1968: The Global Revolutions

By 1968, many antiwar activists had been mobilizing for years against American involvement in Vietnam. The war was never far from the minds of college students, many of whom faced the threat of being drafted into the army. Protests against the conflict, on campus and throughout the world, emphasized the loss of American lives, as well as civilian casualties and the ecological destruction wrought on the Vietnamese homeland. For African Americans the contradictions of waging an imperialist war against people of color abroad, while also fighting racial discrimination at home, seeded further frustrations and doubts about the country’s actions in Southeast Asia.