Videos, films and books on the anti-war movement, the war and its aftermath





     
VPCC Webinars
September 27, 2021 Women and the Draft
with Edward Hasbrouck, Robert Levering, Rivera Sun, Kara Dixon Vuic, Lawrence Wilkerson For speaker bios, resources & youtube link, click here

September 13, 2021 Afghanistan, Vietnam and Cambodia
with Bruce Franklin, Doug Hostetter, Arnold Isaacs, Laura Jedeed, Paul Lauter and Ben Kiernan For speaker bios, resources & youtube link, click here.

June 13, 2021 The 50th anniversary of the Release of the Pentagon Papers
Special attention to the contribution of Anthony Russo. Presentations by *  Dan Ellsberg *  Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman *  Gar Alperovitz *  Barbara Myers For the program, speaker bios, resources and youtube links, click here
April 30, 2021 April 30, 1975: The Day the War Ended Eyewitness accounts with photos from Hanoi by John McAuliff, representing the American Friends Service Committee and the Indochina Peace Campaign, and from Saigon by Nayan Chanda, reporting for the Far Eastern Economic Review, and Claudia Krich, AFSC Resident Co-director Program information and speaker bios here Watch the Youtube video of the zoom by clicking here.

April 29, 2021 Mayday Then and Now A VPCC webinar with organizers and writers remembering and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the historic Mayday civil disobedience demonstrations and mass arrests of 12,000. For program, speaker bios, resources and video link, click here Watch the video here.
April 26, 2021 The Historic Vietnam Veterans Protest in Washington: Lessons for Today The 50th anniversary of Dewey Canyon III Program link here. Video link here.
April 19/20, 2021 Peoples Peace Treaty 2: The Vietnam Dimension Speakers who were part of meetings between Vietnamese and US students in Saigon and Hanoi; previously unknown history. Two country video on youtube here; program and speakers bios here
April 4, 2021 Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Beyond Vietnam / Breaking the Silence"
  • HD video link for international reading of the Riverside Church address and panel on current implications in English and Spanish, coalition updates, click here
  • International reading only; on Vimeo, click here
  • Reading and panel, original zoom broadcast on VPCC youtube channel, click here
  • Bios of panel speakers, click here
March 22, 2021 "Religious Action for Peace and Justice" on youtube here. Program and bios are here.
March 16, 2021 "The Whistleblower of My Lai" on youtube here. Program, bios, resources and a link to watch the film are here.
February 27, 2021 Peoples Peace Treaty 1: U.S. organization and implementation on youtube here. Program, bios, Treaty text and other resources are here.
November 20, 2020  "Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8" with film maker Jeremy Kagan. For program, speaker bios, resources and youtube link, click here.
October 23, 2020 "The Trial of the Chicago 7"  
Defendants and family members speak on the Democratic Convention protest, the trial and the movie by Aaron Sorkin. For program, speaker bios, resources and youtube link, click here.
October 18, 2020 Non-violence and civil disobedience   
Civil Rights, May Day and anti war movement, Black Lives Matter, Women's issues, Labor, Environment, Post election democracy defense. Click here for program, resources and youtube link
July 6, 7 and 13, 2020 Normalization of relations between the US and Vietnam
Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Normalization from the Ground Up in Both Countries, The Contribution of NGOs and Peoples Organizations from 1975 to 1995 For program, speakers and youtube links, click here
May 9 and 16, 2020 50th Anniversaries of the National Student Strike, Kent State, Jackson State and the Chicano Moratorium  For the program, speaker bios, resources and youtube links, click here

November 13, 2019 "The War Comes Home: Moratorium and Mobilization, 1969"
A panel at George Washington University on the 50th anniversary of the largest peace demonstration in US history For program, speaker bios, resources and youtube link, click here. 



"Vietnam: The Power of Protest"


The 2015 VPCC conference in Washington is the only first person broad assessment of the antiwar movement undertaken to date. Videos can be see here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjWWd2MxBTRq6XZTXqzXAeQ



Documentaries and Films


Don't Burn is the only available film that portrays the war from a Vietnamese perspective; made by Dang Nhat Minh about the journal of a young woman doctor serving in the south that was found by an American soldier and returned to her family in Hanoi decades later; English subtitled DVD for public showings is available in appreciation of donations of at least $20, contact us here. New option The film can be previewed on nonpublic youtube by clicking here.
There was an article about her journal in the New York Times   It was published here as "Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram".  

