Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

Washington was no stranger to mass demonstrations, for Mobe had organized alarge anti-war protest there two years before. On 17 April, 1965, Mobe co-sponsoredalong with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Women Strike for Peace (WSP)the March to End the War in Vietnam. Attracting almost 25,000 demonstrators, it was thelargest peace march in American history to that date. 29 Two years later hundreds ofthousands participated in Mobe’s coordinated national day of mass demonstration againstthe Vietnam War. On 15 April, 1967, over 100,000 marched in New York from CentralPark’s Sheep Meadow to the United Nations plaza, taking more than four hours tocomplete the route (Robinson, “100,000” 1). As the New Yorkers listened to Dr. MartinLuther King, Jr. speak, at least half that number again heard his wife, Coretta Scott King,speak in San Francisco (Paul Hoffman 3). It wasn’t just the size of the crowds thatmarked the national day of anti-war resistance as exceptional, it was the great variety ofdemonstrators, from “housewives from Westchester, students and poets from the LowerEast Side, priests and nuns, doctors, businessman and teachers” (Robinson, “100,000” 1).A coalition of over 150 activist groups, Mobe had both the connections to attract a largeand diverse array of participants, and a solid history of producing well-organizeddemonstrations.The Mobilization Committee was the third incarnation of an anti-war umbrellaorganization that first formed in 1966 to coordinate the numerous activist groupsdemonstrating against the Vietnam War. The brainchild of sociologist Sidney Peck of29 For sheer numbers, however, it was dwarfed by the 28 August, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs andFreedom, which drew about 250,000 people to the nation's capital to demonstrate for civil rights and fairlabor practices, and to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s now-famous "I have a dream" speech.53