.738 --> 00:06:15.274
The day's operation,
burned down 150 houses,
00:06:15.408 --> 00:06:17.910
wounded three women,
killed one baby.
00:06:18.111 --> 00:06:20.947
We put ourselves really
on the wrong side of history.
00:06:23.649 --> 00:06:26.919
I mean it was a betrayal
of our great love for our country
00:06:26.986 --> 00:06:30.022
and our patriotism
to be out there torching villages
00:06:30.089 --> 00:06:31.391
and to carpet-bomb.
00:06:31.491 --> 00:06:33.926
We dropped more bombs on Vietnam
than were dropped
00:06:33.960 --> 00:06:36.729
in all theaters of World War II.
00:06:37.063 --> 00:06:42.301
It was a carnage
of unbelievable scope and savagery.
00:06:42.401 --> 00:06:43.770
The question I think we all faced
00:06:43.870 --> 00:06:46.406
is our moral responsibility
to confront
00:06:46.506 --> 00:06:47.740
what was happening over there.
00:06:48.775 --> 00:06:50.743
This was not going to be my war.
00:06:52.879 --> 00:06:55.081
The issue was how do we go about
stopping it,
00:06:55.148 --> 00:06:57.517
not how do I save my ass.
00:06:58.117 --> 00:07:02.655
[crowd noise]
00:07:02.789 --> 00:07:03.556
I'll never forget it,
00:07:03.656 --> 00:07:06.292
when I was a Cub Scout before
I got thrown out,
00:07:06.359 --> 00:07:10.930
this was in '53 maybe,
World War II was still a fresh memory
00:07:11.330 --> 00:07:12.665
for all the adults.
00:07:13.599 --> 00:07:15.802
They had the 16 millimeter film
00:07:15.902 --> 00:07:20.339
of the kamikaze attacks
on the battleships in World War II
00:07:20.406 --> 00:07:23.242
and my father was sitting there
and he's a very conservative guy,
00:07:23.309 --> 00:07:25.311
not a Quaker, he's not a pacifist.
00:07:25.444 --> 00:07:30.082
He designed missiles during World War II,
and every time that one of these planes
00:07:30.183 --> 00:07:32.518
would burst into flames
and go spiraling down
00:07:32.585 --> 00:07:34.687
into the ocean a chair would go up,
00:07:40.359 --> 00:07:42.428
and my father, he said to me...
00:07:48.568 --> 00:07:49.268
He said to me,
00:07:49.368 --> 00:07:52.572
don't they understand human beings
are being burned alive?
00:07:54.273 --> 00:07:59.612
Just a simple sentence,
and the romance and the valor of war
00:07:59.712 --> 00:08:01.314
was just sort of stripped away.
00:08:07.086 --> 00:08:08.621
My fellow Americans,
00:08:09.856 --> 00:08:12.792
I have today ordered to Vietnam
the air mobile division
00:08:13.793 --> 00:08:17.196
and certain other forces
which will raise our fighting strength
00:08:17.296 --> 00:08:22.335
from 75,000 to 125,000 men
almost immediately.
00:08:23.669 --> 00:08:27.340
This will make it necessary
to increase our active fighting forces
00:08:27.406 --> 00:08:31.444
by raising the monthly draft call
from 17,000
00:08:31.544 --> 00:08:36.048
over a period of time
to 35,000 per month.
00:08:36.649 --> 00:08:42.822
[acoustic guitar playing]
00:08:42.922 --> 00:08:45.458
For those who aren't familiar
with what the draft law was
00:08:45.524 --> 00:08:47.660
you were required
to keep on your possession
00:08:47.727 --> 00:08:49.929
at all times,
proof that you had registered
00:08:50.029 --> 00:08:51.664
with the Selective Service System.
00:08:51.764 --> 00:08:53.332
Not being in possession
00:08:53.399 --> 00:08:57.370
of that proof was punishable
by up to five years in prison.
00:08:57.670 --> 00:09:05.611
[Eve of Destruction playing]
00:09:05.845 --> 00:09:09.682
The effect of conscription was to give
the government a blank check.
00:09:09.815 --> 00:09:13.219
They never had to go to the people
and ask for permission,
00:09:13.319 --> 00:09:15.755
they already had it,
they had the law in place.
00:09:16.188 --> 00:09:18.925
It was not an easy thing to do
for a man, a young man,
00:09:18.991 --> 00:09:20.226
to turn in the draft card.
00:09:20.760 --> 00:09:22.562
Yeah there were just
little slips of paper.
00:09:23.129 --> 00:09:26.098
But you knew that
federal law required you
00:09:26.198 --> 00:09:27.433
to carry one at all times.
00:09:27.934 --> 00:09:31.103
People had been burning draft cards,
tearing them up as a protest
00:09:31.203 --> 00:09:35.107
against the war, and it's so intense,
the Congress, that they passed the law
00:09:35.174 --> 00:09:38.778
with administration's full support
to make it illegal to tear up
00:09:38.878 --> 00:09:40.212
or destroy your draft card.
00:09:41.280 --> 00:09:43.416
So naturally a form of protest
00:09:43.516 --> 00:09:45.718
against that was to destroy
your draft card.
00:09:46.285 --> 00:09:49.221
[applause]
00:09:49.388 --> 00:09:52.758
The first person to challenge
the new law is David Miller,
00:09:53.059 --> 00:09:56.796
a 22-year-old pacifist
who publicly burns his draft card
00:09:56.896 --> 00:09:59.498
outside an army induction center
in Manhattan.
00:10:00.833 --> 00:10:03.769
So the draft card became
a symbol of whether
00:10:03.869 --> 00:10:06.739
you were on board
or whether you weren't on board.
00:10:07.239 --> 00:10:08.274
I took my draft card,
00:10:08.374 --> 00:10:11.110
I put them in an envelope,
sealed it up, put a stamp on it,
00:10:11.210 --> 00:10:15.581
walked down to the corner mailbox,
put it in and walked back
00:10:15.648 --> 00:10:17.516
about 12 feet off the ground.
00:10:18.117 --> 00:10:21.721
Civil disobedience in some form
or another will always be there
00:10:21.821 --> 00:10:25.891
as an incredibly important tool,
it's where it all starts.
00:10:27.259 --> 00:10:29.929
I mean, the eye-opener for me
was Mississippi.
00:10:30.129 --> 00:10:34.600
[acoustic guitar playing]
00:10:34.900 --> 00:10:38.671
I was a civil rights worker
in Quitman County, Mississippi in 1964
00:10:38.838 --> 00:10:43.476
and the experience of seeing what
was under the covers in America
00:10:43.542 --> 00:10:45.444
suddenly gave you
a whole new perspective.
00:10:46.278 --> 00:10:48.047
There are five counties in Mississippi
00:10:48.114 --> 00:10:53.452
each at least 57% Negro in which
no Negroes at all are registered.
00:10:53.586 --> 00:10:55.287
Quitman County where I was
00:10:55.388 --> 00:10:59.058
there was a 70-year-old woman,
walked into the Registrar of Voters,
00:10:59.125 --> 00:11:01.360
said, "I'm going to register to vote."
They arrested her
00:11:01.460 --> 00:11:04.797
threw her in jail, tortured her
with an electric cattle prod,
00:11:04.864 --> 00:11:07.266
finally let her out of jail
and she walked out the front door
00:11:07.333 --> 00:11:10.069
of the jail, walked down the block
to the Registrar of Voters office,
00:11:10.136 --> 00:11:12.371
walked in and said,
"I'm going to register to vote."
00:11:13.773 --> 00:11:18.844
There's an enormous power in that,
and transformative power.
00:11:18.911 --> 00:11:21.414
This courthouse belongs
to the people of Dallas county
00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:23.649
and these are the people
of Dallas County
00:11:23.716 --> 00:11:26.185
and they have come to register,
and you know this
00:11:26.285 --> 00:11:27.953
within your own heart, Sheriff.
00:11:28.621 --> 00:11:31.490
Experiences inside,
it's always in there,
00:11:31.557 --> 00:11:34.927
it's just waiting to come out,
and what you have to do
00:11:35.027 --> 00:11:39.699
is you have to make a commitment
to some principles
00:11:39.799 --> 00:11:41.267
much larger than yourself.
00:11:41.767 --> 00:11:44.870
The ideals of justice and freedom
and peace,
00:11:44.937 --> 00:11:47.707
and faith, and courage is contagious.
00:11:52.878 --> 00:11:54.513
Just the incredible impact
00:11:54.580 --> 00:11:57.983
that single people taking their lives
into their own hands
00:11:58.084 --> 00:12:00.119
and refusing to accept
the conditions
00:12:00.219 --> 00:12:03.389
that have been enforced on them
just how powerful that was.
00:12:03.456 --> 00:12:05.958
No lie can live forever.
00:12:06.759 --> 00:12:10.096
Not long, because the arc
of the moral universe is long,
00:12:10.329 --> 00:12:12.398
but it bends toward justice.
00:12:12.598 --> 00:12:17.136
The sit-ins were full of young people
and then it got to be weighed ins
00:12:17.236 --> 00:12:20.206
and anything that
was a public facility,
00:12:20.306 --> 00:12:22.608
young people
took those things on.
00:12:23.375 --> 00:12:29.348
When the sit-ins were
at their largest point, 50,000 students
00:12:29.448 --> 00:12:32.618
across the nation had been sitting in.
00:12:34.220 --> 00:12:36.222
And so those principles
00:12:36.288 --> 00:12:40.793
and values are the kinds of principles
and values that went into SNCC,
00:12:41.127 --> 00:12:42.628
and I felt a part of that.
00:12:42.962 --> 00:12:45.931
We were on the road
to making a change
00:12:46.031 --> 00:12:47.032
and making a difference.
00:12:47.566 --> 00:12:48.801
Many of the draft resisters
00:12:48.901 --> 00:12:52.605
had been involved in SNCC,
they had gone south to Mississippi
00:12:52.671 --> 00:12:56.308
or Alabama or Louisiana
in the early '60s
00:12:56.408 --> 00:13:01.547
and so that's incredibly important
as they plan their strategies
00:13:01.614 --> 00:13:02.615
and tactics.
00:13:03.349 --> 00:13:05.885
After suddenly experiencing America
00:13:05.951 --> 00:13:08.754
in the wrong as one did
in Mississippi
00:13:08.854 --> 00:13:12.224
it was possible to evaluate
the war they were asking us to fight
00:13:12.291 --> 00:13:15.027
and it bore no resemblance
to what I thought Americans
00:13:15.094 --> 00:13:16.095
were supposed to do.
00:13:16.262 --> 00:13:19.632
I thought this is wrong
and why cooperate with it?
00:13:19.698 --> 00:13:20.900
I'm not going to do that.
00:13:21.367 --> 00:13:24.737
And you're young
and you're optimistic, and you're naive
00:13:24.837 --> 00:13:26.539
and that's probably what it takes
to see
00:13:26.605 --> 00:13:28.140
what right and wrong is.
00:13:28.474 --> 00:13:31.110
I needed to find a way
00:13:31.210 --> 00:13:34.146
of following my conscience
and this is just
00:13:34.213 --> 00:13:38.250
my own personal decision
that I would not kill people.
00:13:38.751 --> 00:13:42.254
So I cut up my draft card,
put it in an envelope,
00:13:43.589 --> 00:13:46.091
with a note saying that
I was no longer going to cooperate
00:13:46.192 --> 00:13:47.526
with Selective Service.
00:13:47.626 --> 00:13:49.361
And I can remember to this day
00:13:49.461 --> 00:13:51.263
going up to one
of those big mail boxes,
00:13:51.363 --> 00:13:53.065
opening it, sticking my hand in
00:13:53.432 --> 00:13:55.901
and not letting it go
for a few moments thinking
00:13:56.902 --> 00:13:58.837
is this what you really want to do?
00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.241
Deep breath, there it went.
00:14:02.942 --> 00:14:05.344
Any moment
I'll be hauled off to prison.
00:14:09.915 --> 00:14:11.550
And I went down
and I took the physical
00:14:11.650 --> 00:14:14.987
and I flunked it because I had
rheumatoid spondylitis
00:14:15.054 --> 00:14:17.756
which means I could flunk it
every time
00:14:17.823 --> 00:14:22.328
but I had moved to a different point
at that time
00:14:22.661 --> 00:14:26.565
and so I took my 1-Y
that they sent me and turned it in.
00:14:26.765 --> 00:14:29.835
They called me for another
physical I refused to take it
00:14:30.035 --> 00:14:32.371
and then they called me
for induction
00:14:32.471 --> 00:14:35.174
and I refused induction,
all publicly.
00:14:35.407 --> 00:14:37.810
And all of these are indictable
offenses.
00:14:42.948 --> 00:14:44.984
For most people to this day
00:14:45.251 --> 00:14:47.019
they call us draft dodgers.
00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:50.589
I want to make it clear
that were not draft dodgers.
00:14:51.023 --> 00:14:55.494
We were walking straight towards
and refusing to participate,
00:14:55.561 --> 00:14:58.831
and we were handing our documents
in publicly.
00:15:00.733 --> 00:15:05.938
In 1965 there are
250 draft-related convictions.
00:15:06.005 --> 00:15:11.777
In 1966, there are 450,
and by '67 over 750,
00:15:11.877 --> 00:15:14.046
with thousands of cases pending.
00:15:15.581 --> 00:15:18.751
Whether it's burning cards
or turning them in
00:15:19.318 --> 00:15:22.454
or refusing induction,
those opposed to the war
00:15:22.521 --> 00:15:25.858
begin to see draft protests
as the ideal link
00:15:25.958 --> 00:15:29.194
between personal commitment
and political action.
00:15:29.695 --> 00:15:32.498
[applause]
00:15:33.165 --> 00:15:37.202
I think that young people today
don't understand what it was like
00:15:37.937 --> 00:15:41.507
to live through an era where you
and your friends, and family
00:15:41.573 --> 00:15:44.710
and others, neighbors,
were subject to being taken off
00:15:44.777 --> 00:15:48.480
to a foreign land, to fight a war
which made no sense.
00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:51.417
It was a system which drafted
young people
00:15:51.483 --> 00:15:54.887
and they became cannon fodder
in a bad, bad situation.
00:15:55.688 --> 00:15:58.958
You wind up in the rice paddies
and you're shooting poor peasants
00:15:59.024 --> 00:16:01.560
I mean, the whole thing
was just intolerable.
00:16:02.561 --> 00:16:07.433
Evil is a participatory phenomenon
and it counts on participation
00:16:07.499 --> 00:16:10.336
in order to be successful,
and the first option
00:16:10.402 --> 00:16:12.538
you have is withdrawing
your participation.
00:16:14.807 --> 00:16:18.811
I was not going to cooperate
period, nada,
00:16:18.944 --> 00:16:19.945
it was over.
00:16:22.748 --> 00:16:25.818
Bring the troops home.
End the war in Vietnam.
00:16:25.985 --> 00:16:27.286
Bring the troops home.
00:16:27.753 --> 00:16:29.588
This was not a popular position
00:16:29.755 --> 00:16:31.256
in Greater America.
00:16:31.623 --> 00:16:35.961
[chanting]
00:16:36.428 --> 00:16:38.097
To the American public
00:16:38.564 --> 00:16:40.566
particularly the pro-war
American public
00:16:40.632 --> 00:16:43.469
anybody who's a draft law violator
is a draft dodger
00:16:43.535 --> 00:16:45.838
and a coward and unpatriotic.
00:16:46.405 --> 00:16:48.273
And there from the crowd comes...
00:16:51.677 --> 00:16:53.345
In South Boston they announced
00:16:53.445 --> 00:16:56.515
in advance they were going to
burn their draft cards.
