AFRO-AMERICANS SPEAK OUT AGAINST WAR IN VIETNAM
By Evelyn Sell
There is a significant new development in the antiwar movement in Detroit which is indicative of a growing tendency among black militants in the United States to speak out vigorously and consistently against the war in Vietnam. The Afro-American Unity Movement [AAUM], which has solidarized itself with the ideas of Malcolm X and the slogans of the "black power" movement, has issued a call to "all black organi-_ zations and individuals in Detroit to join...in a protest march against the racist war in Vietnam." This march was intended as an advance move to help the four-day mobilization across the country November 5-8 which reached a high point in New York with 20,000 participants.
A group of Afro-Americans Against the War in Vietnam (no longer active) participated in the March International Days of Protest earlier this year. However, this was the first time that a black organization sought to mobilize Afro-Americans on such a wide basis. —
The AAUM call listed a number of. arguments against the war which have been expressed over and over by blacks throughout the country. The call ran as follows:
"We Resent:
"1. The 'freedom' myth that we are supposed to protect people 10,000 miles away when the only one who will protect us from brutal cops and racists at home is ourselves.-
"2. The mass murder of our colored brothers and sisters of Vietnam by U.S. soldiers.
"3. The murder of our black men to protect America's big money interests abroad. If black men number up to 70% of the G.I.'s on the front lines, that means more black men than whites are dying in this racist war.
"4. The discrimination of the all white draft boards. Because our men cannot. get apprenticeships or go to college, we are forced to serve as the cannon-fodder of this war.
"5. The use of Afro-Americans who are struggling at home to decide the course of our fight to deny self determination to the Vietnamese who want to decide their own fate, too."
One point made by Negroes, not listed in the AAUM call, is that the billions of dollars used for death and destruction overseas be rechanneled to meet the needs of the deprived millions for homes, schools, hospital care and expanded job opportunities.
The antiwar statement of the AAUM were not a sudden or unexpected development. During the early part of 1965 there were sporadic signs of Afro-American involvement in the opposition to the war. During the nationwide protests against racist police actions against Negroes in Selma, Alabama, one picket-line sign in Detroit read: "Send Marines to Alabama Not Vietnam." In April, 1965, a small delegation of Negroes from the South participated in the Easter March on Washington, carrying a banner, "Our War Isn't In Vietnam But In America." About ten percent of the marchers were Negroes and one of the speakers at the rally was Robert Parris, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating: Committee [SNCC].
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the war on a number of occasions during 1965. On April 24 King expressed antiwar sentiments at a press conference and urged other civil-rights leaders to follow his lead. In a July 2 speech at Virginia State University, King warned that if the Johnson administration didn't get the hostilities to the bargaining table, he might adapt his organization to teach-ins and peace rallies.
Some antiwar sentiments were expressed by other groups and individuals: The Negro American Labor Council (made up of black members of the AFL-CIO) announced opposition to continuation of the war. A "Declaration of Conscience Against U.S. Policies in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic" was signed by nationally known Negroes such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and SNCC leaders Julian Bond and John Lewis.
However, many prominent black leaders followed the line of Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP]. Wilkins told reporters, "We think we have Vietnam in Alabama. I feel that when you mix Vietnam and civil rights, you confuse the issue." James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] used Wilkins' argument at the July, 1965, CORE convention. The convention had passed a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. Farmer insisted that CORE should stay out of the peace movement and concentrate its efforts on civil rights. Farmer was able to persuade the delegates to reverse their previous vote and the convention ended up taking no position on the war.
However, the Farmer victory was a very temporary one and the attitude of the- ; ranks of the organization prevailed when, only five months later, Farmer was pressured into becoming a sponsor of the Thanksgiving March on Washington to protest the war.
Shortly after the Thanksgiving March, the SNCC executive committee approved a policy statement on Vietnam and the draft. When this statement was issued publicly on January 6, 1966, it aroused anti-SNCC newspaper editorials across the country and played a major role in preventing Julian Bond, SNCC publicity director, from taking. his seat in the Georgia legislature. The Georgia general assembly refused to allow Bond to serve his term as legislator although he had won his seat by an overwhelming vote.
The anti-SNCC hue and cry was raised because in its policy statement it said: "We are in sympathy with and support the men in this country who are unwilling to respond to the military draft which would compel them to contribute their lives to | U.S. aggression in the name of the 'freedom' we find so false in this country...We. take note of the fact that 16 percent of the draftees from this country are Negro, < called on to stifle the liberation of Vietnam, to preserve a 'democracy' which does not exist for them at home...We therefore encourage those Americans who prefer to use their energy in building democratic forms within the country. We believe that work in the civil rights movement and. other human relations organizations is a valid alternative to the draft. We urge all Americans to seek this alternative, knowing full well that it may cost. them their lives, as painfully as in Vietnan. "
In 1966 there was a change in leadership in both . -SNCC and CORE. ‘Antiwar. —— declarations rose in intensity and frequency. In February the new national director. -. of CORE, Floyd McKissick, spoke in Detroit and said he approved of peace demonstrations and asked that the funds for the Vietnam war be spent on poverty programs and a massive public-works project. In June McKissick led the opposition forces at the White House Conference on Civil Rights. They introduced resolutions calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam and focussed attention on the war question despite all the administration's plans to keep the conference under its own thumb. .
Meredith's March through Mississippi in July thrust Stokely Carmichael, new national chairman of SNCC, into national prominence. It was on that march that "black power" became the rallying cry for the new level of struggle on the civil-rights front. Carmichael continually hammers away at black opposition to the war in Vietnam. Addressing a cheering crowd of 12,000 on the University of- California campus on October 29, Carmichael urged the Negro and white students in the audience to say,,. "hell, no“ to their draft boards.
In his speeches across the country, Carmichael links the anticolonial struggle with the struggle of Afro-Americans and blasts the idea of black Americans shooting their colored brothers in Vietnam. Carmichael, along with other militants, thus carries forward the ideas expressed by the murdered Malcolm X.
Two residents of the Watts ghetto resisted the draft by arguing that their status as "colonial subjects" entitles them to refuse to take up arms against other nonwhites. U.S. District Judge Leon Yankwich denied their: petition. Many black youths across the country are protesting and resisting the draft. The most well-known one at this date is 20-year-old Pfc. James Johnson, one of the trio of soldiers who have _-. refused to go to Vietnam and who have become known as. the Fort Hood Three. Support. to the three was stated by Lincoln Lynch, associate national director of CORE, who said, "Our nation has become a nation of hypocrites. CORE wholeheartedly supports ‘these. three men. We call upon. all black soldiers and all black people to bring an end to this. war by any. and all means necessary."
"SNCC wholeheartedly supports the action of these men," said Carmichael.
Since the armed forces depend so heavily on Negro draftees, such statements and
actions inject an explosive force into the antiwar movement. Students still remain the packbone of the antiwar forces but the weight of Afro-American opposition is being felt increasingly and provides fresh vigor and militancy.