the notion of a “democracy of individual participation, governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those … decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation.”92
From its inception, the AUP was designed as a multi-issue organizing project that would attract support from the peace and civil rights movements, as well as from assorted radical, new left, anti-poverty, and reformist groups. The AUP’s official call stated that it intended to bring together opponents of the Cold War, civil rights activists, and those who were opposed to “inquisition by Congressional committees, inequities in labor legislation, the mishandling of anti-poverty and welfare funds, and the absence of democratic process on the local level.”93 In July several SNCC field secretaries, including Bob Moses and Courtland Cox, had argued that it was necessary for SNCC people to address themselves to the “broader implications” of their work in the South, “such as in relation to foreign policy.” They went on to explain that the idea for the AUP had come out of a number of “exploratory meetings” involving civil rights, peace, church, community groups, and interested individuals.
SNCC was hoping to build support for the MFDP congressional challenge, but recognized that “a large amount of activity” during the summer would be “concerned with protesting the war in Vietnam.” SNCC wanted to channel some of that energy into support for the Freedom Democrats, but acknowledged that peace activists would be more likely to support the challenge if they were convinced that it would “foster a growing concern among civil rights people about the question of peace.” The SNCC activists pointed out that “people active in various protest movements in the country have always talked from time to time about the need for communication between movements … sharing ideas … manpower, and generally strengthening each other,” and they viewed the summer as an “opportunity to begin the long-awaited dialogue between activists in various political struggles.”94
The link between the civil rights and antiwar movements was made explicit by the AUP—“in Mississippi and Washington the few make the decisions for the many. Mississippi Negroes are denied the vote; the voice of the thirty per cent of Americans now opposed to the undeclared war in Vietnam is not heeded and all Americans are denied access to facts concerning the true military and political situation.”95 This argument was echoed in the fall by Ray Robinson, Jr., an African American antiwar activist and former Golden Gloves boxer. Robinson declared that “the same people who won’t let the people of Vietnam decide what’s best for them are the same people that won’t let the Negroes of the South decide who should represent them.”96 The AUP’s program included demonstrations against the war and workshops designed to facilitate dialogue between people active in various “progressive” movements. Approximately 2,000 people attended the AUP, and on August 6 the twentieth anniversary of Hiroshima was marked with a silent vigil outside the White House. Three days later, on the anniversary of Nagasaki, the AUP concluded its activities with an antiwar march of 800 people from the Washington Monument to the Capitol.97 A total of about 350 activists were arrested for engaging in acts of civil disobedience over the weekend.98
Despite the involvement of civil rights figures such as Moses and Cox at the leadership level of the AUP, most SNCC workers were less interested in antiwar protest, preferring to focus their attentions on organizing around civil rights in the black community. Only a handful of southern civil rights workers were actively involved in the AUP, and black movement activists were a “distinct minority” at the Assembly.99 The NAACP, anxious to dissociate the civil rights movement from Vietnam dissent, had attacked the AUP as an attempt to hoodwink civil rights groups into supporting protests against U.S. policy in Vietnam. Roy Wilkins accepted that the AUP’s official call mentioned civil rights, but he argued that the “main emphasis” was on Vietnam, and that “Mississippi” was just a “come-on word”. The NAACP executive director thus warned Branch and Youth Council presidents against becoming involved in the AUP.100
Although Wilkins was being unfair in claiming that the AUP was designed to co-opt the civil rights movement, its goal of generating productive dialogue between various progressive movements remained largely unfulfilled. In part this was because so few civil rights people attended—there was a “busload from Mississippi, two delegates from New Orleans, small groups from other Southern communities, and a few staff members of civil rights organizations,” but that was all. A second reason was that for many of the participants Vietnam was the overriding issue, and many peace activists were prepared to sacrifice the success of the workshops in order to protest against the war. As Anne Braden explained, for opponents of the war, “sitting down in the gates of the White House seemed more urgent” than trying to build constructive working relationships with various groups around a broad range of issues. Consequently, there was a tendency for peace and civil rights activists to meet separately. However, on the occasions when they did get together, there were problems with “intellectuals using big words and dominating conversations.” Only once during the weekend, at the “community people’s workshop,” was productive cooperation achieved—and this was because the people from Mississippi talked and requested that the “intellectuals” just listen.101
Jack Newfield’s report on the AUP was even less positive than Braden’s—he claimed that “all the contradictions and polarities within the new radical movement crystallized during the four picnic-like days of the assembly.” Newfield described an incestuous gathering of movement people that seethed with tensions. There were tensions between black and white, between radical and moderate, and between those who wanted to bear religious witness against Vietnam and those who wished to organize a radical political movement that focused on the war.102
Newfield documented one clash that offers an interesting insight into the tension that existed between the civil rights and peace activists. On the final morning of the Assembly, Clint Hopson, the black activist from McComb whose anti-draft work had recently landed the MFDP in hot water, read a statement urging Mississippi blacks to refuse to register for the draft. He also accused the MFDP of employing “expediency” in its refusal to support the call for draft resistance. Bob Moses, angered by the enthusiastic response of the 800-strong, mostly white crowd, took the floor. He defended the party and criticized what one might term the rhetorical radicalism of many of the delegates. Moses explained that he had “watched MFDP people risk their lives and I’ve heard you folks debate for the last three days about going to jail for a few hours…. Mississippi people have paid a terrible price and I don’t see anybody here doing that. You people should be supporting the Congressional challenge, not attacking the MFDP.”
In many ways the AUP augured the shape of things to come regarding attempts to bring about closer cooperation between the peace and freedom movements. Arguments about emphasis and multi-issuism, the cultural and “intellectual” barriers between white student antiwar activists and black civil rights workers, and interracial tensions would, throughout the decade, plague efforts to build a broad, radical, multiracial, multi-issue antiwar coalition.
The fissures within the antiwar coalition over race, multi-issuism, and exclusionism and the tensions between radicals and liberals came to the fore once again during antiwar activities in the nation’s capital over the 1965 Thanksgiving holiday. Two important events coincided—the first national convention of the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC) which had been founded at the AUP, and a National Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy (SANE)-sponsored peace march.
Sanford Gottlieb, coordinator of the SANE march, had announced that one of his objectives was to keep “kooks, communists or draft-dodgers” out of the demonstration in an attempt to appeal to moderates.103 But despite SANE’s policy of rejecting civil disobedience and discouraging communist support, radicals were not completely alienated from proceedings. Although signs calling for immediate withdrawal were strongly discouraged, for example, they were not banned, and the radicals’ commitment to inclusiveness obliged them to give at least grudging support.104