"The Whistleblower of My Lai" directed by Connie Fields is available on-line here for a rental of $4.99 for 24 hours. "The film follows the Kronos Quartet’s production of Jonathan Berger and Harriet Chessman’s opera which takes at its heart the actions and life of Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot who revealed the 1968 massacre by U.S. troops and rescued some of the victims."

"Four Hours in My Lai, Anatomy of a Massacre" Yorkshire Television on youtube here

"A World Beneath the War" Janet Gardner's portrayal of Vinh Moc village that survived U.S. bombing north of the DMZ by relocating into tunnels, available here for on-line rental or purchase

"The Last Ghost of War" Janet Gardner's account of Agent Orange and its victims in Vietnam, available here for on-line rental or purchase

The War at Home by Glenn Silber is the best documentary to convey to a younger generation how the anti-war movement evolved from silent vigils to militant confrontation in the microcosm of Madison, Wisconsin from 1967 to 1972. It has become available in a restored 40th anniversary DVD with supplemental material. Order from the filmmaker. Review in Isthmus

Three Seasons
This film made by Tony Bui in 1999 captures Viet Nam in transition, available with subtitles on youtube. My comment at the time: "This is the film which we should take our friends and relatives to who wonder about our obsession with Vietnam. It is one of the loveliest films I have seen and manages to balance realism with a romantic vision."
-- John McAuliff

Fire in the Heartland, documentary about Kent State made by alumnus Daniel Miller, description and preview here. A new 56 minute version was shown on PBS stations during May 2020, listed here.

The Year that Trembled, film that dramatizes the effect on young people of the draft and Kent State; made in 2002 by Jay Craven, based on the novel by Scott Lax; trailer and description here. Jay is a long time friend of VPCC and is offering DVDs to our network for $10. Contact him here.

Days of Possibilities by Rich Orloff, documentary-style play adapted from letters and interviews with students who attended Oberlin College in Ohio; explores the impact of the Vietnam War, from small and polite demonstrations in 1964 to the campus-wide response after Kent State. Presented on May 4 by five theaters in New York, Tennessee, Maryland, California and Massachusetts live-streaming their own free performances. Details here with links to performances.

Celebrating the Lives and Legacy of Phillip Gibbs and James Green, a documentary about the police shootings at Jackson State University here.

The Chicano Moratorium: Why 30,000 People Marched Through East LA in 1970, a short documentary about the killings at the Chicano Moratorium march here; more contemporary footage and detail in Chicano Moratorium: A Question of Freedom here; Requiem 29: The Chicano Moratorium is a documentary work print with powerful footage of the march and of the court inquest on the murder of LA Times columnist Ruben Salazar here

Sir! No Sir!, active duty GIs organizing against the war https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/sir-no-sir-the-suppressed-story-of-the-gi-movement-to-end-the-war-in-vietnam/


Videos


"Vietnam: The Power of Protest" The 2015 VPCC conference in Washington is the only first person broad assessment of the anti-war movement undertaken to date. Videos can be see here: The site also includes videos from the October 2017 conference in Washington, "From Protest to Resistance" on the 50th anniversary of the March on the Pentagon except for the first half which is on C-SPAN for session one here and session two here.
A 50 minute video based on interviews conducted at the 2015 conference was produced by Activist Video Archive. It and the complete interviews of 43 participants can be seen here

"Overcoming War Legacies: The Road to Reconciliation and Future Cooperation Between the United States and Vietnam", a remarkable March 26, 2019, conference at the US Institute of Peace featuring high level representatives of both countries' foreign and defense ministries and of the US Senate and NGOs; sessions available on-line. Especially notable is the eloquent luncheon speech here by Vietnam's Ambassador to the U.S. Ha Kim Ngoc about the path that took him from fleeing US bombs in Ha Noi as a child to Washington. (He was introduced by William Taylor, then Executive Vice President of USIP, before returning to Ukraine as ambassador and more recently providing historic testimony at the impeachment hearing.)