00:16:57.216 --> 00:17:02.454
A mob, and this rush of 75
or so high school students
00:17:02.521 --> 00:17:05.858
storms the steps and just starts
pounding on them.
00:17:06.258 --> 00:17:11.163
[shouting]
00:17:12.231 --> 00:17:13.665
And those guys all go to prison.
00:17:15.501 --> 00:17:16.235
You have to remember
00:17:16.301 --> 00:17:18.470
when looking back at this time
we were still playing
00:17:18.537 --> 00:17:22.040
by World War II rules,
which means you can't criticize
00:17:22.141 --> 00:17:23.742
the government in a time of war.
00:17:25.077 --> 00:17:26.612
How could you do this!?
00:17:26.779 --> 00:17:30.682
[shouting]
00:17:35.120 --> 00:17:39.291
[applause]
00:17:39.458 --> 00:17:40.726
What do you think of draft dodgers?
00:17:40.793 --> 00:17:43.295
Is that an alternative
to going to Vietnam?
00:17:43.362 --> 00:17:47.366
I think for we pacifists,
all seven of us...
00:17:48.734 --> 00:17:51.670
the most encouraging thing
is when a young man
00:17:51.737 --> 00:17:55.541
says no to Uncle Sam
and will take the jail sentence.
00:17:55.607 --> 00:17:57.709
Sorry old man,
you don't get my body
00:17:57.810 --> 00:18:00.579
you don't get my mind,
you don't get me. I've decided.
00:18:00.712 --> 00:18:04.683
You're vice president of a school,
the school for non-violence,
00:18:04.750 --> 00:18:06.018
what are you trying to do there?
00:18:08.487 --> 00:18:10.088
The reason I started the school
00:18:10.189 --> 00:18:13.592
is that we try to make available
literature and things
00:18:13.659 --> 00:18:16.261
that give you an idea
of what's really going on
00:18:16.328 --> 00:18:21.567
and then read Gandhi, Huxley,
and things that give us ideas,
00:18:21.667 --> 00:18:23.135
of alternatives to violence.
00:18:24.736 --> 00:18:25.838
We don't have a graduation
00:18:25.904 --> 00:18:28.674
and tests and all that,
but when they leave the school
00:18:28.774 --> 00:18:29.775
they go to jail.
00:18:30.008 --> 00:18:32.878
[laughter]
00:18:33.212 --> 00:18:47.326
[Oh Freedom playing]
00:18:47.726 --> 00:18:50.796
Well the first that we're talking about
Kings influence on me which started
00:18:50.863 --> 00:18:54.032
when I was 16 and I was at
an Asilomar conference
00:18:54.133 --> 00:18:57.202
which was a big conference of kids
from all over the country
00:18:57.269 --> 00:19:01.907
and we talked about political issues,
social issues, and that year Dr. King
00:19:01.974 --> 00:19:07.679
was the guest speaker
and I was dissolved in tears
00:19:08.547 --> 00:19:10.883
for the whole speech
because I had read about
00:19:10.949 --> 00:19:12.784
non-violence and I knew about
non-violence
00:19:12.885 --> 00:19:15.988
and they were doing it,
they were walking in the streets
00:19:16.054 --> 00:19:19.224
and they were walking
to their freedom basically.
00:19:19.324 --> 00:19:21.827
And I was a mess.
00:19:23.061 --> 00:19:24.263
More than 200,000
00:19:24.329 --> 00:19:27.399
came to Washington this morning
in the struggle for equal rights.
00:19:28.100 --> 00:19:29.968
I have a dream
00:19:30.702 --> 00:19:32.471
that one day
00:19:32.604 --> 00:19:35.374
that this nation will rise up,
00:19:35.507 --> 00:19:38.110
live out the true meaning of its creed.
00:19:38.544 --> 00:19:41.280
We hold these truths
to be self-evident:
00:19:41.847 --> 00:19:44.116
that all men are created equal.
00:19:44.516 --> 00:19:48.987
[applause]
00:19:49.254 --> 00:19:56.695
[Keep Your Eyes on the Prize playing]
00:19:58.530 --> 00:20:02.134
During the Christmas period
of 1965
00:20:02.367 --> 00:20:04.836
women in Macon in Mississippi
00:20:04.937 --> 00:20:09.007
began to talk about the war.
They wanted to know why
00:20:09.074 --> 00:20:12.744
it is that their sons were
in Vietnam fighting
00:20:12.811 --> 00:20:17.449
for allegedly democracy
but you don't have democracy
00:20:17.516 --> 00:20:18.684
when you get back home.
00:20:24.323 --> 00:20:25.757
At the beginning of 1965
00:20:25.857 --> 00:20:28.894
there were 23,000 American service men
in Vietnam,
00:20:28.961 --> 00:20:33.532
currently, there are around 267,000
US fighting men in Vietnam.
00:20:33.699 --> 00:20:38.070
We knew that the war was escalating
and for SNCC the draft
00:20:38.170 --> 00:20:43.041
became and the wall became
a significant issue.
00:20:46.178 --> 00:20:48.313
The situation and the system
that the United States has
00:20:48.380 --> 00:20:51.550
allows for black people no
alternative but to become hired killers
00:20:51.650 --> 00:20:53.919
the only way out of a society
is through death.
00:20:54.419 --> 00:20:56.488
They don't have jobs in the ghetto,
the only out
00:20:56.688 --> 00:20:59.958
is to try and make it in the Vietnam
that's the fault of the United States.
00:21:00.726 --> 00:21:03.629
And so at that point,
SNCC said it's time for us
00:21:03.695 --> 00:21:06.665
to go ahead and release
the statement that African Americans
00:21:06.732 --> 00:21:13.472
should not engage in the war
in Vietnam, period.
00:21:13.572 --> 00:21:16.108
We are not only opposed to the war
in Vietnam,
00:21:16.174 --> 00:21:18.710
we are opposed to compulsory conscription.
00:21:18.844 --> 00:21:21.947
Now we're against the draft for anybody,
black or white.
00:21:22.214 --> 00:21:23.682
It went on to say that
00:21:23.782 --> 00:21:28.053
for all African Americans
who are being drafted
00:21:28.120 --> 00:21:31.556
we encourage them to take the option
of saying
00:21:32.024 --> 00:21:34.493
hell no, we won't go.
00:21:34.793 --> 00:21:36.728
Hell no, I ain't going.
00:21:36.962 --> 00:21:39.564
Hell no! Hell no! Hell no! Hello no!
00:21:39.731 --> 00:21:42.601
Hell no! Hello no!
00:21:42.768 --> 00:21:49.675
[Hell No, I Ain't Gonna Go playing]
00:21:50.008 --> 00:21:52.110
Everybody came out
and condemned us.
00:21:52.210 --> 00:21:55.981
Every civil rights organization,
every single person
00:21:56.048 --> 00:21:58.950
that you could think of
for having a position
00:21:59.017 --> 00:22:00.485
against the war in Vietnam.
00:22:00.819 --> 00:22:03.188
[police sirens]
00:22:04.356 --> 00:22:05.957
Pardon me, Brother.
What's happening, man?
00:22:06.024 --> 00:22:07.826
Whassup man, how you doin'?
00:22:08.093 --> 00:22:10.395
- You're hip to the war, aren't you?
- Yeah, I'm hip to it.
00:22:10.462 --> 00:22:12.731
Let me give you a little insight
into what's happening, man.
00:22:12.798 --> 00:22:14.866
This is the Vietnam comic book.
00:22:15.167 --> 00:22:16.068
We had a printing press
00:22:16.168 --> 00:22:19.905
that was capable of doing books
and magazines
00:22:19.971 --> 00:22:24.142
and so we did a comic book
on the war
00:22:24.209 --> 00:22:27.045
and we took it out from
the minority communities.
00:22:27.179 --> 00:22:28.513
It's pretty hip, man, you know...
00:22:28.580 --> 00:22:32.784
And people could understand
very simply what you were doing,
00:22:32.884 --> 00:22:35.821
why you were doing it,
and how it impacts them,
00:22:35.887 --> 00:22:38.990
and why it is that they need to know
this information
00:22:39.291 --> 00:22:42.828
in order to empower themselves
and step out on faith
00:22:42.894 --> 00:22:47.065
and have that kind of courage to make
a stand against the war in Vietnam.
00:22:47.132 --> 00:22:55.107
[acoustic guitar playing]
00:22:56.942 --> 00:23:00.579
I was one of the people
who decided to file suit
00:23:00.679 --> 00:23:04.149
against the Selective Service
System offices in Georgia
00:23:04.216 --> 00:23:05.751
and South Carolina.
00:23:06.384 --> 00:23:09.454
We found none of the employees
African-American
00:23:09.521 --> 00:23:11.757
but there
was a disproportionate number
00:23:11.823 --> 00:23:14.226
of African-Americans
who were being drafted.
00:23:16.128 --> 00:23:19.030
We all, in SNCC, begin to feel
the pressure
00:23:19.097 --> 00:23:21.800
from the FBI and the military.
00:23:22.267 --> 00:23:24.136
I was then drafted,
00:23:24.236 --> 00:23:27.339
and I did what we had asked
other people to do
00:23:27.405 --> 00:23:30.308
and that was say,
hell no, I'm not going to go.
00:23:31.176 --> 00:23:33.945
They ended up sentencing me
to five years
00:23:34.045 --> 00:23:35.614
in the federal penitentiary.
00:23:36.181 --> 00:23:37.783
But we also began to
00:23:37.849 --> 00:23:40.886
in our communications
have more and more discussion
00:23:40.952 --> 00:23:44.856
and dialogue with Dr. King,
and began to ask
00:23:44.956 --> 00:23:48.794
when was he going to make
a statement against the war in Vietnam.
00:23:49.327 --> 00:23:52.130
He was not prepared to push it,
he had an organization,
00:23:52.197 --> 00:23:55.834
and that organization
had to be willing to accept
00:23:55.901 --> 00:23:57.169
the consequences.
00:23:57.569 --> 00:23:59.771
I mean, that was a tough issue
to take on,
00:24:00.071 --> 00:24:03.642
but when Dr. King
came out with the position
00:24:03.708 --> 00:24:07.145
on the war in Vietnam
he called Stokely
00:24:07.212 --> 00:24:10.816
and asked him to come
and bring me alone
00:24:10.882 --> 00:24:13.718
that he had a message
that he wanted us to hear.
00:24:13.952 --> 00:24:17.789
When Dr. King came properly
to see Vietnam
00:24:17.889 --> 00:24:20.225
he grabbed it,
and I'll never forget it,
00:24:20.325 --> 00:24:21.660
he gave his speech on Vietnam
00:24:21.726 --> 00:24:23.461
in his church in Atlanta
on a Sunday morning,
00:24:23.528 --> 00:24:24.763
I went that day.
00:24:24.863 --> 00:24:26.097
- You were there?
- I went.
00:24:26.631 --> 00:24:27.799
I sat right there.
00:24:28.266 --> 00:24:40.812
[gospel music playing]
00:24:41.246 --> 00:24:42.914
And we have been wrong
00:24:42.981 --> 00:24:46.218
from the beginning
of our intervention in Vietnam,
00:24:47.652 --> 00:24:53.992
and I don't know about you,
I ain't going to study war no more.
00:24:54.159 --> 00:24:58.563
[applause]
00:24:59.030 --> 00:25:01.600
I know from my time with King
00:25:01.700 --> 00:25:04.836
that he really didn't do anything
until he prayed on it
00:25:04.936 --> 00:25:05.937
for a long time.
00:25:07.138 --> 00:25:09.374
So this must have been
a long one for him.
00:25:10.408 --> 00:25:12.677
And in fact that cut the lines
00:25:12.777 --> 00:25:15.447
between him and the White House
overnight.
00:25:15.514 --> 00:25:16.648
As soon as he left
00:25:16.748 --> 00:25:19.951
this rather safe area
for the administration
00:25:20.051 --> 00:25:24.022
of civil rights and switch over
to the not-so-safe.
00:25:34.533 --> 00:25:37.903
The draft resistance movement
had picked up, the anti-war movement
00:25:38.003 --> 00:25:41.673
had picked up and all of a sudden
wasn't just a couple isolated pacifists
00:25:41.740 --> 00:25:44.809
with placards
holding silent village ills,
00:25:44.910 --> 00:25:49.781
it was beginning to meld
with sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
00:25:49.848 --> 00:25:52.617
I mean it was just wild.
00:25:53.218 --> 00:25:59.357
[music playing]
00:25:59.724 --> 00:26:01.059
There's a moment
00:26:01.126 --> 00:26:05.030
where it's not clear
what's driving the whole movement.
00:26:05.096 --> 00:26:08.099
It's like a dance with all
these different groups
00:26:08.199 --> 00:26:10.468
doing the thing
that's most important to them
00:26:10.568 --> 00:26:13.171
and focused on the war
in different ways,
00:26:13.271 --> 00:26:15.974
and then it ends up being
draft resistance in a very,
00:26:16.041 --> 00:26:18.009
I think clear and obvious way.
00:26:18.343 --> 00:26:22.781
[applause]
00:26:23.081 --> 00:26:27.886
But very quickly then I got indicted
for my draft resistance.
00:26:27.953 --> 00:26:30.455
So now the question became
what to do,
00:26:30.555 --> 00:26:33.425
what to do, well, we knew
the church sanctuaries
00:26:33.491 --> 00:26:35.193
were pretty much a bust,
didn't work,
00:26:35.860 --> 00:26:36.761
so we thought
00:26:36.861 --> 00:26:40.231
we'd pioneer something new
and we try a coffee house sanctuary
00:26:40.298 --> 00:26:42.667
because that
was a holy place for us.
00:26:43.268 --> 00:26:47.172
So we had a coffee house sanctuary and
that didn't work out actually either.
00:26:52.010 --> 00:26:53.645
The point about draft resistance
00:26:53.712 --> 00:26:56.214
is we have to be prepared
and we can't just try
00:26:56.314 --> 00:27:00.552
to weasel out of it with legalisms
and so on, so I pled guilty
00:27:00.619 --> 00:27:04.756
and was sentenced to three years
in prison and packed off to jail.
00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:11.463
I was a young guy back then
and I really never talked
00:27:11.529 --> 00:27:13.098
to anybody about the war
00:27:14.866 --> 00:27:15.967
I didn't really know
00:27:16.067 --> 00:27:18.436
how to deal with having to go
into the army.
00:27:21.306 --> 00:27:25.510
I did get my induction notice
and I showed up at the induction center
00:27:25.577 --> 00:27:27.345
in downtown Los Angeles.
00:27:27.545 --> 00:27:30.148
Take your letter.
Report for induction
00:27:30.248 --> 00:27:31.616
and go right in this door here.
00:27:33.351 --> 00:27:34.686
Here you have right
into your city
00:27:34.753 --> 00:27:36.655
you have an office
that does nothing but
00:27:37.055 --> 00:27:40.325
pull young men in,
give them medical examinations,
00:27:40.392 --> 00:27:42.360
put them on a bus
and send him off to war.
00:27:42.661 --> 00:27:44.262
Do we really have to permit
that?
00:27:44.729 --> 00:27:47.866
[crowd noises]
00:27:47.999 --> 00:27:51.036
Well I became the one and only
staff person
00:27:51.269 --> 00:27:53.204
at the Los Angeles resistance office
00:27:53.304 --> 00:27:55.540
although that only lasted
a very short time
00:27:55.607 --> 00:28:00.378
because pretty soon people started
to come in and other organizers
00:28:00.445 --> 00:28:01.946
and men and women.
00:28:03.581 --> 00:28:07.018
Women did everything, everything.
00:28:07.252 --> 00:28:11.356
And we were not in back,
we were right there with
00:28:11.423 --> 00:28:14.726
and I felt these were my best friends
00:28:15.160 --> 00:28:17.395
and it was all for one
and one for all.
