Protesting Vietnam in Iowa 1966

In the beginning, there were about 10 of us- friends- against the War in Vietnam. We lived in a town of 12,000 people who were pro-war. According to them, they were true blue "patriots" for supporting the USA's "my country right or wrong," approach. They were Americans; we were dirty communists. They seethed with righteousness; we were long-haired drug addicted pothead traitors and bums.

It was rural Iowa. And the year was 1966.

My friends and I used to stage demonstrations. We'd stand out on streets with flimsy signs reading "PEACE NOW" or "END THE WAR" or "USA OUT OF VIETNAM" and pro-war types would drive by screaming at us and cursing. Usually, they'd throw bars of soap; sometimes they threw rocks.

What I remember clearly was the difference in our faces. Beyond superficial issues of race, or gender, or attractiveness, there was a distinct look to peace protestors. Whether or not it was the effect of smoking grass, taking acid, listening to the Beatles (before "Sargent Pepper") and Bob Dylan and really getting what they were singing about, we were in tune with what was happening in far-distant San Francisco. Few had been to the Haight Ashbury but we certainly knew about it. And, it showed.

Our eyes were getting softer, our voices more gentle, our views  of women's equality were evolving. The Civil Rights crusade made complete sense to us. It connected to the issue of Vietnam. Even if we were still freaked out by growing up in a nation chilled by McCarthyism and were still reeling from the shock of the Kennedy assassination two and a half years earlier, we sensed that something huge was happening. And we were part of it.

By contrast, people who supported the war looked angry to us. Their eyes looked flinty. Their attitudes about race, sexual equality, peace and social justice were poles apart from what we believed. Some of it was caused by fear, doubt about what was happening or who they'd become if they started looking too hard or questioning too deeply. And so they clung to the dogmas they'd been spoon-fed; to the belief that it was suspicious to criticize the President; that all drugs were bad; that there was nothing going wrong with America and that the USA was the best country in the world and that our future success was assured... as long as we kept out eyes on the future and didn't question or criticize what was happening in Vietnam. Or in urban ghettos.

But slowly things began changing. You could see it as people started taking a toke on a joint; as hair got longer; as more people started the process of questioning if there might be something illogical about that "my country right or wrong" theory.

By 1968, its original founders had held a mock funeral in San Francisco to bury the hippie movement in Haight Ashbury. But the ideology had spread like prairie fire. Now the ranks of anti-war protestors weren't confined to "dropouts and weirdos." Parents were coming out to stand with "peaceniks;" women weren't afraid to seek divorce; whites were responding to Dr. King's call for racial justice. And the infrastructure of a patriarchy- the White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant hammerlock- was cracking and starting to disintegrate.

My friends and I saw it happen. We were there. We felt it. Jeers and taunts came less frequently. Fewer bars of soap and rocks were hurled at us. There were fewer screams and insults. Slowly, subtly, gay and lesbian and bisexual people were confiding to their friends- a bit anxiously and fearful of rejection but surprised by tolerance and understanding in most cases. Of course, families being families, reactions differed. But we were discovering a tribe of consciousness. And we saw it congeal and change the country. It happened step by step, person by person.

What we wanted was simple: peace on earth, good will for all. Social equality on all levels and an end to the war in Vietnam were just first steps. But we had committed to it and, slowly, we saw the movement congeal and manifest and gather steam. It was transformative and beautiful.

In ensuing years, there were great symbols such as the gathering at Woodstock and the falling away after the debacle of Ford pardoning Nixon after Watergate. From there on, what had been a crusade of social-political-spiritual consciousness confronted a new challenge as many in "the Me Generation" reverted to a pre-protest mindset; they bought into materialism and opted for safety. After all, the war was over. Whites weren't being drafted to go risk being killed. And so there was an ebbing away....

But not with everyone. Fortunately, there's no containing the winds of freedom. The spirit of liberty wasn't confined to protests to end segregation or stop the slaughter in Southeast Asia. It spread into other areas and went on and on. I was fortunate to be part of it. Even so, looking back across my life, I still recall standing out on lonely streets in Iowa with my friends- cardboard signs in hand- and dodging rocks hurled by people positive of the righteousness in bombing Vietnam into the stone age.