Teach-in 1965

One of the most interesting of the many forms of protest during the Vietnam war era was known as a “teach-in”. It was started at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in March, 1965. Faculty members were angered that Lyndon Johnson had ordered the bombing of North Vietnam, when many of them had helped him get elected. They thought he would be less apt than the hawkish Barry Goldwater to escalate the war.

But when Johnson went ahead, faculty members decided it was time to act. They planned a strike, but as some state retaliation was certain, a brilliant compromise was reached. Faculty decided instead to teach their classes as usual, but focus on Vietnam, its history, culture and the current US intervention. Once this was agreed upon, many more faculty joined the group and the University administration supported the event, allowing the use of auditoriums and public address equipment.

Student support for the event was overwhelming. Three thousand students attended, packing auditoriums. After evening sessions on March 25, and a midnight rally, faculty and students broke up into discussion groups and 600 students were still there at 8 a.m. the next morning. US policymakers both for and against the war spoke.  Discussion continued throughout the weekend, including information not provided by news media.

Arthur Waskow of the Institute for Policy Studies said, “This teach-in is in the true spirit of a university where students and faculty learn from each other and not from the calendar.” The teach-in was quickly adopted as a model for sharing information and ideas at other universities, and on May 15, university professors from across the country staged a national teach-in in Washington DC that included members of Congress and State Department officials.

The March 1965 teach-in helped focus the energies of young people. Bob Moses, the courageous black leader of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, said “Justice and peace are twins, just as war is the twin of racism. To win peace, you’ve got to fight for justice.” When Students for a Democratic Society president Paul Potter asked, “How will you live your life so that it doesn’t make a mockery of your values?” 20-year-old Bill Ayers found the question “rattled in my heart and my head for years to come.” [Quotes are from Fugitive Days: a Memoir, by Bill Ayers, 2001]

Universities played a vital part in opposition to the Vietnam war, giving the movement a respectability that previous anti-war protests lacked. This broadened mainstream opposition, leading eventually to the denouement of an “unwinnable” war. In 1965, Line is also 20, Marty 19. Line is attracted to many forms of activism, and in moving to Chicago, finds herself in the thick of it. Protest of any kind is slower to foment in Marty, but she too is inexorably swept into a decade of discussions of rights, racism, imperialism, education and quality of life.