00:28:19.998 --> 00:28:22.267
We taught ourselves
how to print.
00:28:22.667 --> 00:28:25.970
I would go to the induction center
to pass out fliers
00:28:26.171 --> 00:28:27.605
just about every day of the week
00:28:27.672 --> 00:28:29.140
that they were doing inductions,
00:28:29.274 --> 00:28:31.209
at 6:00, 6:30 in the morning.
00:28:31.443 --> 00:28:34.145
We would all go down,
pass the leaflets out
00:28:34.245 --> 00:28:36.648
to all of the men getting off
the buses.
00:28:37.649 --> 00:28:40.618
I hadn't been called up yet
at the time, but I was one of
00:28:40.852 --> 00:28:43.354
the regular participants
down at the induction center
00:28:43.455 --> 00:28:44.989
on call-up days.
00:28:45.690 --> 00:28:46.925
So there would be those of us
00:28:46.991 --> 00:28:49.761
who would be there
with a little coffee table,
00:28:49.861 --> 00:28:51.629
donuts, coffee and an attorney.
00:28:51.996 --> 00:28:53.231
One of us would jump on the bus
00:28:53.298 --> 00:28:56.034
and explained that
you can just go home.
00:28:56.301 --> 00:28:58.436
Sometime soon you'll have
another shot at it
00:28:58.503 --> 00:29:00.939
but you don't have to make
the decision today,
00:29:01.005 --> 00:29:02.006
you can just go home.
00:29:02.173 --> 00:29:04.142
The military officer
came charging in,
00:29:04.209 --> 00:29:07.112
we get on the bus and explained
what was really going on here.
00:29:07.245 --> 00:29:09.881
They believed the guy in the uniform
for the most part.
00:29:11.349 --> 00:29:12.851
But what if you can change
one life.
00:29:14.953 --> 00:29:18.123
There was a large demonstration outside
the induction center,
00:29:18.223 --> 00:29:22.227
demonstrators were talking to draftees
and passing out flowers.
00:29:24.295 --> 00:29:28.800
Well typical of me, I didn't talk
to anybody, but I did take a flower
00:29:28.900 --> 00:29:32.170
and I stuck a flyer in my pocket
and went inside.
00:29:34.606 --> 00:29:37.876
Inside the induction center,
while I was going through
00:29:37.942 --> 00:29:43.081
processing I kept thinking
that I could not in good conscience
00:29:43.181 --> 00:29:46.417
go into the army and kill somebody
for a war I didn't believe in.
00:29:46.851 --> 00:29:50.188
I didn't really realize
that I could just say no.
00:29:50.955 --> 00:29:54.425
You're about to being inducted into
the armed forces of the United States.
00:29:55.059 --> 00:29:57.695
You will take one step forward
as your name is called
00:29:57.896 --> 00:29:59.197
and start...
00:29:59.264 --> 00:30:03.134
My pointed of decision actually came
when we were all brought into a room
00:30:03.301 --> 00:30:06.504
and asked to pledge allegiance
to the army,
00:30:07.105 --> 00:30:09.741
and we were instructed
to take a step forward
00:30:09.974 --> 00:30:12.544
and everyone stepped forward
except me.
00:30:13.578 --> 00:30:15.346
And I don't know
who was more surprised,
00:30:15.413 --> 00:30:17.115
me or the person giving the oath.
00:30:20.318 --> 00:30:22.053
But there's one person
00:30:22.153 --> 00:30:25.156
just from passing out fliers
and being at the induction center
00:30:25.223 --> 00:30:26.558
changed his entire life.
00:30:28.626 --> 00:30:30.228
This was really
00:30:30.328 --> 00:30:33.464
a both individual act
and a group act. being daring
00:30:34.265 --> 00:30:39.904
Being daring as individuals and with
others, and that's pretty powerful,
00:30:39.971 --> 00:30:42.674
I think, when those
are thought of together.
00:30:45.343 --> 00:30:48.246
My name is Marty Harris
and I refused induction.
00:30:49.948 --> 00:30:53.151
My name's Rich,
and I just refused induction.
00:30:53.418 --> 00:31:03.895
[orchestra music playing]
00:31:06.264 --> 00:31:09.867
So when I got home I remembered
about the leaflet
00:31:10.034 --> 00:31:11.936
and I pulled it out of my pocket
and looked at it
00:31:12.003 --> 00:31:14.005
and I read about the resistance
for the first time,
00:31:14.072 --> 00:31:15.573
the LA resistance.
00:31:15.940 --> 00:31:17.475
So I went to one of their meetings
00:31:17.542 --> 00:31:20.044
and I really liked the community
00:31:20.111 --> 00:31:23.615
and the determination to stop the war
and especially their commitment
00:31:23.715 --> 00:31:24.716
to non-violence.
00:31:24.983 --> 00:31:27.986
So I joined the resistance
and started
00:31:28.052 --> 00:31:29.854
working against the war
and the draft.
00:31:30.321 --> 00:31:38.563
America is committed to the defense
of South Vietnam.
00:31:40.098 --> 00:31:45.136
[applause]
00:31:47.071 --> 00:31:50.108
[plane engines roaring]
00:31:50.408 --> 00:31:53.044
Meanwhile, obviously, the war,
we weren't stopping the war.
00:31:53.144 --> 00:31:55.613
The war was escalating,
it was getting worse,
00:31:55.680 --> 00:31:57.682
the movement was getting bigger,
more and more people
00:31:57.749 --> 00:32:00.551
were turning against the war,
yet we seem to have no effect
00:32:00.618 --> 00:32:02.053
on government policy.
00:32:02.153 --> 00:32:03.621
And so to me it meant
00:32:03.721 --> 00:32:07.358
we had to take more dramatic actions,
and for me breaking
00:32:07.425 --> 00:32:09.794
with the draft was both
a moral decision
00:32:09.861 --> 00:32:13.364
saying no, I'm not going to fight in Vietnam,
I'm not going to kill Vietnamese people,
00:32:13.431 --> 00:32:16.067
I won't do it.
And we need to build
00:32:16.167 --> 00:32:17.702
a mass movement.
00:32:20.204 --> 00:32:22.006
By my sophomore year
00:32:22.106 --> 00:32:25.443
I decided that I was ready
to become a non-registrant
00:32:25.543 --> 00:32:29.180
and this draft card was figuratively
burning a hole in my pocket.
00:32:29.580 --> 00:32:31.582
I tore it up in four pieces
00:32:31.649 --> 00:32:35.053
and I put it in an envelope,
I licked the envelope, and I mailed it.
00:32:37.188 --> 00:32:38.990
We wanted to take it a step up,
00:32:39.457 --> 00:32:43.161
not just an act of solitary witness
against the war but a real movement
00:32:43.494 --> 00:32:45.330
that would make it hard
for the government
00:32:45.396 --> 00:32:47.699
to get enough troops to fight
in Vietnam.
00:32:48.599 --> 00:32:51.736
So we decided to organize
a mass draft card burning,
00:32:51.836 --> 00:32:54.505
and we settled on an event
around four months away
00:32:54.572 --> 00:32:56.574
that was going to be
the spring mobilization
00:32:56.674 --> 00:32:58.242
against the war Vietnam.
00:32:58.309 --> 00:33:00.678
This would be a massive rally
in New York City.
00:33:02.013 --> 00:33:04.215
Stokely Carmichael
from the Student Nonviolent
00:33:04.282 --> 00:33:06.050
Coordinating Committee
was speaking there.
00:33:08.019 --> 00:33:11.823
Dr. King was making one
of his first anti-war statements there.
00:33:11.889 --> 00:33:15.159
Stop the bombing and stop the war.
00:33:15.259 --> 00:33:17.395
It was the largest rally
against the war
00:33:17.462 --> 00:33:19.597
that I think the country
had ever seen at that time.
00:33:19.964 --> 00:33:21.933
To organize that,
I dropped out of school
00:33:22.133 --> 00:33:24.936
and I was the only
full-time organizer of this,
00:33:25.002 --> 00:33:26.237
and let me say, I was probably
00:33:26.304 --> 00:33:28.873
the worst full-time organizer
of a national action
00:33:28.973 --> 00:33:31.275
one could imagine.
I was eighteen years old,
00:33:31.376 --> 00:33:34.045
I didn't know very much
about organizing,
00:33:34.145 --> 00:33:35.213
we had no money
00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:36.547
then we just hoped for the best.
00:33:36.614 --> 00:33:38.916
Central Park is the starting point
for the parade
00:33:39.017 --> 00:33:43.087
to the UN building.
He estimated 125,000 Manhattan marchers
00:33:43.187 --> 00:33:44.022
includes...
00:33:44.122 --> 00:33:46.124
So somebody handed me,
I have who handed me
00:33:46.224 --> 00:33:49.360
a Maxwell House coffee can
which had in it
00:33:49.460 --> 00:33:52.397
either paraffin or lighter fluid
but it was burning
00:33:52.463 --> 00:33:54.899
and I held it up and I said
let's burn our draft cards
00:33:54.966 --> 00:33:58.002
and by our calculations
and the newspapers calculations
00:33:58.069 --> 00:34:02.240
we had around 175 to 185 people
burn their draft cards,
00:34:02.340 --> 00:34:05.476
which made this the largest act
of civil disobedience
00:34:05.543 --> 00:34:07.945
against the draft, I guess,
since the Civil War.
00:34:08.212 --> 00:34:11.449
It was a great first step to build
a mass movement against the draft.
00:34:12.083 --> 00:34:14.218
A companion peace
demonstration brings out
00:34:14.285 --> 00:34:17.488
50,000 marchers in downtown
San Francisco.
00:34:17.555 --> 00:34:21.159
It turned out on the very same day
in the San Francisco version
00:34:21.225 --> 00:34:23.895
of the mobilization
against the war, David Harris
00:34:23.995 --> 00:34:26.998
announced that they were organizing
a group called the resistance.
00:34:27.098 --> 00:34:29.867
If you want to make a statement,
00:34:30.668 --> 00:34:31.669
join us.
00:34:32.336 --> 00:34:34.372
That's a first coming out of this idea
00:34:34.439 --> 00:34:37.175
of the resistance being
a nation-wide movement.
00:34:37.575 --> 00:34:40.711
A draft card is a pledge,
it's a very simple pledge.
00:34:40.912 --> 00:34:44.515
It says when and where you decide
murder to be a fit international policy
00:34:44.582 --> 00:34:45.583
on your boy.
00:34:46.250 --> 00:34:47.351
And you and I must refuse
00:34:47.418 --> 00:34:48.619
to be the messengers of death.
00:34:48.953 --> 00:34:51.622
He talked about how being a CO
was not enough.
00:34:52.290 --> 00:34:53.524
That there was a whole system
00:34:53.591 --> 00:34:56.794
the Selective Service System
which should not be cooperated with
00:34:56.894 --> 00:35:00.164
because that was what
was funneling people into this war,
00:35:00.665 --> 00:35:03.468
and really challenged me
and the others in that audience
00:35:04.235 --> 00:35:06.003
that we had another
responsibility really.
00:35:06.137 --> 00:35:08.639
For you and I are the bricks
and the mortar of that system.
00:35:08.706 --> 00:35:11.843
It was so compelling
for me to hear him
00:35:11.909 --> 00:35:15.646
declare that we, ourselves,
actually could take
00:35:15.746 --> 00:35:19.584
the step that would bring this war
to an end by refusing to go,
00:35:19.650 --> 00:35:21.152
just refusing to cooperate.
00:35:21.986 --> 00:35:23.621
It's why I turned in my draft card.
00:35:34.599 --> 00:35:37.034
Hi, I just got this letter
from my local board
00:35:37.201 --> 00:35:39.137
so I felt the only thing
for me to do
00:35:39.203 --> 00:35:44.175
was to stand up and say no publicly
and to join help building a movement
00:35:44.242 --> 00:35:46.611
that is going to shut
this life of service down permanently.
00:35:48.513 --> 00:35:50.781
Draft resistance
was so attractive to me
00:35:50.848 --> 00:35:53.384
because it was nonviolent
and open and public
00:35:54.385 --> 00:35:57.421
but it was radical,
in the sense that it was illegal
00:35:57.622 --> 00:36:00.291
and pushing the envelope resistance.
00:36:00.725 --> 00:36:02.493
That the whole system of the draft
00:36:02.560 --> 00:36:04.529
we weren't sure how that
whole apparatus functioned
00:36:04.595 --> 00:36:08.299
by any means but it became clear
without people it didn't function
00:36:08.366 --> 00:36:12.270
I mean without acquiescence
it wasn't there, and without us
00:36:12.370 --> 00:36:14.872
to sign ourselves over
to it it couldn't operate.
00:36:16.307 --> 00:36:19.844
It has been said that I have
two alternatives
00:36:19.944 --> 00:36:23.181
either go to jail, or go to the army,
00:36:23.648 --> 00:36:24.882
but I would like to say
00:36:24.949 --> 00:36:29.387
that there is another alternative,
and that alternative
00:36:29.520 --> 00:36:30.821
is justice.
00:36:31.722 --> 00:36:36.761
Ladies and gentlemen Mr. Mohammed Ali
has just refused to be inducted
00:36:36.861 --> 00:36:38.529
into the United States Armed Forces.
00:36:38.896 --> 00:36:41.299
I just don't think
I should go 10,000 miles
00:36:41.365 --> 00:36:44.235
from here and shoot some black people
that never called me nigger,
00:36:44.335 --> 00:36:46.304
never lynched me,
never put dogs on me,
00:36:46.370 --> 00:36:49.006
never enslaved me and I just can't
go over there
00:36:49.073 --> 00:36:50.374
and shoot them people.
00:36:50.441 --> 00:36:52.109
You won't fight for your country,
00:36:52.243 --> 00:36:53.778
- you're refusing to go...
- I'm a minister,
00:36:53.844 --> 00:36:56.013
my religion, this country
has laws for ministers.
00:36:58.382 --> 00:37:00.985
Muhammad Ali
is really important in this
00:37:01.052 --> 00:37:05.656
because when Ali refuses
induction there's a famous column
00:37:05.723 --> 00:37:07.992
in The New York Times
written by Tom Wicker
00:37:08.059 --> 00:37:11.662
where he just wanders out loud
what would happen if you had
00:37:11.729 --> 00:37:13.731
100,000 Muhammad Ali's.
00:37:14.065 --> 00:37:15.633
You had 100,000 people
00:37:15.766 --> 00:37:18.202
who were prepared to do what
Muhammad all he just did.
00:37:18.269 --> 00:37:20.538
You would bring this war to a stop.
00:37:20.638 --> 00:37:21.539
So draft resisters
00:37:21.639 --> 00:37:23.808
set that as a goal.
00:37:24.542 --> 00:37:26.010
It took an all-white jury
00:37:26.077 --> 00:37:28.879
less than a half hour
to find Muhammad Ali guilty
00:37:28.946 --> 00:37:32.183
of all charges and specifications.
He was sentenced
00:37:32.283 --> 00:37:36.621
to the maximum five years in prison
and was fined $10,000.
00:37:37.021 --> 00:37:41.525
[Stand by Me playing]
00:37:41.726 --> 00:37:46.564
I find nothing amusing or interesting
or tolerable about this man.
00:37:47.431 --> 00:37:49.867
He's a disgrace to his country,
his race,
00:37:50.034 --> 00:37:52.670
and what he laughingly describes
as his profession.
00:37:52.770 --> 00:37:54.338
He has been found guilty.
00:37:54.805 --> 00:37:57.908
He is out on bail.
He will inevitably go to prison,
00:37:58.009 --> 00:37:59.010
as well he should.
00:37:59.644 --> 00:38:02.280
He's a simplistic fool
and a pawn.
