Power of the First Amendment:

Power of the First Amendment:

Vietnam War Protests

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is powerful and nothing demonstrates this power better than seeing the first amendment in use. One of the greatest examples of the power that can be wielded from freedom of speech is the protests of the Vietnam War. While the war was taking place in a country that was unknown to most Americans before the war, the attention it garnered changed how society looks at wars and protests in general. Without the student unrest against the war, many individuals might not have known much about the war and therefore never cared to know anything about it. As a result of the attention garnered by the protests, an American consciousness was awakened and it illustrated the power of an opinion.

One of the primary reasons that students became active in protests against the war is the fact that their lives were directly shaped by it. Teach ins at colleges sparked a growing concern for soldiers that were dying in a war that many knew very little about. The word about teach ins spread around colleges across the country. Student frustration grew and one way to vent frustration as well as opposition to the war emerged in protests. One of the most popular incidents occurred at Kent State in Ohio when students would not stop their protests. The National Guard fired into a crowd of students, hoping to break up the protest. Instead, they inadvertently killed three students. As the news of what had happened moved across the country, more protests became violent and more deaths occurred. Protesters even marched on Washington expressing anger at the country's involvement in the war. All of these protests and the news of them represented the outrage of a small part of the American public, namely students who wanted to know why American was involved in the war since they were the ones being shipped off to fight there. Their protests alerted the rest of the country to their concerns. Chester Cooper writes that our experience in Vietnam "created greater tension in American society than any other event since the Civil War" (Cooper 537). As a result of the protests, the Vietnam War became a household word.

Student protests were incredible in generating awareness of an issue. The government realized that the more attention these protests garnered, the more something in Vietnam needed to be done. Tina Gianoulis writes, "there is no doubt that the idealistic energy of the youth of that period did change history" (Gianoulis). She states that Nixon experienced anxiety over the protests as well as the escalating violence in Vietnam. The student protests were not only raising awareness of Americans across the country, they were raising awareness of the current administration, which knew it could not hide from its responsibility. Approval of the war dropped and the war even became a campaign issue. In short, discussing the war and addressing issues could not be avoided because of the protests of a few students.