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Abstract

This dissertation analyses the ways in which the African-American community reacted to the Vietnam War in the years between 1964-1969. Drawing from a wealth of primary sources and secondary literature, this examination will consider how the Civil Rights Movement entangled itself with the Vietnam debate, and why African-American understanding of the conflict differed so considerably. By analysing the relationship between African-Americans and the Vietnam War at the height of U.S. military intervention, this dissertation reveals the way in which American Cold War foreign policy, typified by the Vietnam, divided both the African-American community and the Civil Rights Movement.

This study argues that although the desegregated nature of the United States Armed Forces encouraged African-American support in the early years of the war, and was championed by black moderate organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the majority of African-Americans condemned it for taking valuable resources from President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ programmes and for its disproportionate impact on the black community. The influence of Martin Luther King and Black Power organisations, such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party, challenged the assumptions of the NAACP and provided an environment to which a critical black consciousness could develop. As a result, the conflict would come to represent an oppressive, economically wasteful, and imperialistic venture which only benefited a select few of American society. By challenging the Vietnam War, African -Americans confronted the institutions and ideals that kept their community from achieving equality. It is in this respect that the Vietnam War played an instrumental role in reshaping the African-American mindset and forced the Civil Rights Movement towards a new, socio-economic direction.

Course: History - BA (Hons) - C1087

Date Deposited: 2022-12-08

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14085.html