00:38:02.880 --> 00:38:06.784
Do you share the same concern
that Muhammad has for his draft status?
00:38:07.218 --> 00:38:11.055
Oh I certainly do.
My views on the draft are very clear
00:38:11.122 --> 00:38:11.989
I'm against it.
00:38:12.123 --> 00:38:15.526
And I think the sooner country
does away
00:38:15.626 --> 00:38:18.529
with the draft, the better
it would be for everybody.
00:38:19.163 --> 00:38:25.069
[Ain't Gonna Let Nobody
Turn Me Around playing]
00:38:25.403 --> 00:38:31.275
Well, the week from October 16th 1967
to October 21st was extraordinary
00:38:31.375 --> 00:38:34.345
in both American political history
and the anti-war movement
00:38:34.412 --> 00:38:36.180
and the draft resistance movement.
00:38:36.247 --> 00:38:37.281
It was part of an event
00:38:37.381 --> 00:38:38.883
they called Stop the Draft Week.
00:38:39.583 --> 00:38:41.485
October 16th is the big day
00:38:41.786 --> 00:38:44.722
that organizers have agreed on
and it starts at dawn
00:38:44.789 --> 00:38:46.324
in Oakland, California.
00:38:46.524 --> 00:38:49.260
Stop the Draft,
the object to prevent
00:38:49.327 --> 00:38:51.228
the orderly induction of recruits.
00:38:53.197 --> 00:38:55.466
Passive resistance, in my opinion,
00:38:55.599 --> 00:38:59.203
it's nonviolent resistance,
a willingness to sacrifice,
00:38:59.270 --> 00:39:03.174
a willingness to take risks,
a willingness to go under
00:39:03.240 --> 00:39:04.975
our own style of battle.
00:39:06.944 --> 00:39:09.613
So we had separated ourselves
00:39:09.680 --> 00:39:11.415
in a way so that we knew
that this group
00:39:11.515 --> 00:39:13.651
is going to be nonviolent
no matter what,
00:39:13.751 --> 00:39:15.453
so we were probably having
more fun.
00:39:15.886 --> 00:39:24.395
[We Want Our Freedom Now playing]
00:39:24.829 --> 00:39:26.263
And then I'm aware that
00:39:26.364 --> 00:39:28.466
when I'm singing it's giving
other people courage
00:39:28.532 --> 00:39:29.700
and then they sing too
00:39:30.367 --> 00:39:33.371
and your example
is going to mean something.
00:39:33.671 --> 00:39:39.076
Na-Na Na-Naaa.
Na-Na-Na Na-Na-Na.
00:39:39.276 --> 00:39:42.012
There were these row after row
of people locking arms,
00:39:42.079 --> 00:39:45.449
singing songs peacefully
blocking the roads
00:39:45.549 --> 00:39:50.554
with these buses of inductees trying to
get to the induction center in Oakland.
00:39:50.721 --> 00:39:53.157
After a while
I just couldn't stand their watch
00:39:53.224 --> 00:39:56.260
I jumped into the lines
next thing I know I'm hauled off
00:39:56.327 --> 00:39:58.529
to jail for a 10-day sentence.
00:39:59.530 --> 00:40:04.568
[applause]
00:40:07.972 --> 00:40:10.307
I'm a stubborn, strict pacifist now.
00:40:10.374 --> 00:40:11.575
I don't know what I'm going to do
00:40:11.642 --> 00:40:13.577
when I get to that door
and they put me behind the bars,
00:40:13.611 --> 00:40:16.280
I may go into a dead faint
but yeah I have to be ready
00:40:16.380 --> 00:40:18.682
to go to jail or I can't do
the things I do.
00:40:19.049 --> 00:40:24.655
[police sirens]
00:40:24.989 --> 00:40:27.725
Buses with the new draftees arrived.
00:40:28.659 --> 00:40:32.296
Demonstrators tried to stop them
but the buses were brought in
00:40:32.396 --> 00:40:35.266
led by a flank of Oakland
police officers.
00:40:35.733 --> 00:40:38.936
Demonstrators protested the draft,
and some were arrested
00:40:39.036 --> 00:40:42.506
by police who kept order
and inductees went
00:40:42.573 --> 00:40:45.242
into the service, all very peacefully.
00:40:46.610 --> 00:40:48.612
So while protesters in Oakland
00:40:48.712 --> 00:40:50.614
are trying to shut down
the induction center
00:40:50.681 --> 00:40:53.017
using non-violent civil disobedience,
00:40:53.851 --> 00:40:55.920
that afternoon in San Francisco
00:40:56.353 --> 00:40:59.790
David Harris kicks off
the national draft card turn into day.
00:41:00.624 --> 00:41:02.326
October 16th had been the date
00:41:02.426 --> 00:41:04.628
we had set when we first started
the resistance
00:41:04.762 --> 00:41:07.298
for the first national draft card
return, during which
00:41:07.398 --> 00:41:08.866
all around the country
and as it turned out
00:41:08.933 --> 00:41:11.068
in 18 different cities there
would be demonstrations
00:41:11.168 --> 00:41:13.938
at which people would collect
draft cards and give them
00:41:14.004 --> 00:41:15.039
to the federal government.
00:41:15.439 --> 00:41:18.843
And if it takes our lives
to change this country
00:41:19.009 --> 00:41:21.345
then that's what's going to happen.
00:41:21.712 --> 00:41:24.048
Very simply open, public declarations
00:41:24.148 --> 00:41:27.017
that we would not cooperate
and if the government intended
00:41:27.084 --> 00:41:30.721
to enforce the Selective Service Act then
it was going to have to send us to jail.
00:41:30.955 --> 00:41:33.557
2,000 of us gathered
on the steps the Federal Building
00:41:33.624 --> 00:41:39.029
in San Francisco and it was a mob
scene, it had this air of expectation,
00:41:39.129 --> 00:41:42.633
we were about to engage
in this act, and okay the time had come
00:41:42.700 --> 00:41:46.170
and out goes the basket and as
the basket moves around the crowd
00:41:46.237 --> 00:41:48.339
all these hands
coming up holding draft cards
00:41:48.439 --> 00:41:50.774
dropping them into the basket
and the basket circulates
00:41:50.841 --> 00:41:53.510
through the crowd and comes back up
to the front, then all of a sudden
00:41:53.577 --> 00:41:55.846
from the back of the crowd
these shouts start coming more
00:41:55.913 --> 00:41:57.581
back here, back here, we want it.
00:41:57.681 --> 00:42:01.485
So the basket goes back out and
more draft cards start coming into it.
00:42:02.820 --> 00:42:06.690
And what we say to a society
of murder and racism
00:42:06.790 --> 00:42:08.392
is a very simple no.
00:42:08.559 --> 00:42:11.562
And what we say to our brothers
across this country
00:42:11.695 --> 00:42:14.865
and around the world
is a very simple word.
00:42:15.032 --> 00:42:16.634
That word is resist.
00:42:19.470 --> 00:42:24.208
On October 16th there are kind of
clear differences in tactics and tenor.
00:42:24.675 --> 00:42:27.645
In Boston it takes
on almost a kind of
00:42:27.711 --> 00:42:29.547
sacramental tone.
00:42:29.613 --> 00:42:32.316
We decided to do it in a church
00:42:32.416 --> 00:42:34.718
after all it's a solemn
and almost religious act
00:42:34.785 --> 00:42:38.122
to turn in your draft card
and vow to go to prison.
00:42:38.222 --> 00:42:41.558
We met the minister right away
and so we're not worried about it,
00:42:41.625 --> 00:42:45.095
after all he said
back in the 1850s
00:42:45.195 --> 00:42:50.067
this congregation used to arm itself
and break into the Boston City Jail
00:42:50.134 --> 00:42:53.504
to free the fugitive slaves
and get them up to Canada,
00:42:53.570 --> 00:42:55.673
so we're not worried about
a few draft cards.
00:42:56.974 --> 00:43:00.811
But we had 5000 come out
for a rally in the common
00:43:01.145 --> 00:43:03.547
and then we marched
to the Arlington Street Church.
00:43:04.248 --> 00:43:06.717
As we approached the church
that bells started playing
00:43:06.817 --> 00:43:10.387
we shall overcome, so I was like
already in tears.
00:43:10.921 --> 00:43:14.959
[church bells playing]
00:43:15.192 --> 00:43:19.763
I gave a short sermon on behalf
on the guys turning in the cards.
00:43:20.364 --> 00:43:22.967
We broke bread, almost as if it were
a mass.
00:43:23.300 --> 00:43:27.304
[gospel music playing]
00:43:27.538 --> 00:43:28.806
We did that
00:43:28.872 --> 00:43:30.641
to get the word out that
something remarkable
00:43:30.708 --> 00:43:33.143
was happening in both coasts
but it was rather
00:43:33.210 --> 00:43:34.979
I think an electrifying moment.
00:43:38.349 --> 00:43:39.450
And then at the end
00:43:39.550 --> 00:43:41.819
of that week I carried
the bag of draft cards
00:43:41.885 --> 00:43:44.822
to Washington DC,
which was part of the national plan
00:43:44.922 --> 00:43:48.425
to gather them all together
and then they were carried
00:43:48.492 --> 00:43:51.929
into the Justice Department building and
turned over to the Attorney General's office.
00:43:53.430 --> 00:43:55.566
Michael Server
from the Boston resistance
00:43:55.633 --> 00:43:59.203
I bring from the Ottogan Street Church
237 files.
00:44:03.207 --> 00:44:06.477
Lenny for the Berkeley Resistance,
Palo Alto Resistance,
00:44:06.543 --> 00:44:08.646
San Jose Resistant,
San Fransisco,
00:44:08.779 --> 00:44:13.784
David, California, Sacramento,
Santa Barbara, 296 cards.
00:44:16.420 --> 00:44:18.956
We thought we were
bringing the war home in a humane
00:44:19.056 --> 00:44:20.357
and democratic way.
00:44:20.457 --> 00:44:22.459
We were violating
the law, yes, but we prepare
00:44:22.559 --> 00:44:24.328
to go to prison and pay the price.
00:44:24.895 --> 00:44:26.497
We weren't dodging the draft,
00:44:26.597 --> 00:44:30.567
we were resisting it, confronting it,
and taking punishment
00:44:30.634 --> 00:44:33.470
we thought that would have
an invigorating
00:44:33.537 --> 00:44:35.406
and an electrifying effect
on the movement
00:44:35.506 --> 00:44:37.841
and I think it did in many parts
of the country.
00:44:38.375 --> 00:44:41.979
[applause]
00:44:46.417 --> 00:44:49.353
[applause]
00:44:52.322 --> 00:44:53.323
Peter Fifer.
00:44:56.627 --> 00:45:00.197
The President himself is bewildered
about draft resistance.
00:45:00.364 --> 00:45:02.199
He didn't understand
why his officials
00:45:02.299 --> 00:45:04.935
in his own administration
would accept those draft cards
00:45:05.002 --> 00:45:06.503
without arresting people
immediately.
00:45:06.737 --> 00:45:09.506
We found most of them
were mentally diseased.
00:45:09.606 --> 00:45:13.944
Hoover's taken 256 that
turned in supposedly their draft card,
00:45:14.044 --> 00:45:15.946
so you're dealing with
mental problems.
00:45:16.013 --> 00:45:20.050
But I think we are in more danger
from these left-wing influencers now
00:45:20.184 --> 00:45:22.886
than we have ever been in 37 years
I've been here.
00:45:23.420 --> 00:45:25.155
[screaming]
00:45:25.355 --> 00:45:27.091
Good evening.
Stop the Draft Week
00:45:27.157 --> 00:45:30.360
continue today across the land
along with the violence
00:45:30.461 --> 00:45:32.896
and the arrests that have
become part of the protests.
00:45:33.163 --> 00:45:34.698
Stop the draft now!
00:45:34.898 --> 00:45:37.568
It turned into a riot
by these young militants
00:45:37.634 --> 00:45:39.069
who want peace in Vietnam.
00:45:39.269 --> 00:45:40.637
They are the violent minority
00:45:40.737 --> 00:45:42.072
of the peace movement in the West
00:45:42.172 --> 00:45:45.008
And that was a turning point
for many in the movement.
00:45:45.342 --> 00:45:46.844
By the end of the week
00:45:46.944 --> 00:45:49.546
some people who were not part
of the resistance
00:45:49.613 --> 00:45:52.082
started to fight the cops,
running in the street,
00:45:52.149 --> 00:45:54.918
street actions
and this is a changing point
00:45:54.985 --> 00:45:57.121
for the movement because
there was a confrontation,
00:45:57.221 --> 00:45:59.323
and we had to think about
are we going to pursue
00:45:59.389 --> 00:46:01.892
a peaceful path of civil disobedience,
00:46:02.059 --> 00:46:04.528
or are we going to take
more militant actions.
00:46:04.628 --> 00:46:06.029
I disagreed with that tactic.
00:46:06.330 --> 00:46:09.199
It's now time for new tactics
in the anti-war movement.
00:46:09.333 --> 00:46:13.103
There's nothing else to do,
it just wasn't working.
00:46:13.303 --> 00:46:15.172
It's time for confrontation.
00:46:15.439 --> 00:46:19.243
The demonstrators began throwing things
at the all officers and at the press.
00:46:20.477 --> 00:46:22.779
[police sirens wailing]
00:46:23.013 --> 00:46:25.315
The conservatives
and the establishment like it
00:46:25.382 --> 00:46:28.051
when we go violent
because they know what to do about it
00:46:28.552 --> 00:46:30.320
and they know we lose support
00:46:30.387 --> 00:46:32.456
from the general public
when we do that.
00:46:33.056 --> 00:46:36.226
But in a political movement
it's got to be nonviolent
00:46:36.293 --> 00:46:38.896
or we're simply going to fail,
and deserve to fail.
00:46:39.563 --> 00:46:42.466
The lawmen got tougher and tougher
all week long.
00:46:43.100 --> 00:46:45.135
And the end result was the police
attacked the crowd
00:46:45.202 --> 00:46:47.604
beat the holy Jesus
out all kinds of people,
00:46:47.671 --> 00:46:50.274
including newsmen,
including high school students
00:46:50.340 --> 00:46:52.609
tear gas was used,
it was a mess.
00:46:55.679 --> 00:46:58.715
It was an extraordinary waste
of an opportunity.
00:47:05.589 --> 00:47:07.558
The name of the game
was changing minds.
00:47:08.959 --> 00:47:11.395
You don't change minds
with violence,
00:47:11.562 --> 00:47:13.764
at least nobody's succeeded
in doing it yet.
00:47:24.041 --> 00:47:26.410
And so it became
one of the real struggles
00:47:26.476 --> 00:47:29.046
in the nonviolent movement
was how to deal with
00:47:29.112 --> 00:47:33.083
the attraction and the charisma
of violent struggle.
00:47:33.417 --> 00:47:37.621
[crowd noises]
00:47:37.855 --> 00:47:39.990
And I'm looking at stuff
to draft week
00:47:40.090 --> 00:47:43.126
and I'm thinking wow
that was cool
00:47:43.193 --> 00:47:47.464
it was cool to be breaking windows
and blocking buses
00:47:47.497 --> 00:47:52.135
and doing a rampage,
it was so militant, fighting cops
00:47:52.202 --> 00:47:53.704
and I wanted to do that too.
00:47:54.071 --> 00:47:55.806
To me as an organizer
00:47:55.873 --> 00:47:57.975
precisely the people
who we were going to frighten
00:47:58.041 --> 00:48:00.477
with those kind of tactics
were the people we needed
00:48:00.544 --> 00:48:02.212
in order to stop the war.
00:48:02.479 --> 00:48:06.083
[crowd screaming]
00:48:06.350 --> 00:48:09.319
I don't know how you had
your head screwed on so right
00:48:09.853 --> 00:48:13.123
because I did succumb.
