Vietnam Moratorium Committee - Peace Teach-ins - 1969-1970 - USC
Channel: Steven Schmidt
Date: 2019-10-24

The Vietnam Moratorium began in Washington DC and the Moratorium strike's first nationwide peace action and Teach-in was on October 15, 1969. The national Moratorium actions in 1969 and 1970 to end the war in Vietnam became the largest anti-war demonstrations in US history. 

This 16 mm USC film school project by Robert Carroll follows students who organized the Moratorium, beginning with the committee's DC founding in the summer of '69... 

After the DC start up, student founders returned to California and with activist students and  supporting faculty at the Univ of Southern California, the Moratorium coordinated teach-ins, rallies, strikes and peace events throughout Calif in the following months. 

The Moratorium grew beyond colleges and schools after holding its first statewide/national 'teach-ins' on October 15, 1969. 

In November, events were held in nearly every state. A half million people marched in Washington DC on November 15. In December demonstrations continued and new, broadened coalition looked to April 1970 as a next stage in the growing Moratorium peace movement as organizing grew into the first Earth Day. 

Senator Gaylord Nelson, who proposed the first Earth Day Teach-in, credited the Moratorium for inspiring him to believe in the potential of a nationwide student-led environmental movement.

A eco-movement and a "Decade of the Environment" came about as a result of the students of the Moratorium, Peace and Earth Day organizing.

College students and supporters carried a strong message for peace and environmental protection, a youthful vision of a hopeful future.


○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Moratorium_October_15_1969.jpg
○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Doomsday_Machine-Daniel_Ellsberg-Recalling_the_Vietnam_Moratorium_Oct-Nov_1969.jpg
○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Oct_15,_1969,_Vietnam_Moratorium_Day_in_memory.jpg

○ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moratorium_to_End_the_War_in_Vietnam 

Attempting to Turn from War to Peace
A Counterculture and Environmental Movement in the Making 

○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary
○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:USC_Daily_Trojan_Sen_Nelson_speech_day_after_first_Earth_Day_.jpg 
○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr
○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement
○ https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Env_policy_laws_US_'the_beginning'_of_env_era.jpg

Vietnam Moratorium Committee (news clips)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0692ouQbw