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

Case Western Reserve University, economist Doug Dowd of Cornell University, andmathematician Robert Greenblatt, also from Cornell, the first iteration of theMobilization Committee was a small ad-hoc effort to organize mass protests in the fall of1966 (Hunt 150-151). With its ambitious nation-wide peace protests of 15 April, 1967,the group switched its named to the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Viet Nam.These demonstrations included hundreds of separate organizations, from the 23,000-member strong National Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy (SANE) to the severalhundred constituents of the War Resisters League, from the civil rights organization theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to the militant Youth Against Warand Fascism, and the labor union of Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers.Reverend James Bevel of SCLC led the Spring Mobilization, with assistance from cochairsPeck, Greenblatt, Edward M. Keating of Ramparts magazine, and David Dellingerof Liberation magazine (Robinson, “Scattered” 3). Inspired by the enormous success ofthe April demonstrations, the Spring Mobilization became a permanent organization andchanged its name once again. The new National Mobilization Committee to End the Warin Viet Nam debuted in June, 1967, with Dellinger as chairman.Dellinger was a member of the editorial board of Liberation, a serious magazinewith a progressive agenda. He was a pacifist who was imprisoned during World War IIfor refusing to register for the draft. In 1964 he signed a “declaration of conscience”against the war in Vietnam (Hunt 115). Before his tenure with Mobe he participated inseveral anti-war efforts, such as the August, 1965, Assembly of Unrepresented People’sMarch on the Capitol during which demonstrators attempted to gain access to the54