00:48:14.691 --> 00:48:16.193
I helped found
00:48:16.293 --> 00:48:18.595
an organization called
The Weather Underground.
00:48:19.162 --> 00:48:22.132
The goal of that organization
was the violent overthrow
00:48:22.232 --> 00:48:24.301
of the government
of the United States.
00:48:25.235 --> 00:48:27.838
And I was a fugitive
for seven-and-a-half years
00:48:28.772 --> 00:48:31.241
Do you think America
was going to rise up behind...
00:48:31.341 --> 00:48:33.877
Yeah, I did believe that actually,
the revolution...
00:48:33.944 --> 00:48:35.746
I thought you meant Boston,
which is why...
00:48:35.812 --> 00:48:37.381
- I'm very gullible.
- I couldn't make sense
00:48:37.447 --> 00:48:39.516
of what you guys are doing.
00:48:39.650 --> 00:48:41.184
Do you think they're going to do that?
00:48:43.620 --> 00:48:46.323
[crowd noises]
00:48:47.791 --> 00:48:51.695
David's right, non-violence
was a much better strategy.
00:48:52.462 --> 00:48:56.566
If you have 10,000 people
but one person breaks a window
00:48:56.800 --> 00:49:02.272
then the entire coalition
gets tainted by violence.
00:49:03.173 --> 00:49:14.318
[piano music playing]
00:49:15.118 --> 00:49:19.990
The idea of political non-violence,
that's the gift of the 20th century
00:49:20.157 --> 00:49:21.158
to the world.
00:49:22.092 --> 00:49:24.394
You can't do it any way
but non-violently.
00:49:25.062 --> 00:49:27.931
You can't do one thing
and expect another thing
00:49:27.998 --> 00:49:30.934
to grow out of it
if you want to make peace,
00:49:31.101 --> 00:49:32.102
you got to make peace.
00:49:34.571 --> 00:49:36.473
And I don't know who started it
00:49:36.540 --> 00:49:38.709
but pretty soon somebody starts
00:49:38.976 --> 00:49:42.145
looking right at the fixed bayonets
and all of these soldiers
00:49:42.212 --> 00:49:44.781
in full uniform, helmets,
the whole thing
00:49:45.482 --> 00:49:51.922
getting to know you,
getting to know all about you.
00:49:52.022 --> 00:49:54.958
And here everybody was
and everybody picked it up,
00:49:55.025 --> 00:49:56.193
my row picked it up.
00:49:56.360 --> 00:50:00.797
We had, I don't know,
150 people kicking
00:50:00.864 --> 00:50:06.269
arms around each other, singing this
famous song from the King and I.
00:50:07.371 --> 00:50:09.906
And I'm looking at these guys
00:50:10.007 --> 00:50:12.743
in their uniforms
and all of their clothes
00:50:12.809 --> 00:50:15.312
exactly the same army colored clothes,
00:50:16.413 --> 00:50:18.915
and they start just cracking up.
00:50:19.583 --> 00:50:21.918
And they're just like,
not all of them,
00:50:21.985 --> 00:50:26.456
but a whole lot of them start
grinning and smiling
00:50:26.523 --> 00:50:31.028
and laughing, and just the mask,
it just came off.
00:50:31.728 --> 00:50:55.318
[Orchestra music playing]
00:50:56.153 --> 00:50:59.356
[applause]
00:50:59.523 --> 00:51:02.793
Have you, Joan, heard about
the demonstrations
00:51:02.893 --> 00:51:05.295
which followed the one
in which you were arrested
00:51:05.395 --> 00:51:08.765
what's your opinion about the week
of stop the draft?
00:51:09.299 --> 00:51:13.970
I gather that our day was
the nonviolent oriented day
00:51:14.037 --> 00:51:16.440
and that's the way it went,
and after that there was
00:51:16.540 --> 00:51:20.644
pretty much chaos.
I was hoping that the nonviolence
00:51:20.710 --> 00:51:23.180
would continue
but it's much harder.
00:51:23.246 --> 00:51:25.048
Oh, this is interesting because
00:51:25.549 --> 00:51:29.419
we thought we should go back and
do a Christmas time nonviolent sit-in
00:51:29.486 --> 00:51:33.390
at the draft board
and this was a wonderful sit-in.
00:51:35.459 --> 00:51:38.095
Given the darkness
that's in the world
00:51:38.161 --> 00:51:40.497
and the cruelty that people
do when you do something
00:51:40.564 --> 00:51:43.266
that's the other side of that,
where people stand up
00:51:43.333 --> 00:51:45.435
and make themselves vulnerable
00:51:45.702 --> 00:51:48.772
like the real power comes
from the clarity of your vision
00:51:48.839 --> 00:51:52.709
and the deep morality of it
that people can see your humanity
00:51:52.776 --> 00:51:56.980
in doing it, and I think
that clarity just goes boom,
00:51:57.314 --> 00:52:00.584
people can see that.
Not that everybody wants to do it,
00:52:00.650 --> 00:52:02.686
people can see it
and understand it.
00:52:02.986 --> 00:52:08.125
[Kumbaya My Lord playing]
00:52:08.458 --> 00:52:12.262
Joan Baez was part of it again,
Roy Kepler and Ira Sandperl
00:52:12.429 --> 00:52:14.164
all these people of different ages,
00:52:14.231 --> 00:52:16.266
it wasn't just young people like me.
00:52:18.268 --> 00:52:19.169
So at that time
00:52:19.236 --> 00:52:21.972
because I was then a repeat
offender I and those
00:52:22.038 --> 00:52:24.908
who were doing this for the
second time got 45 days sentence.
00:52:25.942 --> 00:52:27.677
Bravery is contagious,
00:52:27.744 --> 00:52:31.815
courage is contagious.
I know that I get the most courage
00:52:31.882 --> 00:52:35.685
I get is from watching
other people do extraordinary things.
00:52:36.419 --> 00:52:40.924
[Kumbaya My Lord playing]
00:52:41.157 --> 00:52:43.393
The Alameda County prison farm
has been home
00:52:43.460 --> 00:52:47.998
to 78 diehard anti-war demonstrators
ever since their arrest
00:52:48.064 --> 00:52:50.967
at the draft induction center
in Oakland last week.
00:52:51.434 --> 00:52:53.403
There were lots of reasons
for my going to jail
00:52:53.470 --> 00:52:55.472
and I think I'm glad,
I think it was good
00:52:55.539 --> 00:52:57.140
that I went this second time.
00:52:57.240 --> 00:52:58.542
Here we are with the principles
00:52:58.608 --> 00:53:00.744
and the values going to jail
to Santa Rita
00:53:00.810 --> 00:53:02.946
sitting in there for 45 days,
00:53:03.013 --> 00:53:05.949
but I thought what was interesting
is that of all the women arrested
00:53:06.016 --> 00:53:08.885
on December of 1967
I was the only woman of color.
00:53:09.686 --> 00:53:12.122
But all the women who were
in Santa Rita at that time
00:53:12.188 --> 00:53:15.525
99% of them were black women,
and as the only black woman
00:53:15.592 --> 00:53:17.827
I felt more of an affinity with them,
00:53:17.894 --> 00:53:18.962
and they came up to me
00:53:19.029 --> 00:53:21.831
and said, well, why are you here?
And we said we committed
00:53:21.898 --> 00:53:24.234
nonviolent, direct action,
whatever the word,
00:53:24.434 --> 00:53:26.703
and the minute I said
because of the war in Vietnam
00:53:26.803 --> 00:53:31.308
they went like this, oh my gosh,
my husband, my boyfriend,
00:53:31.374 --> 00:53:34.344
my partner, they went before
the judge and the judge
00:53:34.411 --> 00:53:36.880
said to them you have two options
you're going to go to jail
00:53:36.947 --> 00:53:38.682
or you go to Vietnam
00:53:38.748 --> 00:53:43.553
and because of that common experience
of their men going off to Vietnam
00:53:43.620 --> 00:53:45.989
and us sitting in it against it
they all went
00:53:46.056 --> 00:53:48.191
oh, so now we have
a better understanding
00:53:48.291 --> 00:53:49.559
of why you're here.
00:53:50.293 --> 00:53:52.529
But Dr. King came and visited Joan
00:53:52.596 --> 00:53:55.198
and when they heard
the Dr. King was that Santa Rita
00:53:55.298 --> 00:53:56.866
for the reason
why we were all there
00:53:56.933 --> 00:53:59.336
they went, now we really
really get it and understand
00:53:59.502 --> 00:54:02.472
and then we just sort of bonded
with all the women
00:54:02.539 --> 00:54:04.174
who had sat in,
but I think it was
00:54:04.341 --> 00:54:06.743
an aha moment for those of us
too young to have been
00:54:06.810 --> 00:54:09.746
in the civil rights movement,
but here we are anti-Vietnam
00:54:09.813 --> 00:54:12.115
and King seems to be that
common denominator
00:54:12.215 --> 00:54:14.484
and factor, and Joan was too.
00:54:14.751 --> 00:54:16.720
I've just had the opportunity
00:54:16.786 --> 00:54:21.324
of visiting my very dear
friend Joan Baez
00:54:21.558 --> 00:54:24.694
as an expression
of my appreciation
00:54:24.794 --> 00:54:27.197
for what they are doing
for the peace movement
00:54:27.264 --> 00:54:31.034
and for what they have done
for the civil rights movement,
00:54:31.101 --> 00:54:34.337
and we must continue
to follow the dictates
00:54:34.404 --> 00:54:40.143
of our conscience even if that
means breaking unjust laws.
00:54:40.443 --> 00:54:44.047
[applause]
00:54:47.350 --> 00:54:51.321
[applause]
00:54:53.523 --> 00:55:02.298
[Amazing Grace playing]
00:55:02.599 --> 00:55:05.301
Dr. Martin Luther King,
39 years old,
00:55:05.368 --> 00:55:07.037
and a Nobel Peace Prize winner
00:55:07.137 --> 00:55:09.406
and the leader
of the nonviolent civil rights movement
00:55:09.506 --> 00:55:12.075
in the United States
was assassinated in Memphis tonight.
00:55:12.842 --> 00:55:15.578
Again we are made to look like
a nation of killers at a time
00:55:15.645 --> 00:55:17.881
when our detractors
and unbridled critics
00:55:17.981 --> 00:55:21.818
and adversaries had already
advanced that damaging assertion.
00:55:22.752 --> 00:55:25.455
The perpetrator of this deed
brings down upon all of us
00:55:25.588 --> 00:55:28.658
the painful charge
that we Americans are prisoners
00:55:28.725 --> 00:55:30.927
of violence and destruction
and death.
00:55:31.461 --> 00:55:32.762
You know what he stood for?
00:55:33.463 --> 00:55:34.464
Yes.
00:55:36.132 --> 00:55:38.802
He stood for non-violence and peace
00:55:39.202 --> 00:55:41.338
for all men of all kinds.
00:55:41.838 --> 00:55:44.507
- Do you believe in that?
- Yes, I do.
00:55:45.342 --> 00:55:56.986
[Amazing Grace playing]
00:55:57.354 --> 00:56:01.424
[military drums playing]
00:56:01.558 --> 00:56:04.060
Let me answer about human lives.
00:56:04.160 --> 00:56:07.931
I have been trying to end the war
in Vietnam from '62
00:56:07.997 --> 00:56:11.034
when I joined the peace movement
and I’ve quadrupled my efforts.
00:56:11.101 --> 00:56:14.003
My whole purpose
is to save both Vietnamese lives
00:56:14.070 --> 00:56:16.573
an American lives.
And I've assumed from the beginning
00:56:16.740 --> 00:56:19.642
that every American death
and every Vietnamese death
00:56:19.743 --> 00:56:21.811
was a funeral death
and that the only way
00:56:21.878 --> 00:56:23.480
to end this is to end the war.
00:56:25.415 --> 00:56:26.850
Dr. Benjamin Spock
00:56:27.016 --> 00:56:29.452
and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin
00:56:29.552 --> 00:56:32.021
urges young men to turn in
their draft cards.
00:56:32.722 --> 00:56:36.559
Indictments handed down earlier
this month charged Coffin, Spock
00:56:36.626 --> 00:56:40.730
and three others with conspiring
to counsel and aid young men
00:56:40.797 --> 00:56:42.265
to evade the draft.
00:56:42.632 --> 00:56:45.368
One of the last things Martin Luther
King did was sign a statement saying
00:56:45.435 --> 00:56:47.637
he's equally guilty too
and he should be indicted.
00:56:47.804 --> 00:56:50.240
Wow, they're going after people
like Spock
00:56:50.540 --> 00:56:53.877
and they have no qualms about arresting
a famous pediatrician,
00:56:53.943 --> 00:56:55.145
a baby doctor.
00:56:55.378 --> 00:56:58.515
They're upping the whole
level of pursuit and repression.
00:56:58.815 --> 00:57:01.317
He was the best-known
baby doctor in America.
00:57:01.885 --> 00:57:03.186
Ge had been in the navy,
00:57:03.253 --> 00:57:04.954
he's been in the Olympic.
00:57:05.155 --> 00:57:07.891
- How many copies has your book sold?
- 21 million
00:57:08.024 --> 00:57:09.659
in 22 years.
00:57:09.726 --> 00:57:11.294
Oh, you had a bad year?
00:57:11.394 --> 00:57:12.829
[laughter]
00:57:13.463 --> 00:57:14.764
I was baffled as to why
00:57:14.831 --> 00:57:16.666
the government wanted to tangle
with him.
00:57:16.933 --> 00:57:19.569
It legitimized opposition to the war.
00:57:19.636 --> 00:57:21.905
If anything had
incited more resistance.
00:57:26.376 --> 00:57:30.280
Catholic priests seized
Selective Service files
00:57:30.380 --> 00:57:32.949
and brought those files out
onto this parking lot
00:57:33.016 --> 00:57:34.217
and then burned them.
00:57:34.751 --> 00:57:37.987
We make our prayer in the name
of that God who's name is peace,
00:57:38.555 --> 00:57:43.593
and decency and unity and love, amen.
00:57:43.860 --> 00:57:45.995
I went into a draft
board in Catonsville
00:57:46.062 --> 00:57:49.599
I moved about 300 draft files
and burned them
00:57:49.666 --> 00:57:53.303
with homemade napalm
under the utterly absurd
00:57:53.369 --> 00:57:58.908
and totally un-American assumption that
it is better to burn papers than children.
00:58:00.310 --> 00:58:02.879
What the Americans
and the others are doing actually
00:58:02.946 --> 00:58:06.082
takes the whole question
of the draft and war away
00:58:06.149 --> 00:58:09.786
from college-aged males
who were subject
00:58:09.853 --> 00:58:12.322
to the Selective Service System
and really created the opportunity
00:58:12.388 --> 00:58:14.624
where anyone could participate.
00:58:16.860 --> 00:58:21.631
I believe we are in such times
as make it increasingly impossible
00:58:21.698 --> 00:58:25.134
for Christians to obey the law.
00:58:26.636 --> 00:58:32.542
We have chosen to be powerless
criminals in a time of criminal power.
00:58:34.410 --> 00:58:36.679
People were going to prison,
people were putting their lives
00:58:36.746 --> 00:58:39.549
on the line and we were
eager for that.
00:58:39.682 --> 00:58:42.619
We were in protests, we were in
opposition to this war
00:58:42.685 --> 00:58:44.554
and we wanted to make ourselves
known.
00:58:45.054 --> 00:58:47.490
I mean, we were escalating,
yeah, we were ready
00:58:47.557 --> 00:58:48.892
to take it a step further.
