1967: The anti-war movement grows
In 1967 the United States Air Force flew 108,000 individual missions against targets in North Vietnam. After three years of the air war, the tonnage of bombs dropped on North Vietnam surpassed the total dropped on Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II. By the end of that year, over 450,000 Americans were deployed in Vietnam, and nearly 14,000 American soldiers had been killed. In August, President Johnson announced his intention to expand US forces in Vietnam to 525,00 men by July 1968.
The response from the anti-war movement was strong, with major protests launched across the country. In March, Martin Luther King Jr. led his first anti-war March in Chicago. A month later King delivered his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at New York’s Riverside Church condemning a society that was “…taking the Black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.” Major protests continued in April, with over 180,000 anti-war protesters rallying in New York and San Francisco. The year of protests culminated on October 21st with the first national demonstration against the war in Washington, D.C. The Vietnam War and the Anti-War Movement was AP’s top story of 1967.
AP Year End Review for 1967. (AP Photo/AP Corporate Archives)
President Lyndon B. Johnson told a White House news conference that he accepts responsible dissent on the Vietnam war and other issues as something that goes with the job of being president, Nov. 17, 1967. But he blasted what he called storm trooper tactics of critics. (AP Photo)
Robert S. McNamara announces his resignation as Secretary of Defense at a news conference at the Pentagon, Nov. 29, 1967. McNamara, 51, will leave the job he held for seven years to become President of the World Bank. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry)
Dr. Benjamin Spock, third from left, and Dr. Martin Luther King, third from right, are among the leaders in a parade on State Street, protesting the Vietnam conflict in Chicago, March 25, 1967. Dr. Spock is co-chairman of the National Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy. (AP Photo)
Wire copy AP story, March 25, 1967. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)
In this March 29, 1967 file photo, heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, left, and Dr. Martin Luther King speak with reporters in Louisville, Ky. King says the sooner this country does away with the draft, the better off we'll be. Ali was here for his court hearing to prevent his Army induction on April 28 in Houston. (AP Photo)
Wire copy Associated Press bulletin, April 28, 1967. (AP Photo/AP Corporate Archives)
A follower of Cassius Clay burns what he called his draft card in front of the induction station in Houston, Tex., April 28, 1967 after the heavyweight refused to be inducted into the Army. (AP Photo/Jack Thornell)
Muhammad Ali, former world heavyweight boxing champion, leans into a battery of microphones waiting for a reply at an anti-war rally on May 10, 1967 at the University of Chicago in Chicago. The audience replied by chanting, “Muhammad Ali--Muhammad Ali.” Ali was the final speaker at the rally. (AP Photo/Charles Harrity)
An anti-war demonstrator counts 88 draft cards placed in a silver bowl at an anti-draft demonstration on the steps of the San Francisco Federal Building, Ca., Dec. 4, 1967. An estimated 500 persons gathered for the pacifist demonstration. (AP Photo)
Peace demonstrators fill Fulton Street in San Francisco April 15, 1967 during their five-mile march through the city. The march winds up at Kezar Stadium where a peace rally will be held. Groups came from Los Angeles and the Northwest to join in the march and rally. San Francisco City Hall is in the background. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)
One face in a crowd of protesters in Central Park at the start of a massive peace demonstration and march, April 15, 1967. Demonstrars marched from the park to United Nations headquarters to demand an end to the fighting in Vietnam. (AP Photo)
One face in a crowd of protesters in Central Park at the start of a massive peace demonstration and march, April 15, 1967. Demonstrators marched from the park to United Nations headquarters to demand an end to the fighting in Vietnam. (AP Photo)
Mary Travers, left, and Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, are shown at the Peace March in New York's Central Park, April 15, 1967. (AP Photo)
Thousands of anti-war protesters gather at United Nations Plaza April 15, 1967 for a peaceful demonstration against America's involvement in the Vietnam War. (AP Photo)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of the Vietnam war protest demonstration which attracted 125,000 voices a repeated demand to “Stop the bombing” in New York, April 15, 1967. He said, “I think this is just the beginning of a massive outpouring of dissent.” (AP Photo)
Anti-Vietnam protesters with signs stand behind police barricades set up along Fifth Avenue for the "Support Our Boys in Vietnam" parade in New York, May 13, 1967. Demonstrators with clashing opinions lined up on the other side of Fifth Ave. with their signs. (AP Photo)
Police armed with clubs and chemical mace move against anti-draft demonstrators at the Oakland Induction Center in Oakland, Calif., on Oct. 17, 1967. Press photographers are also sprayed with mace. (AP Photo)
As police move in to break up an anti-war demonstration, protesters shout and gesture "seig heil," Oct. 18, 1967. Police ended the sit-in at the University of Wisconsin campus at Madison with riot sticks and tear gas. (AP Photo)
A group of pagans rehearse a magical ritual to exorcise a cardboard model of the Pentagon, in New York's Village Theater, Oct. 14, 1967. The group plans to try their witchcraft on the Pentagon in Washington, Oct. 21. (AP Photo/John Duricka)
Antiwar demonstrators approach lines of U.S. Marshals and military police in front of the Pentagon in Washington D.C. on Oct. 21, 1967.
Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators run up against military police as they attempt to penetrate security lines at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 21, 1967. (AP Photo)
AP story as published in the Hartford Courant, October 22, 1967.
Anti-war protesters gather by the Reflecting Pool with the Washington Monument in the background, in Washington D.C., Oct. 21, 1967. (AP Photo)
Text and photo editing by Francesca Pitaro.