Voices of Conscience conference at Notre Dame University
in May 2018 examined the history and moral and political implications of opposition to war within the military during both the Vietnam and Iraq wars. This is the link to its YouTube channel. It contains full video of the opening day plenaries, the last day plenary and the film and literary events. This is the link to the Voices of Conscience Google Drive. It contains a Panel Audio folder with full recordings of all the May 23 workshops. The sessions are labeled according to time and the names of workshop moderators. Also on the Google Drive are other videos from the conference, a large collection of photos and documents with the conference schedule.

conference at George Washington University November 11 - 15, 2019
Conference panels available on C-SPAN are described and linked here VPCC panel "The Vietnam War Comes Home" with Clara Bingham, Dr. Mary (Munchen) Posner, Rev. Richard Fernandez, Robert Levering, Anne Gallivan, Martha Norman and John McAuliff can be seen here


Books

"Mayday 1971"
by Lawrence Roberts  The definitive account of how the largest civil disobedience action in US history was organized and took place and its consequences.

"The People Make the Peace"
edited by Karin Aguilar-San Juan and Frank Joyce, reflections by activists who traveled to Hanoi during the war and returned in 2013 (includes VPPC members Frank Joyce, Doug Hostetter and John McAuliff) More information and order here

Tom Hayden on Social Movements
consisting of four unpublished talks and an interview by Rolling Stone from 1972 – 1977. Available through Amazon on Kindle and paperback

Thank You for Your Service: Collected Poems by W.D. Ehrhart 
order directly from the publisher McFarland & Company

"Witness to the Revolution" by Clara Bingham 
An oral history of 1969-1970 includes interviews about the Moratorium and Mobilization with Sam Brown, David Hawk, David Mixner, Daniel Ellsberg, Seymour Hersh, Oliver Stone, Barry Romo, Wayne Smith and Bobby Muller. (Clara spoke on the VPCC panel in Washington November 13th.)

Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War) by Thomas Grace, Adjunct Professor of History, Erie Community College, wounded as a student at Kent State

Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College by Nancy K. Bristow, Professor of History, University of Puget Sound

"Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans who Opposed the War" 
Co-editors: Ron Carver, David Cortright and Barbara Doherty, New Village Press, distributed by NYU Press; Review in The Progressive

"The United States, Southeast Asia, and Historical Memory" 
Edited by Caroline Luft and Mark Pavlick, essays by antiwar activists and scholars. Fred Branfman describes the tragic lives of Laotian peasants under US bombing. Cambodia scholar Ben Kiernan and colleague Owen Taylor illuminate the course of Cambodia history after unprecedented US bombing. The book also includes classic works by Noam Chomsky, Nick Turse, and Edward Herman. Full description and order information here.

"Vietnam Reconsidered: The War, the Times, and Why They Matter"
 a new book by John Ketwig, author of "…and a hard rain fell" (now in its 27th printing over 34 years)

"Safe Return: A Vietnam Veteran’s Involvement in the 1970s Amnesty Movement" 
by Michael Uhl, available as an Amazon e-book

Burglar for Peace
by Ted Glick  "As we recount the several components of the anti-war movement, I am grateful to Ted Glick for capturing the vitality, strength, and courage of the Catholic Left in his just released book, "Burglar for Peace." Not only is it fascinating to revisit such a period of peak political discussion and activity, it is even more rewarding to appreciate the debates over civil disobedience, people over property, destruction of draft, FBI and corporate files and offices, fasts to death and life in jails. Though I was deeply involved in much the same way, those who weren't will learn important lessons then for movements today."
  -- Terry Provance

what's going on: A History of the Vietnam Era 
by Michael Hayes" A terrific book - tells the story of the Vietnam War, the protests, how it divided the country and some of its important issues. By also telling the story of the people caught up in the war and the movement against it, it is personally compelling and brings the lessons home."
  --Heather Booth



Articles


"The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement"
An eloquent call to reclaim our history and honor those who resisted the war, from a key architect of the opposition.
By Tom Hayden  The Nation  JANUARY 5, 2017


"The MLK Speech We Need Today Is Not the One We Remember Most",
an essay by Viet Thanh Nguyen in Time Magazine on the relevance of the Riverside Church sermon to the present. "King’s prophecy connects the war in Vietnam with our forever wars today, spread across multiple countries and continents, waged without end from global military bases numbering around 800. Some of the strategy for our forever war comes directly from lessons that the American military learned in Vietnam: drone strikes instead of mass bombing; volunteer soldiers instead of draftees; censorship of gruesome images from the battlefronts; and encouraging the reverence of soldiers.”