00:58:49.125 --> 00:58:51.661
And he told me, Joe,
we've been out there
00:58:51.728 --> 00:58:55.365
once or twice a week every week
for about five months
00:58:55.431 --> 00:58:59.736
and we just decided one morning
this is going to stop.
00:59:00.003 --> 00:59:03.172
We grabbed the baskets and headed out
the side door,
00:59:03.239 --> 00:59:06.509
headed down the alley around the corner
and took the baskets
00:59:06.576 --> 00:59:09.646
and put napalm on them,
just simply gasoline and soap,
00:59:09.812 --> 00:59:12.515
and lit a match and there they went.
00:59:13.516 --> 00:59:16.452
Walt had wiped it off on his shirt
and so when the baskets
00:59:16.519 --> 00:59:18.388
went up in flame he did too,
00:59:18.454 --> 00:59:21.724
just the front of the shirt so we were
able to put him out pretty quickly.
00:59:22.025 --> 00:59:24.961
We were pretty pleased with ourselves
then we were able to pull it off.
00:59:25.094 --> 00:59:27.497
I mean, we got three years,
each of us got three years.
00:59:29.065 --> 00:59:31.067
Just for me to know that
there was somebody out there
00:59:31.134 --> 00:59:33.069
there are people out there
who were really thinking this
00:59:33.136 --> 00:59:35.071
you were thinking this war is wrong.
00:59:36.005 --> 00:59:37.173
There was a lot of us.
00:59:38.641 --> 00:59:43.146
[crowd shouting]
00:59:43.546 --> 00:59:46.749
And if I have done a good job
of anything since
00:59:46.816 --> 00:59:51.621
I've been president is to ensure
that there are plenty of dissenters.
00:59:53.256 --> 00:59:55.758
Public opinion
has already been moving
00:59:55.858 --> 00:59:58.995
against the war and now it seems
to be accelerating
00:59:59.062 --> 01:00:03.566
thanks to this kind of sustained protests
that's led by the draft resistance movement.
01:00:03.933 --> 01:00:07.971
There is an incessant uprising in
this country in opposition to this war
01:00:08.037 --> 01:00:09.305
and it's going to get worse.
01:00:09.806 --> 01:00:11.007
In less than two years,
01:00:11.074 --> 01:00:14.010
1,400 young men
have been convicted of violating
01:00:14.077 --> 01:00:15.578
the Selective Service Act.
01:00:15.812 --> 01:00:16.813
The average sentence
01:00:16.846 --> 01:00:18.381
has been three years in prison.
01:00:19.248 --> 01:00:21.818
You face up to five years in jail
01:00:21.884 --> 01:00:24.787
have you had any second thoughts
about your act at all?
01:00:25.188 --> 01:00:26.289
I have no regrets about it.
01:00:26.656 --> 01:00:28.958
The price looks high but the price
most people pay
01:00:29.025 --> 01:00:31.160
for resisting American military
is death.
01:00:32.161 --> 01:00:36.032
It's become very obvious in the
advancement of the American state
01:00:36.099 --> 01:00:38.801
that the power that
the American state exercises
01:00:38.868 --> 01:00:41.137
is not a power that
will liberate men,
01:00:41.437 --> 01:00:44.273
is not a power that will bring
those men's lives closer to them
01:00:44.340 --> 01:00:46.776
it's not a power that
will straighten men's backs,
01:00:46.843 --> 01:00:48.878
it is not a power that will get men
off their knees.
01:00:50.313 --> 01:00:55.785
David was this powerful figure
doing something I hadn't known about.
01:00:57.887 --> 01:01:00.490
And I think that the whole concept
01:01:00.556 --> 01:01:02.892
of what he was doing
was so astounding to me
01:01:02.959 --> 01:01:04.794
and he was this lovely guy.
01:01:05.228 --> 01:01:12.635
And of somebody that young, engaged
the way he was was very appealing
01:01:13.302 --> 01:01:15.738
and so he got married.
01:01:16.372 --> 01:01:20.176
[wedding church bells playing]
01:01:22.245 --> 01:01:23.646
They're probably a lot of you
01:01:23.746 --> 01:01:26.182
have heard me speak before
and perhaps
01:01:26.249 --> 01:01:28.151
the only thing that'll be
different about tonight
01:01:28.217 --> 01:01:30.620
is that you won't have
to hear it again for a while.
01:01:32.789 --> 01:01:33.790
[laughter]
01:01:35.525 --> 01:01:36.926
And the specific reason
01:01:36.993 --> 01:01:38.628
is that I'm going to spend
the next three years
01:01:38.695 --> 01:01:40.129
of my life in a federal prison.
01:01:40.930 --> 01:01:45.234
T-minus 15 seconds away
from the Apollo 11 lift off.
01:01:46.569 --> 01:01:50.039
It was the morning that
the first rocket for the moon left.
01:01:50.106 --> 01:01:51.541
I remember it quite well.
01:01:51.774 --> 01:02:00.383
[A Song For David playing]
01:02:00.516 --> 01:02:01.717
I'm leaving my wife pregnant,
01:02:01.818 --> 01:02:03.553
I am leaving all those things
I think people
01:02:03.720 --> 01:02:15.431
[A Song For David playing]
01:02:15.498 --> 01:02:17.467
I think people should see
their presence in jail
01:02:17.533 --> 01:02:19.168
as a real political presence.
01:02:20.703 --> 01:02:21.871
Being a political prisoner
01:02:21.938 --> 01:02:23.272
is a fact in this society.
01:02:25.108 --> 01:02:29.145
The last time I saw David,
I saw them driving off down the road
01:02:29.212 --> 01:02:31.080
and one of the girls who works
with resistance
01:02:31.147 --> 01:02:33.483
that put a big old
resist the draft sticker
01:02:33.549 --> 01:02:36.352
on their bumper
and that's the last I saw.
01:02:38.855 --> 01:02:41.290
It was a moment of proof for me
as a human being
01:02:41.357 --> 01:02:43.760
that I could in fact
back up what I talked about
01:02:43.826 --> 01:02:45.461
I'd been going around
the country for three years
01:02:45.528 --> 01:02:47.196
telling people they ought
to refuse to cooperate
01:02:47.263 --> 01:02:48.931
with the draft, and a number
of people had done that
01:02:48.998 --> 01:02:50.600
a number of them were in jail.
01:02:50.666 --> 01:02:52.702
And if I weren't there
with them I would have felt
01:02:52.769 --> 01:02:54.370
like the biggest hypocrite
in the world.
01:02:58.407 --> 01:03:01.144
How do you view this?
Do you think it's worth it?
01:03:01.210 --> 01:03:03.746
I knew that when we got married that
he would be spending time in prison.
01:03:03.813 --> 01:03:07.350
I feel that if he and I continue
to be involved in the revolution,
01:03:07.450 --> 01:03:09.452
which we will, then we'll both
spend time in prison.
01:03:09.519 --> 01:03:12.722
So it's just something that you have to
adjust to.
01:03:12.855 --> 01:03:16.392
Did you have any final things to say
to David before they took them away?
01:03:16.526 --> 01:03:18.127
Yeah, I said I love you.
01:03:19.362 --> 01:03:23.166
No pictures,
no cameras in the courtroom, I'm sorry.
01:03:24.467 --> 01:03:26.803
They instruct the jury
at the beginning of a trial
01:03:26.903 --> 01:03:28.771
that morality has nothing to do
with the verdict
01:03:28.871 --> 01:03:29.906
they're supposed to bring.
01:03:30.239 --> 01:03:32.508
So morality has nothing
to do with law, only the
01:03:32.575 --> 01:03:35.511
gods know what's going
to happen next I'm afraid.
01:03:37.313 --> 01:03:39.382
I really thank my lucky stars
01:03:39.448 --> 01:03:43.853
that I decided as this young kid
who was all of 98 pounds
01:03:43.920 --> 01:03:47.490
when he turned 18,
I wrote to my local draft board
01:03:47.557 --> 01:03:52.228
and I said I couldn't register
for reasons of my conscience.
01:03:53.996 --> 01:03:55.698
I was working
with high school students
01:03:55.798 --> 01:03:59.569
trying to promote non-registration,
and to do that we started
01:03:59.635 --> 01:04:02.939
a newspaper called Together,
and it was distributed
01:04:03.005 --> 01:04:04.240
throughout the country.
01:04:07.343 --> 01:04:12.515
And another informal organizing technique
we used was having potluck dinners.
01:04:13.082 --> 01:04:15.051
From all the high schools
around the Bay Area
01:04:15.117 --> 01:04:17.987
that would come to these dinners
and find support
01:04:18.321 --> 01:04:21.123
because you're just figuring out
who you are.
01:04:22.024 --> 01:04:25.261
My beliefs are found in a deep love
for America,
01:04:25.328 --> 01:04:27.730
for the democracy that it can be
01:04:27.797 --> 01:04:31.033
for the lasting peace and
prosperity of all men
01:04:31.067 --> 01:04:35.304
and for the joys of little children
which forced me to say
01:04:35.404 --> 01:04:38.774
stop the war and the draft,
I refused to register.
01:04:39.408 --> 01:04:41.444
With the glad heart
Christopher Jones.
01:04:42.345 --> 01:04:44.480
Mr. Jones And Mr. Yuri?
01:04:45.114 --> 01:04:48.117
And I defended myself
with a jury so I didn't have
01:04:48.217 --> 01:04:51.454
a legal advisor or a lawyer
speaking for me,
01:04:51.520 --> 01:04:54.857
and this was a conscious decision,
because it was part
01:04:54.957 --> 01:04:58.294
of our nonviolent action
was to speak from our hearts,
01:04:58.327 --> 01:05:02.231
to the jury and to the judge,
and try to share with them
01:05:02.298 --> 01:05:05.601
why we refused to register
or be inducted.
01:05:05.668 --> 01:05:07.403
I've been waiting two and a half years
to have a trial
01:05:07.470 --> 01:05:10.006
and it's good to know finally
that it's going to be over with.
01:05:10.506 --> 01:05:12.842
I really think if we over
and over again
01:05:12.975 --> 01:05:14.911
make a really personal confrontation
01:05:15.211 --> 01:05:18.748
that sooner or later some
judges are going to crack
01:05:18.914 --> 01:05:20.650
if we had enough guys doing it,
01:05:20.716 --> 01:05:21.918
I really think so.
01:05:22.051 --> 01:05:23.753
I'm sure that's going to happen.
01:05:23.920 --> 01:05:25.922
The jurys are already changing.
01:05:31.494 --> 01:05:33.529
There were these cases
all around the country
01:05:33.596 --> 01:05:36.299
where a young guy would be
going to prison
01:05:36.365 --> 01:05:38.367
or going to court
and I'm bunch of people
01:05:38.434 --> 01:05:40.436
would stand up for him,
write letters,
01:05:40.503 --> 01:05:42.138
get in the newspapers and so on.
01:05:42.204 --> 01:05:43.339
I think one of the things
01:05:43.406 --> 01:05:44.907
that sticks in my mind
most about
01:05:45.174 --> 01:05:51.080
the draft resistance movement
is going to some of the trials
01:05:51.147 --> 01:05:53.482
of people who refused induction.
01:05:54.383 --> 01:05:58.754
[acoustic guitar playing]
01:05:59.088 --> 01:06:00.790
And just feeling
01:06:00.856 --> 01:06:04.360
so strongly the commitment
that they made,
01:06:04.427 --> 01:06:08.130
the sacrifice that they were
making to go to jail for a year or two
01:06:08.197 --> 01:06:09.999
because of what you believe in.
01:06:11.934 --> 01:06:16.138
So this is the transcript of my
statement to the court
01:06:16.205 --> 01:06:17.807
on the day of my sentencing.
01:06:19.108 --> 01:06:21.711
Conscription is for slaves
not free men.
01:06:22.044 --> 01:06:24.280
These words did not come easily
but they are true
01:06:24.447 --> 01:06:25.681
and the truth needs saying.
01:06:26.315 --> 01:06:27.616
I don't want to go to prison,
01:06:27.683 --> 01:06:28.951
what man does?
01:06:29.018 --> 01:06:30.553
But it is a risk I take.
01:06:30.920 --> 01:06:34.657
All of us in this court live in
frightening and challenging times.
01:06:35.057 --> 01:06:38.060
I urge the court to accept
the challenge the draft resisters
01:06:38.160 --> 01:06:40.496
have openly placed before
this country
01:06:40.563 --> 01:06:42.031
by refusing to sentence.
01:06:42.498 --> 01:06:44.200
Sentences had tended to be
01:06:44.266 --> 01:06:46.469
two and a half years
and he gave me three
01:06:47.036 --> 01:06:49.171
and I suspect that maybe
the demonstration
01:06:49.238 --> 01:06:51.240
around the courthouse
might have affected that.
01:06:51.307 --> 01:06:55.177
When the judge sentenced Bob
to three years in prison
01:06:55.244 --> 01:06:57.980
there's this applause in the back
and they look around
01:06:58.047 --> 01:07:00.950
and here's this Narayan Desai,
the great Gandhian,
01:07:01.017 --> 01:07:03.085
he's applauding because
the longer you suffer
01:07:03.152 --> 01:07:05.755
the more pure it is in a way.
01:07:05.988 --> 01:07:08.124
It was a hell of a good send-off
I must say.
01:07:10.159 --> 01:07:13.362
I was going to stand there and
tell him I did not do anything wrong
01:07:13.429 --> 01:07:16.132
and if you want to put me in jail
then you go ahead and put me in jail
01:07:16.198 --> 01:07:18.000
and that's, of course,
is what they did.
01:07:19.735 --> 01:07:22.138
I was prepared to go
to prison for five years,
01:07:22.204 --> 01:07:24.507
two years, no problem.
01:07:24.807 --> 01:07:25.941
And I in San Francisco
01:07:26.008 --> 01:07:28.377
where the average was two years
only got one year,
01:07:28.577 --> 01:07:31.280
and it's because I think
we got through to the judge's heart
01:07:31.747 --> 01:07:34.383
And indeed he
and the other judges in the district
01:07:35.017 --> 01:07:38.354
starting reducing the sentences
over the next couple of years.
01:07:38.587 --> 01:07:43.059
I thought that my brilliant defense,
I defended myself in court
01:07:43.125 --> 01:07:46.328
was what could convince
Judge Harry Pregerson
01:07:46.595 --> 01:07:51.267
but he decided I'm not going
to send any of these resistors
01:07:51.400 --> 01:07:52.601
to prison anymore,
01:07:52.701 --> 01:07:54.136
and I happen to be
01:07:54.236 --> 01:07:58.841
the next one up
so he didn't send me to prison.
01:08:00.443 --> 01:08:04.280
I knew I was going off
to prison because I knew
01:08:04.346 --> 01:08:07.016
I was going to continue
in not cooperating
01:08:07.249 --> 01:08:10.786
and several friends of mine
who are also organizers
01:08:10.886 --> 01:08:14.757
and they were targeting organizers
for prosecution
01:08:14.890 --> 01:08:15.925
we're already in prison.
01:08:16.725 --> 01:08:19.628
So by the time I went to prison
I was a little discouraged
01:08:19.695 --> 01:08:22.498
about how successful
we had been.
01:08:22.665 --> 01:08:25.334
It was only until many years later
until the 1990s
01:08:25.434 --> 01:08:27.703
that I found out about
a study that had been conducted
01:08:27.770 --> 01:08:30.372
in the late '70s that showed
that in fact
01:08:30.439 --> 01:08:33.676
we were very effective
that through a combination
01:08:33.776 --> 01:08:37.213
of the courts being overwhelmed
with draft resisters
01:08:37.246 --> 01:08:38.914
and the draft boards
was screwing up
01:08:38.981 --> 01:08:41.784
in the prosecutions,
lawyers were getting more and more
01:08:41.851 --> 01:08:45.254
adept at finding holes
in the prosecution cases,
01:08:45.321 --> 01:08:48.090
you had judges who didn't want
to send young men to prison
01:08:48.157 --> 01:08:49.525
for resisting the draft.
