The protests on college campuses around the country, precipitated by Israel’s devastating response to the horrific Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas, bring back memories of the massive militant student activism of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s mostly against the Vietnam War.
I was there, along with thousands of other students who, like today, fit into a variety of categories: Hardcore idealists deeply committed to a cause; moderates who care, but not deeply; and folks with more social than political interest who just want to be where the action is.
I hung out in all three camps at different times, as I suspect many of today’s participants do.
In the fall of 1968, I joined a sit-in occupation of an administrative office at the eastern university I was attending, to protest exclusionary policies at a campus fraternity. We disbanded peacefully and without much push-back when the frat agreed to more non-discriminatory admissions, and hurried off to enjoy weekend party festivities.
Multi-tasking 101.
In the spring and early summer of 1968, at the end of my sophomore year, Martin Luther King Jr. and then Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. I was shell-shocked, like almost everyone else, but followed through on a plan to tour Europe on a budget with college friends.
The trip was wonderful, but I had to experience the Democratic National Convention riots in Chicago via anodyne, pre-cell phone and internet news in English language newspapers while enjoying the French Riviera. I was regrettably missing the action but having no shortage of fun.
It was surreal and, in retrospect, an amusing recognition that we, like occupants of the caveman era, were hamstrung by minimalist communication tools.
Catching a break to avoid Vietnam War draft
But life goes on, and a combination of personal and family issues prompted me to transfer to a college closer to home, the University of Wisconsin, in the winter of 1969, which turned out to be one of the most turbulent semesters in Madison campus history.
There were marches, massive anti-war demonstrations, broken retail store windows, and National Guard troops firing tear gas and brandishing menacing clubs to move demonstrators, me included, off the streets during protests against the war and university policies.
I joined the crowded demonstrations, in part because it was something to do — a fun activity — but more importantly, because I wanted no part of a divisive and potentially life-threatening war halfway around the world, and campus rules that made no sense, at least to us.
Late that year, after leaving Madison and moving back to Chicago to get my head on straighter, I caught the ultimate break when the Vietnam War draft lottery — each of the 365 days of the year drawn one after another to determine a draft order based on birth date — didn’t get to my June birthday until it was well past the pool of likely draftees.
My relief was palpable, and so memorable that I visited the Vietnam Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. every time I covered stories there in my journalism years to lament the 50,000 casualties whose names are inscribed on the wall — and to remember that, but for the luck of the draw, mine could have been there too.
So now, more than half a century later, I watch the campus chaos from afar, thinking that student demonstrations may alter university policies slightly, but not the overall foreign policy of our country or the internal policies of Middle Eastern governments.
That said, I sympathize with nonviolent student demonstrators, whether deeply or moderately committed or just along for the ride, because that’s a rite of passage — a valuable part of the journey from late adolescence to young adulthood.
Today’s protesters obviously do their thing in a digital world that transmits pictures and words in seconds, heightening the impact and raising the stakes in ways we never imagined in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
But some things haven’t changed. Years later, when these students reflect on this seminal and unforgettable moment in their lives — a moment my grown daughters lament missing during their quieter 1990s campus days — I trust they will appreciate, like I have, our country’s commitment to reasonable free speech, peaceable assembly and a democracy that bends but won’t break — if we don’t let it.
Kids, you don’t make the rules, but Godspeed as you responsibly challenge the ones we’ve established.
Andy Shaw is a retired Chicago journalist, good government watchdog and — way back when — a student activist.
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