History Vault

Students for a Democratic Society, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the anti-Vietnam War Movement (Module 38)

Key collections offer new opportunities for research on the 1960s through the lens of two influential anti-war organizations. In its heyday, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) emphasized participatory democracy, community building, and creating a political movement of impoverished people. As U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated, SDS became involved in the anti-war movement, before splintering and disbanding by 1970. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) organized major national protests, including Operation Dewey Canyon III (1971), which catapulted VVAW to a position of leadership within the antiwar movement. Following Dewey Canyon, an ideological split led to a decline in membership; however, VVAW survived to the end of the Vietnam War by focusing on veterans' benefits and, after 1987, on the Agent Orange health issue. In addition to the SDS and VVAW collections, this module contains documents of 10 other anti-Vietnam War organizations.