01:08:49.692 --> 01:08:50.893
In major cities
01:08:50.960 --> 01:08:54.130
you had situations where 90%
of the people indicted
01:08:54.196 --> 01:08:55.531
were not prosecuted.
01:08:55.698 --> 01:08:58.334
It was unbelievable and this was
happening all over the country
01:08:58.400 --> 01:08:59.502
but we didn't know it.
01:08:59.568 --> 01:09:00.870
The courts were in chaos
01:09:00.936 --> 01:09:04.140
they couldn't handle it they couldn't
enforce the draft laws anymore.
01:09:05.908 --> 01:09:09.311
My whole appeal was to the jury
and to the righteousness
01:09:09.378 --> 01:09:10.679
of what I was doing.
01:09:11.313 --> 01:09:13.549
Now the courtroom is packed
every seat taken
01:09:13.716 --> 01:09:16.118
we have a picture
of our guru on the front seat,
01:09:16.185 --> 01:09:18.087
I'm wearing pants
that I made myself
01:09:18.154 --> 01:09:20.756
and I've got a beard down here
and hair down to my shoulders,
01:09:21.157 --> 01:09:22.224
and I'm barefoot.
01:09:22.358 --> 01:09:24.727
The judge comes back
and he says case is dismissed.
01:09:26.195 --> 01:09:27.496
And people are just cheering,
01:09:27.563 --> 01:09:28.998
they're going we love you
Judge Curtis
01:09:29.064 --> 01:09:32.401
and it was
a radical different situation.
01:09:35.871 --> 01:09:38.207
But it showed how the times
were changing
01:09:38.274 --> 01:09:40.476
and that people
were willing to take the risk
01:09:40.543 --> 01:09:42.144
and to stand up
for what they believed
01:09:42.444 --> 01:09:45.748
and ultimately you get more
than 200,000 cases
01:09:45.814 --> 01:09:48.350
are referred by
the Selective Service
01:09:48.417 --> 01:09:50.019
to the Department of Justice.
01:09:51.253 --> 01:09:53.422
You get 20,000 indictments
01:09:53.489 --> 01:09:57.960
8,000 convictions
and 4,001 who gets sent to prison.
01:09:58.527 --> 01:10:02.231
It's time for new leadership
of The United States of America.
01:10:04.233 --> 01:10:07.770
On the 1968 campaign trail
Richard Nixon runs
01:10:07.836 --> 01:10:11.073
as a peace candidate,
promising to abolish the draft
01:10:11.140 --> 01:10:13.409
and pledging to end the war
with honor.
01:10:13.976 --> 01:10:19.682
The greatest honor history can bestow
is the title of peacemaker.
01:10:20.616 --> 01:10:23.219
This honor now beckons America.
01:10:27.690 --> 01:10:29.959
The first thing that he does is
he tries to create the impression
01:10:30.025 --> 01:10:31.894
that he's scaling down
the war effort,
01:10:32.228 --> 01:10:34.230
which, of course, is a smoke
and mirrors game,
01:10:34.330 --> 01:10:36.298
in fact he's escalating the war
dramatically,
01:10:36.398 --> 01:10:37.600
particularly the air war.
01:10:38.467 --> 01:10:39.835
[bombs exploding]
01:10:41.303 --> 01:10:42.671
[bombs exploding]
01:10:45.140 --> 01:10:47.643
But he does start
to bring the first troops home,
01:10:47.710 --> 01:10:49.878
he tries to reduce draft calls,
01:10:49.945 --> 01:10:51.247
move to a lottery.
01:10:51.313 --> 01:10:53.248
Get rid of the Selective
Service Director
01:10:53.315 --> 01:10:54.516
all of those things.
01:10:54.583 --> 01:10:57.386
And he's kind of creating the impression
that he's winding things down.
01:10:57.720 --> 01:11:00.556
The reality was he
was lowering the troops
01:11:00.623 --> 01:11:04.493
in order to stay in indefinitely
with air power
01:11:04.627 --> 01:11:06.061
and with some troops.
01:11:06.161 --> 01:11:10.833
We have announced that 60,000
Americans will be returned from Vietnam.
01:11:11.433 --> 01:11:12.768
Their concern was there would be
01:11:12.835 --> 01:11:15.037
greater draft resistance
if the president
01:11:15.104 --> 01:11:19.775
didn't take this particular action,
but by the end of 1969
01:11:19.842 --> 01:11:22.511
the public is restless.
What they didn't know
01:11:22.578 --> 01:11:24.747
at the time was that Nixon
was contemplating
01:11:24.813 --> 01:11:26.215
a ground invasion of the north.
01:11:26.448 --> 01:11:30.919
For once we've got to use
the maximum power of this country,
01:11:31.120 --> 01:11:35.758
against this shit-ass little country,
to win the war.
01:11:35.958 --> 01:11:39.295
Which led him to develop
the notion of bombing the dikes,
01:11:39.461 --> 01:11:41.530
slaughtering millions
of people through floods,
01:11:41.597 --> 01:11:44.433
maybe even using atomic weapons,
this is going to be
01:11:44.533 --> 01:11:46.535
if Ho Chi Minh
does not come around
01:11:46.602 --> 01:11:47.936
this is what we're going to do.
01:11:48.037 --> 01:11:49.772
Now I understand that
01:11:49.838 --> 01:11:52.574
there has been
and continues to be opposition
01:11:52.641 --> 01:11:55.277
to the war in Vietnam
on the campuses
01:11:55.444 --> 01:11:57.146
and also in the nation.
01:11:57.646 --> 01:11:59.915
We expect it, however,
01:11:59.982 --> 01:12:03.719
under no circumstances
will I be affected whatever by it.
01:12:04.420 --> 01:12:06.121
Mr. President...
01:12:06.388 --> 01:12:10.726
Then we had the moratorium,
the single largest peace demonstration
01:12:10.793 --> 01:12:11.860
in American history.
01:12:12.361 --> 01:12:15.998
[Something In The Air playing]
01:12:16.532 --> 01:12:17.966
The word protester
01:12:18.033 --> 01:12:21.270
generally evokes an image
of long hair and love beads
01:12:21.670 --> 01:12:23.806
but today the crowds
that marched and chanted
01:12:23.906 --> 01:12:26.875
and cheered the speeches
look more like a cross-section
01:12:26.942 --> 01:12:28.544
picked by the Census Bureau.
01:12:29.611 --> 01:12:33.382
This was the look of the land today
from one coast to the other.
01:12:33.949 --> 01:12:38.954
[Something In The Air playing]
01:12:39.188 --> 01:12:42.057
Never before has Boston
seen so many demonstrate
01:12:42.224 --> 01:12:43.792
so peacefully for peace.
01:12:44.860 --> 01:12:46.795
100 or so went in with a petition
01:12:46.862 --> 01:12:50.866
asking the United States Attorney
to stop prosecuting war resisters.
01:12:51.633 --> 01:12:54.737
The moratorium demonstration
was historic in its scope
01:12:54.803 --> 01:12:57.473
never had so many demonstrated
their hope for peace.
01:12:57.973 --> 01:13:01.310
[Something In The Air playing]
01:13:01.643 --> 01:13:06.148
Nixon is weighing a ground invasion,
and we know from his memoirs
01:13:06.215 --> 01:13:10.586
that he decides not to, in part,
because the scale of protests at home
01:13:10.686 --> 01:13:13.655
is already so significant
that he didn't dare do it.
01:13:15.190 --> 01:13:17.793
The longer we kept doing stuff,
the more people
01:13:17.860 --> 01:13:21.663
kept joining us, and the more
that happened the more
01:13:21.730 --> 01:13:23.432
people were able to stand up.
01:13:27.069 --> 01:13:40.949
[music playing]
01:13:41.283 --> 01:13:44.153
I managed to smuggle in
with my friend, Gary.
01:13:44.486 --> 01:13:48.157
A movie camera, his mother
left it underneath a cattle grill
01:13:48.490 --> 01:13:51.126
and made a movie about
what it was like to be in prison.
01:13:52.094 --> 01:13:53.996
It was a minimum-security camp
01:13:54.062 --> 01:13:56.098
and as long as you follow
the rules
01:13:56.165 --> 01:13:59.201
and don't get caught
you could get along.
01:13:59.835 --> 01:14:01.603
And you had to look like
you're working
01:14:01.670 --> 01:14:03.605
but nobody really worked.
01:14:04.606 --> 01:14:06.408
The highway that we were
put there to build
01:14:06.508 --> 01:14:09.945
was slated to take like 138 years
01:14:10.012 --> 01:14:12.314
to be completed
at the current rate.
01:14:13.182 --> 01:14:14.750
It was just like they were
going to force you to do
01:14:14.817 --> 01:14:16.518
the military one way
or the other,
01:14:16.685 --> 01:14:19.655
so they put in a military type
uniform on you
01:14:19.788 --> 01:14:22.591
and put you out on the desert and
said, you want to run away? Run away.
01:14:23.492 --> 01:14:25.861
But it would be difficult to run away
01:14:25.928 --> 01:14:27.896
because I mean you'd have
to run across a lot of desert
01:14:27.963 --> 01:14:30.065
and they'd probably catch you.
01:14:32.467 --> 01:14:34.002
But then we start having strikes
01:14:34.069 --> 01:14:37.105
we're always ready to cause
a little trouble, right?
01:14:37.439 --> 01:14:40.375
So I didn't last that long
in Sanford.
01:14:41.109 --> 01:14:44.046
For the next year and a half
I refused to work.
01:14:44.480 --> 01:14:46.081
A block was maximum security.
01:14:46.315 --> 01:14:48.150
The deal there was
you could have nothing.
01:14:48.350 --> 01:14:50.652
So they'd keep me in there
for a week or two.
01:14:50.986 --> 01:14:54.256
It was dark,
there was wire over the windows,
01:14:54.356 --> 01:14:57.192
and there was just a piece of steel
bolted up against the wall
01:14:57.259 --> 01:14:58.727
with a thin mattress on it.
01:14:58.794 --> 01:15:00.863
Couldn't have anything but a Bible,
you could have a bible.
01:15:00.929 --> 01:15:02.965
But there are no lights,
so it's very hard to read.
01:15:03.532 --> 01:15:06.668
So that went on for years.
01:15:08.971 --> 01:15:13.308
I don't want to for a moment
get nostalgic and say that prison
01:15:13.442 --> 01:15:14.910
was a wonderful thing.
01:15:14.977 --> 01:15:17.179
I learned an immense amount
01:15:17.246 --> 01:15:19.081
because I was thrown in
with people
01:15:19.147 --> 01:15:20.782
I never would have ever met,
01:15:21.516 --> 01:15:26.521
but prison is a dehumanizing ugly,
ugly institution
01:15:26.655 --> 01:15:28.690
and nobody should ever forget that
for a moment.
01:15:29.091 --> 01:15:32.661
It's funny, in prison
it's such an isolating place to be
01:15:32.728 --> 01:15:34.997
it's demoralizing in that sense,
01:15:35.063 --> 01:15:37.933
you can't see your friends,
you can't see your loved ones.
01:15:38.233 --> 01:15:40.569
If you're heterosexual
you're not having sex with anybody.
01:15:40.636 --> 01:15:44.106
So it's hard to do that time.
01:15:44.406 --> 01:15:47.476
Certainly prison had
some long-lasting impacts on me
01:15:47.542 --> 01:15:51.113
I had for two years or so,
maybe even longer,
01:15:51.480 --> 01:15:54.950
all the time I was on parole,
I had these recurrent nightmares
01:15:55.017 --> 01:15:57.619
that I was back in prison.
Always followed the same pattern
01:15:57.686 --> 01:16:00.322
the FBI, which had tried
to get me back in prison
01:16:00.422 --> 01:16:03.091
had succeeded in my dreams
getting me back in prison
01:16:03.225 --> 01:16:05.127
and I don't know how
I was going to get out of there.
01:16:05.193 --> 01:16:07.930
That finally stopped after
of three years or so
01:16:07.996 --> 01:16:11.667
and it started up again
when in 2008 when I started
01:16:11.733 --> 01:16:13.702
to write a memoir about
my experiences in
01:16:13.769 --> 01:16:15.604
in the movement and in prison
01:16:15.671 --> 01:16:17.873
and the same dreams came back.
01:16:19.241 --> 01:16:22.244
There was never any time I questioned
the decision that got me there.
01:16:22.477 --> 01:16:24.012
I had some miserable times,
01:16:24.079 --> 01:16:25.547
I mean, it's prison.
01:16:26.081 --> 01:16:29.785
The first time I did two months
in isolation when I first got there.
01:16:30.919 --> 01:16:33.855
Once a week they let you go down
the hall to the shower.
01:16:36.258 --> 01:16:43.432
[acoustic guitar playing]
01:16:43.498 --> 01:16:45.634
The baby really makes him happy.
01:16:47.636 --> 01:16:50.038
He said he looked in the mirror
and he's smiling so big
01:16:50.105 --> 01:16:52.774
that it hurt, he said he felt
like a chitmunk, and he couldn't...
01:16:52.908 --> 01:16:55.610
he said he had more smile
than his face could handle.
01:16:56.745 --> 01:16:58.981
My son was born
four months after
01:16:59.047 --> 01:17:01.249
I got to the joint,
that was tough.
01:17:02.284 --> 01:17:05.587
I didn't think much about
what it would be like for David
01:17:05.787 --> 01:17:08.423
not having that baby
when he was first born
01:17:08.490 --> 01:17:10.325
and in fact it
was very difficult.
01:17:11.426 --> 01:17:15.163
The prison guard asked David
if he'd seen his son
01:17:15.731 --> 01:17:18.834
and David said, no,
and the guy said well I have.
01:17:20.102 --> 01:17:21.136
He had a picture
01:17:21.203 --> 01:17:26.341
in the letter to David and he didn't
give it to him until he felt like it.
01:17:27.442 --> 01:17:30.212
So, no, it was not easy in there.
01:17:31.046 --> 01:17:32.914
When they made the cover
of Look magazine
01:17:33.015 --> 01:17:34.950
they legitimized everything
we were doing.
01:17:36.051 --> 01:17:38.086
That shot was taken when he was
in prison
01:17:38.153 --> 01:17:40.756
the story contained that information
about why he's there
01:17:40.822 --> 01:17:44.393
because he didn't kill anybody.
They legitimized being a prisoner
01:17:44.459 --> 01:17:46.795
in the time of war in America.
01:17:48.530 --> 01:17:49.965
A political prisoner
01:17:50.032 --> 01:17:52.768
and being a political prisoner
was not uncommon.
01:17:52.834 --> 01:17:55.537
There was intimidation and harassment.
01:17:56.938 --> 01:18:00.208
I went to 18 different prisons
01:18:00.275 --> 01:18:05.680
and when I went to prison
my wife was three months pregnant
01:18:05.947 --> 01:18:09.317
but my daughter
was born while I was in prison
01:18:09.384 --> 01:18:14.089
and so we gave her an African name,
Abidemi, which means
01:18:14.156 --> 01:18:15.891
born while father's away.
01:18:18.527 --> 01:18:20.862
You have to block the outside
world out.
01:18:21.229 --> 01:18:24.066
When you caught
in that kind of situation
01:18:24.132 --> 01:18:26.835
you have to say this is where I am
I'm going to be here
01:18:26.902 --> 01:18:28.403
I don't know how long.
01:18:29.771 --> 01:18:32.541
[music playing]
01:18:32.841 --> 01:18:34.910
Time needs to become your friend.