"Exceptional Victims" 
an essay by Christian Appy in the Boston Review linked to King's speech "The resistance to the Vietnam War was the most diverse and dynamic antiwar movement in U.S. history. We have all but forgotten it today."

The “Research Arm” of the Peace Movement: How Power Researchers Helped the Vietnam Antiwar Movement
an interview with Diana Roose about the NARMIC project of the American Friends Service Committee

Letter from Vietnam War Correspondents to Rory Kennedy
about her misleading film, "Last Days in Vietnam"; published in The Shipler Report

Vietnam After the War
Published by The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada with the assistance of historian Christopher Goscha. Available on line and as a PDF here

Racism, Yes, But What About Militarism and Materialism? Martin Luther King's giant triplets.
by Andrew Bacevich, Published on June 23, 2020 by TomDispatch
Professor of History and international Relations at Boston University, President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft read it here

Updated list of articles on Kent State and Jackson State
on the Webinar information page here


On the web


Swarthmore College Peace Collection
Sound Recordings, over 160 from the Vietnam war era available here
WIN Magazine issues on line, sound and visual recordings on line (about 250 items)
Exhibit of photographs from Dorothy Marder of Women Strike for Peace, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Dispatch News Service

"Soldiers for Peace"
is an audio documentary produced by American Public Media (APM) featuring first-person interviews and oral histories with Vietnam veterans transformed by the war. • Documents their decisions to organize and participate in their own antiwar movement • Highlights the numerous ways GIs and veterans protested the war, both in collaboration with the civilian antiwar movement and separately. To hear it, click here. For information, contact tyangchen@americanpublicmedia.org

Web site on Agent Orange, land mines, unexploded ordnance is here

Veterans for Peace
website Full Disclosure

"Reclaiming the Community One Bomb at a Time: The View From Indochina"
 text and photos by Ted Lieverman; The Asia-Pacific Journal




The Secret Burglary That Exposed J. Edgar Hoover's FBI" NPR report on "The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI" by Betty Medsger about the March 8, 1971, raid on the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, that exposed files about the bureau's surveillance of anti-war groups and civil rights organizations.


"Failure to Appear: Resistance, Identity and Loss" Memoir of her life underground by Emily L Quint Freeman a member of the Chicago 15 that in May 1969 broke into the the South Side draft board (Chicago) and burned 40,000 draft files.


Privileged Women in the Resistance: A Book Launch Discussion on "The Saigon Sisters", an August 20th discussion with author Patricia Norland and Professor Lien-Hang T. Nguyen at the Stimson Center


"Historical Memory of Southeast Asia in the United States" an October 28th discussion at the Stimson Center with Noam Chomsky, Elaine Russell, Channapha Khamvongsa, and Ngo Vinh Long


"Celebrating Twenty-five Years of Vietnam-US Relations" a zoom program organized on July 28th by Vietnam's Embassy to the US


"Passages of Rebellion" is a work of political fiction by Fran Shor set at the University of Minnesota. It follows the semi-autobiographical protagonist, Frank Goodman, in his antiwar and anti-draft activities during the turbulent years of 1967-1970. Register here for a zoom discussion at the East Side Freedom Library on December 12th at 1 p.m. CT


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Literature by Vietnamese and Americans

A bibliography compiled by Ernie Brill, click here


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Previous VPCC Newsletter links here

1 comment:

  1. Also on the web, "Protest Music of the Vietnam War" (http://peacehistory-usfp.org/protest-music-vietnam-war) and a comprehensive history of the Vietnam War and antiwar movement (http://peacehistory-usfp.org/vietnam-war).

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