Known for their legendary Free Speech Movement in 1964, students at University of California Berkeley were nationally known for being a very politically involved student body. Their ferocity and political activism was seen as extremely influential in the 1960s and the early 1970s--other rallies and protests that occurred nationwide at other college campuses were inspired greatly by the movements in Berkeley. But what is not typically analyzed is how these college campuses helped each other reach enlightenment surrounding the mysterious Vietnam War. As a great number of people involved in the prior year’s Free Speech Moment were facing legal troubles, and as the war in Vietnam escalated the Berkeley college students were feeling like children that weren't given a chance to be heard. A new group of electrifying leaders emerged: Jerry Rubin, a former UC Berkeley graduate student, Professor Stephen Smale, and local journalist Robert Sheer. This new rag-tag group created the Vietnam Day Committee. The VDC was an alliance of left-wing political groups, student groups, labour organizations, and pacifist religions that opposed the Vietnam War. The Berkeley Activists then caught wind of what was occurring across the country--"teach in's". The SDS would band together with anti-war college organizations to form "Teach Ins on the War in Vietnam", so anti-war protesters could inform the public about the reasons behind the war and explain why it should be stopped. These "teach-in's" originated at the University of Michigan. The Berkeley students were immediately inspired, and deided to form their own "teach in" sessions. In May 1965, they organized a 36-hour teach in event on campus, which attracted a groundbreaking 30,000 people. This was the largest number of any of the 35 other university teach-ins that took place that year. Berkeley’s Vietnam Day Committee worked throughout 1965 and 1966 on how to make a war that was taking place across the Pacific Ocean to become visible to Americans at home. As the year progressed, several hundred students marched down to the Berkeley Draft Board carrying a black coffin. Forty students burned their draft card, an act not yet made illegal by Congress. The Vietnam Day Committee also organized demonstrations along the Santa Fe railroad tracks running through West Berkeley and Oakland taking new inductees to the Oakland Army Induction Center. They were joined by more than 15,000 demonstrators to march toward Oakland where they were met by policemen in full riot gear.
Rallies at Oakland Army Induction Center
As the War in Vietnam became more vicious, so did the activists. The higher the death tolls got the angrier protesters became; these reports also inclined others to join the cause to stop the massacre. It provoked even more outrage when college students became in danger of being drafted. Throughout 1967, organizers of “Stop the Draft Week,” along with 3000 demonstrators, honed in again on the Oakland Army Induction Center. During the four day protest the demonstrator numbers grew immensely to nearly 10,000 demonstrators. The protestors handed out pamphlets to the inductees of the war, pleading with them to change their minds and refuse to serve.
After "banishment" from campus
Although UC administrators banned the Viet Nam Day Committee from appearing on campus, other students became inspired by their peers and took up the cause. They held sit-ins around navy recruiters and other pro-war organizations that had tables set up in the student union. The first campus protest against Dow Chemical Corporation, manufactures of the burning, jell-like substance Napalm, took place on Berkeley’s campus in 1966. The protests did not stop there--in fact, they encouraged other students from Berkeley and other campuses surrounding Berkeley to join the cause against the Vietnam War.