01:18:36.545 --> 01:18:39.014
With your time in prison
what do you do with it
01:18:39.081 --> 01:18:42.651
is to tell stories to pass the time.
01:18:42.851 --> 01:18:44.052
There was life there,
01:18:44.119 --> 01:18:46.922
there was resilience there
that people could still laugh
01:18:46.988 --> 01:18:50.725
and they could tell stories
and this wide variety of people.
01:18:53.228 --> 01:18:56.264
Interestingly enough, Dan Ellsberg
came to visit me in prison.
01:18:56.331 --> 01:19:02.504
He was deeply moved by it thinking
if I were willing to risk imprisonment
01:19:02.571 --> 01:19:05.507
like Randy Keeler and these
other young men
01:19:05.574 --> 01:19:08.210
what could I do to help stop
this war if I were willing
01:19:08.276 --> 01:19:12.481
to take that risk.
He realized not long afterwards
01:19:12.547 --> 01:19:14.850
that he could release
the secret study
01:19:14.916 --> 01:19:16.918
now known as the Pentagon Papers.
01:19:17.352 --> 01:19:21.556
This weekend, portions of a highly
classified Pentagon document came to light
01:19:21.690 --> 01:19:22.991
for all the world to see.
01:19:23.125 --> 01:19:25.193
Its main effect
is to refute the notion
01:19:25.260 --> 01:19:26.828
that we stumbled into the war.
01:19:26.895 --> 01:19:29.364
A name has now have come out
as the possible source
01:19:29.431 --> 01:19:33.135
of the times pentagon documents
it is that of Daniel Ellsberg
01:19:33.201 --> 01:19:36.705
the top policy analyst
for the defense and state department.
01:19:37.205 --> 01:19:40.642
Dr. Ellsberg, do you have any concern about
the possibility of going to prison for this?
01:19:40.709 --> 01:19:43.044
Wouldn't you go to prison
to help end this war?
01:19:43.145 --> 01:19:45.113
Without the draft resistance
01:19:45.180 --> 01:19:48.550
I would not have had
this notion of going all the way,
01:19:48.617 --> 01:19:50.085
but it did put into my head the notion
01:19:50.152 --> 01:19:55.190
okay even if there is a chance
that this will help it's worth doing.
01:19:58.527 --> 01:20:02.464
David Harris was released from a federal
prison near El Paso, Texas today.
01:20:04.099 --> 01:20:06.568
That's a choice I made
a long time ago it's a choice
01:20:06.635 --> 01:20:08.270
I just backed up for 20 months
01:20:08.436 --> 01:20:10.138
and if I had to make the choice again
it's a choice I'd back up...
01:20:10.205 --> 01:20:13.341
I walked out of prison
certainly different than I walked in.
01:20:13.408 --> 01:20:17.479
I literally stood in my house
flipping the light switch on and off.
01:20:17.779 --> 01:20:19.548
I hadn't turned the lights on
01:20:19.714 --> 01:20:21.416
and off for 20 months.
01:20:24.219 --> 01:20:27.189
I think a lot of people
have trouble with
01:20:28.190 --> 01:20:31.660
that separation,
and I tried to stay
01:20:32.260 --> 01:20:36.097
tuned into it and it was really
difficult to do.
01:20:36.498 --> 01:20:40.068
And when he came home things
unravel pretty quickly.
01:20:43.238 --> 01:20:46.741
We both changed,
When somebody goes to prison...
01:20:46.875 --> 01:20:50.912
I was home painting floors,
getting recipes
01:20:51.479 --> 01:20:54.716
trying to get ready
to be the perfect wife.
01:20:56.418 --> 01:21:00.755
So it was sad to me too,
I couldn't do it.
01:21:01.590 --> 01:21:08.396
[acoustic guitar playing]
01:21:08.697 --> 01:21:12.901
I have concluded that the time
has come for action
01:21:14.536 --> 01:21:17.672
Tonight American
and South Vietnamese units
01:21:17.739 --> 01:21:22.344
will attack the headquarters for the
entire communist military operation.
01:21:22.444 --> 01:21:23.645
In South Vietnam.
01:21:24.613 --> 01:21:27.449
This is not an invasion of Cambodia.
01:21:29.317 --> 01:21:33.688
Ten days after promising to withdraw
another 150,000 American troops
01:21:33.755 --> 01:21:36.992
from Vietnam, President Nixon
on his own authority
01:21:37.058 --> 01:21:39.127
and without the advice
or consent of Congress
01:21:39.294 --> 01:21:41.096
decided to widen the war.
01:21:43.231 --> 01:21:46.801
The intervention in Cambodia
triggered sharp and strenuous protests
01:21:46.868 --> 01:21:50.171
in the United States mainly
at hundreds of college campuses
01:21:50.272 --> 01:21:52.874
most notably at Kent State
University.
01:21:53.041 --> 01:21:54.175
National guardsmen
01:21:54.209 --> 01:21:57.312
senselessly opened fire
into a crowd of demonstrators
01:21:57.379 --> 01:21:59.714
killing for students
and wounding nine.
01:22:00.282 --> 01:22:07.122
[Ohio playing]
01:22:11.293 --> 01:22:12.727
Just days after Kent State
01:22:13.228 --> 01:22:17.198
two African American protesters
are killed and 12 injured
01:22:17.299 --> 01:22:19.801
by police at Jackson State
College in Mississippi.
01:22:21.169 --> 01:22:23.972
The Cambodia invasion sparks
a wave of anti-war
01:22:24.072 --> 01:22:25.240
and a high draft action.
01:22:26.441 --> 01:22:28.710
Draft boards across the country
are ransacked
01:22:29.344 --> 01:22:31.579
tens of thousands
of draft files were burned,
01:22:31.646 --> 01:22:34.082
which permanently eliminate
those men from the call-up.
01:22:35.083 --> 01:22:38.119
Four million students go out
on strike shutting down
01:22:38.219 --> 01:22:39.721
campuses nationwide.
01:22:40.455 --> 01:22:45.060
This campus is on strike
to reconstitute the university
01:22:45.126 --> 01:22:48.596
as a center for organizing
against the war in Southeast Asia.
01:22:50.966 --> 01:22:53.468
Within a month 25,000 draft cards
01:22:53.535 --> 01:22:55.603
have been in nationally.
01:22:56.604 --> 01:23:00.642
Within a year over half the inductees
at the Oakland induction center
01:23:00.709 --> 01:23:02.744
refused to show up when called.
01:23:03.945 --> 01:23:08.083
After all, how would you like to be in Vietnam
in '69 and '70 when every couple of months
01:23:08.149 --> 01:23:09.317
more thousands are coming home
01:23:09.384 --> 01:23:11.886
ultimately everyone's going
to come home it's pretty clear.
01:23:12.220 --> 01:23:14.956
This war is going on and on and on
these draftees are more
01:23:15.056 --> 01:23:17.092
and more distressed
with what's going on
01:23:17.392 --> 01:23:20.929
and there was a breakdown
of morale.
01:23:21.196 --> 01:23:27.035
[The War Drags On playing]
01:23:27.469 --> 01:23:30.605
I think also in a very practical level
we created a phenomenon
01:23:30.672 --> 01:23:32.674
which ultimately threatened
the government's capacity
01:23:32.741 --> 01:23:35.143
to wage the war, I mean,
by 1970 they were drafting
01:23:35.210 --> 01:23:37.145
three people to get one foot
soldier,
01:23:37.245 --> 01:23:40.749
by 1970 the spirit of rebellion
that had motivated
01:23:40.815 --> 01:23:43.084
the anti draft people
had made its way into the military.
01:23:43.785 --> 01:23:47.088
I haven't fired my guns they been here
and I like it that way.
01:23:47.589 --> 01:23:49.657
It's the Woodstock generation
coming to Vietnam.
01:23:50.125 --> 01:23:52.060
Killing for peace
just doesn't make sense.
01:23:57.866 --> 01:23:59.768
How long the war goes on,
01:24:00.235 --> 01:24:01.603
how long it lasts
01:24:01.736 --> 01:24:04.339
how long the public
has tolerance for the way
01:24:04.406 --> 01:24:06.975
that it's being prosecuted
those things are dictated
01:24:07.042 --> 01:24:09.677
by many factors,
but draft resistance
01:24:09.744 --> 01:24:13.615
it certainly helped prevent it
from escalating dramatically
01:24:14.215 --> 01:24:15.450
and that's no small thing.
01:24:16.751 --> 01:24:18.953
[bombs exploding]
01:24:21.890 --> 01:24:24.025
Very few, even scholars today
01:24:24.092 --> 01:24:26.361
really have it in their minds
that that war
01:24:26.461 --> 01:24:28.630
could have been even worse
than it was.
01:24:34.069 --> 01:24:37.005
The joint chiefs were pressing every
day of the week
01:24:37.072 --> 01:24:39.074
for it to be worse than it was.
01:24:39.207 --> 01:24:41.342
I still think we ought to
take the dikes out now.
01:24:43.645 --> 01:24:45.313
Will that drown people?
01:24:45.580 --> 01:24:47.682
That will drown about 200,000 people.
01:24:48.783 --> 01:24:50.318
Well, no, no, no, no, no, no,
I'd rather use a nuclear bomb.
01:24:50.385 --> 01:24:51.886
Have you got that ready?
01:24:52.921 --> 01:24:55.156
That I think will just be too much.
01:24:55.356 --> 01:24:57.625
A nuclear bomb, does that bother you?
01:24:57.692 --> 01:25:01.029
I just want you to think big, Henry,
for Christ sakes.
01:25:02.063 --> 01:25:04.065
I think that the anti-war movement
01:25:04.132 --> 01:25:06.968
definitely kept a ceiling
on the war at every point
01:25:07.035 --> 01:25:08.870
through Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon
01:25:09.304 --> 01:25:12.740
at every one of those points
without the prospect that escalation
01:25:12.807 --> 01:25:15.810
would cause and even much,
much larger movement.
01:25:16.511 --> 01:25:18.413
There would have been
massive escalation
01:25:18.480 --> 01:25:21.049
over what there ever
was in the war.
01:25:21.449 --> 01:25:24.619
I think we had a severe constraining
impact which I thought
01:25:24.686 --> 01:25:27.055
saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
01:25:33.428 --> 01:25:37.732
Virtually everything
that people did had some impact
01:25:37.799 --> 01:25:38.933
at some time,
01:25:39.000 --> 01:25:41.236
whether it's a large demonstration
01:25:41.836 --> 01:25:45.673
or a civil disobedient activity,
or whether it's burning draft cards
01:25:45.807 --> 01:25:50.411
all of these things, at one time
or another had some impact
01:25:50.478 --> 01:25:55.383
on decision makers and on the flow
of opinion during the Vietnam War.
01:25:56.084 --> 01:25:59.087
And that's where social change
comes from is when
01:25:59.154 --> 01:26:02.824
I step outside of my usual boundaries
and start to take
01:26:02.891 --> 01:26:06.628
some kind of further action
there are people watching me
01:26:06.694 --> 01:26:09.163
and they might take the same action.
01:26:10.131 --> 01:26:11.966
[train horn]
01:26:12.100 --> 01:26:13.835
The effect that people have
01:26:14.235 --> 01:26:17.038
standing up for their own rights
can transform people
01:26:17.105 --> 01:26:19.440
who are coming with
the opposite point of view
01:26:19.507 --> 01:26:22.243
and that's a critical part I think,
it's the the importance
01:26:22.310 --> 01:26:23.511
of a personal example.
01:26:23.745 --> 01:26:24.979
Has it been worth it?
01:26:25.046 --> 01:26:28.082
Yes, I mean, I haven't really
lost nothing.
01:26:28.316 --> 01:26:32.086
Many people are doing
what I did and they go into jail for it
01:26:32.153 --> 01:26:35.256
and you don't read about them, at least
I was a case that the world watched.
01:26:35.823 --> 01:26:39.194
And if I had went to prison I
would have been a famous celebrity
01:26:39.260 --> 01:26:42.130
I would have gotten fan mail,
I would have gotten credit
01:26:42.197 --> 01:26:45.500
for my stand, but what about
the people who nobody knows
01:26:45.567 --> 01:26:48.536
and their daughters, so I look at them
as being more great,
01:26:48.603 --> 01:26:49.904
I would say, than I am.
01:26:50.004 --> 01:26:53.141
I think it took some bodies in prison
01:26:53.208 --> 01:26:57.245
paying the price
to make it all real.
01:26:58.613 --> 01:27:00.415
It was a lot of time,
it's 30 months
01:27:00.481 --> 01:27:04.452
but I never lost sight
of the reason why.
01:27:05.787 --> 01:27:07.822
We saw what you were doing
01:27:07.889 --> 01:27:10.858
and in our name
and that's what had to be stopped,
01:27:11.225 --> 01:27:13.361
and doing a little bit of time
was nothing.
01:27:15.763 --> 01:27:17.999
Still we never lost sight
of the fact that people
01:27:18.066 --> 01:27:22.670
who were paying the price
were the guys in country.
01:27:23.471 --> 01:27:25.573
And then there was a lot of blood.
01:27:26.240 --> 01:27:35.250
[helicopter blades spinning]
01:27:35.550 --> 01:27:38.920
I think, obviously, we were not successful
at ending the war or the way we wanted to.
01:27:39.354 --> 01:27:41.389
We wanted to end it
on a moral decision.
01:27:41.456 --> 01:27:45.560
We wanted the country to just look up
and say this is wrong,
01:27:45.627 --> 01:27:48.162
we don't want anything to do
with it, we're going to get out of it.
01:27:48.196 --> 01:27:51.399
That's not what happened,
what happened was the government
01:27:51.499 --> 01:27:55.136
said this is unwinnable and we
got to extricate ourselves from it.
01:27:55.470 --> 01:27:59.874
A ceasefire International supervised
will begin at 7:00 p.m.
01:27:59.941 --> 01:28:02.543
this Saturday January 27
Washington time.
01:28:03.478 --> 01:28:08.549
Within 60 days from this Saturday
all American forces will be withdrawn
01:28:08.616 --> 01:28:09.751
from south Vietnam.
01:28:10.318 --> 01:28:13.688
Refusing to cooperate
with the war machine
01:28:13.788 --> 01:28:16.157
was one of the most effective things
we could do
01:28:16.224 --> 01:28:19.827
to slow and eventually stop the draft
and the war.
01:28:20.728 --> 01:28:27.802
[music playing]
01:28:28.369 --> 01:28:30.738
For us ourselves, as a people
01:28:30.805 --> 01:28:33.441
it was important
that we did play the role we played
01:28:33.508 --> 01:28:36.778
and express our opposition an outrage
and all the rest.
01:28:36.844 --> 01:28:40.782
Make a difference,
change, don't stand back
01:28:41.015 --> 01:28:45.219
and just wish you could step
out on the pages of history.
01:28:45.453 --> 01:28:47.622
There are times when you have
to fight.
01:28:48.089 --> 01:28:51.326
[somber music playing]
01:28:51.893 --> 01:28:53.928
They've got to give us that, look,
01:28:53.995 --> 01:28:55.963
I had the choice to make you
had a choice to make
01:28:56.064 --> 01:28:59.567
you made your choice,
I made mine, but I didn't run from it.
01:29:01.936 --> 01:29:04.038
It moves me to think about it.
01:29:09.377 --> 01:29:31.232
[music playing]
01:29:31.432 --> 01:29:36.971
Getting people to do civil disobedience
is I think a worthwhile project
01:29:37.138 --> 01:29:40.708
because it can change
what else they do significantly
01:29:40.842 --> 01:29:44.445
and most people can let themselves
be heard.
01:29:44.512 --> 01:29:46.481
They can stop being silent.
01:29:47.014 --> 01:30:25.420
[music playing]
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 95 minutes
Date: 2021
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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