The Moratorium in Muncie
The Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, organized the only conference devoted to commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium. The program brought together alumni of their demonstration, current students and diverse faculty and community
members.
The full day can be seen on line here
The keynote address by leading draft resistor David Harris here.
The tone setting talk by the initiator of the program, Mary (Munchel)
Posner, is at 20:07 here
To put her remarks in context, look at the substantial NBC Nightly News
segment on February 25,1970 portraying anti-war sentiment in the heartland in
which she is featured, seen here.
A particularly creative idea is visible on the day's page, three VMC
Scrapbooks of chronologically arranged clippings that capture the full range of
opinion about the lead up, day of, and fall out from their demonstration.
At VPCC 's request, Mary summarized how their program was organized.
Mission Statement
The Vietnam Moratorium Committee (VMC) formed in 1969 in
order to educate people about the war in Vietnam and to encourage the
withdrawal of all troops. The VMC group
at Ball State University accomplished this by bringing in speakers,
distributing information, showing films, sponsoring panel discussions,
canvassing door to door, leading public protests on and off campus, and
honoring our fallen troops by reading their names. Our committee would like to commemorate the
50th anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee by educating
current and former students and the Muncie community about what we did—what
worked and what could have been done better.
We hope to inspire the younger generation to get involved the way we did
to promote peace and reduce conflict in ways that are meaningful to them.
Tips from how Ball State University 50th
Anniversary Commemoration of VMC was organized
Dr. Michael Doyle and I did almost all the organizing
ourselves. This was challenging since I
live 5 hours from Ball State. It was
invaluable to have such a dedicated and organized co-chairman at Ball
State. Dr. Doyle is currently in the
process of moving so I will do my best to summarize how we accomplished what we
did.
· We started early. Our first steering committee meeting was held
in June of 2018—16 months prior to actual event.
·
Michael suggested that we should develop a
mission statement (above). That was
an invaluable guide to keep us on track.
·
We had some problems with an unwieldy steering
committee early on. We would send out
e-mails asking for opinions and agreements on various ideas. Participation was spotty at best so Michael and
I decided to take charge and make the decisions ourselves. We reached out to others as we needed them to
do certain tasks.
·
Dr. David Perkins, a psychology professor and
old friend of Mary’s, took charge of fundraising. He approached almost all the departments at
Ball State and asked for donations. He
raised almost enough money to pay for our keynote speaker and other expenses in
this way. Start with departments that
will probably support what you are doing (e.g. History, Center for Peace and
Conflict Resolution, Political Science, etc.).
·
We decided on format of conference early on and
Michael made a draft schedule. This was
our backbone throughout our planning and was revised frequently as we
progressed.
·
Start looking for a keynote speaker as soon as
possible. Avoid dealing with people who
have speaker services. They are a huge
hassle and very demanding. We were very
lucky to get David Harris.
·
If you are holding this on a college campus, try
to schedule events that don't conflict with class schedules so that students can
participate more easily. We did not take
this into consideration and may have kept students away because of that. If you want community participation, you will
need to schedule events to accommodate working people.
·
We had three panel discussions. That made for a long day and two may have
been enough. We got several current
students to participate and that turned out very well.
·
Make sure you have plenty of time for Q&A
and breaks between sessions.
·
We developed a motto (Reunite, Rekindle and
Remember) and that guided us throughout the day in terms of speeches and what
we did.
·
We combined a reunion of alumni who had
participated in the original VMC on the evening before and a day-long conference the
following day. That involved a great
deal of extra work in terms of locating alumni and sending out multiple
invitations. It may have been too much.
·
We kept track of planning efforts through
frequent e-mails so we always had a record of where we were at.
·
Try to develop a Facebook presence and/or
website as early as possible and make it attractive and user-friendly. We did not have this until late in the game
when some English professors and their students volunteered to do it for
us. They did a great job and we don’t
know what we would have done without them.
·
If you can designate a specific person to handle
publicity, that would be great. Michael
and I were trying to do too many things ourselves.
·
We tried to get the Student Government
Association involved but they were NOT interested. That may be different on other campuses.
·
It was a big project to make 1,000 origami
cranes and string them up to hang, but it was well worth it. They were a great symbol and made a beautiful
backdrop for our speakers and our memorial service. Peace cranes are always an appropriate
symbol.
·
We were very lucky that the person who led us in
song 50 years ago was willing to return and sing again. Music was so important back then. Peter Yarrow pointed out that there was more
music than speakers at the Mobilization for Peace in November of 1969. Music brings people together.
·
Schedule conference rooms as soon as
possible. Things get booked early. Make sure you have good people to take care
of technical issues such as set-up and microphones.
·
Arrange to have events recorded on video and for
them to be stored in official archives. This is part of creating an historical record.
·
We did not leave enough time for lunch. I loved what you did at George Washington
University conference with meals brought in.
Made everything so much easier.
·
Be prepared to deal with a lot of
bureaucracy for the great benefit of the university sponsorship and setting. Michael was very good at
that. Since I do not work in that
setting, I had a hard time dealing with it. (One example, our T shirt design needed time consuming university approval.)
·
Be prepared to spend many more hours on your
project than you expect to.
·
Michael and I were very fortunate that we were
usually on the same wavelength. We had
never met prior to this undertaking so that was just lucky.
Mary Posner
11-25-19
Mary speaking at George Washington University panel 11/13/19
Mary speaking at the commemoration of the March Against Death at the White House, 11/15/19
