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The University of Illinois in the Cold War Era 1945-1975: October 15, 1969 Moratorium

October 15, 1969 Moratorium

Dormitory students urge support for the moratorium, October, 1969 (Photographic Subject File).

In 1969 calls for the U.S. to end its involvement continued to grow.  In September of 1969 the faculty senate at the University of Illinois approved a 30-minute moratorium of classes to encourage student-faculty discussions of the war, joining a national movement to have October 15 as a day for dialogue.  On October 14th, however, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences canceled all classes, and nine-thousand people marched to Westside Park in Champaign.  Five-thousand people also attended speeches from singer Eartha Kitt and politician William G. Clark at the Illini Union.



U of I Sources:

Graduate Student Association Subject Files, 1967-71 (RS 41/62/15)

Graduate School of Library and Information Science Special Issuances (RS 18/1/810):  Includes announcements on the moratorium and the war and an announcement to discuss the student strike of May, 1970.

LAS Dean’s Office, Robert Rogers, 1960-84 (RS 15/1/21): Includes information on the moratorium, campus disruptions, vandalism, and peace research.

Chancellor’s Office Subject File, 1967-75 (RS 24/1/1)

Campus Security Office Campus Unrest File, 1968-1972 (RS: 37/4/9)

Eric Lewis, “Role of the Student Rebel,” The Green Caldron (Fall, 1969) (RS: 15/7/811): Box 3

Student and Faculty Org. Constitutions & Registration Cards, (RS 41/2/41): Includes information on the “Committee to End the War in Vietnam” and the “Student Committee to End the War in Vietnam.”

Student Organization Publications, 1871-  (RS 41/6/840): Includes information on the “University of Illinois Committee to End the War in Vietnam” and the “Peace and Freedom Party.”

President David D. Henry General Correspondence, 1955-71 (RS: 2/12/1)

Photographic Subject File, 1868- (RS: 39/2/20): Includes photographs of student protests and demonstrations.

Chicago Tribune, “U. of I. Class Ban Ok’d as Viet Protest,” Sept. 30, 1969, p. B11.

Patrick D. Kennedy, “Reactions Against the Vietnam War and Military-Related Targets on Campus: The University of Illinois as a Case Study, 1965-72,” Illinois Historical Journal 84:2 (1991): 101-118.  Copy in U of I Library.

Bibliography:

Michael S. Foley, Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: 2003).

William A. Gordon, The Fourth of May: Killings and Coverups at Kent State (Buffalo: 1990).

Kenneth J. Heineman, Campus Wars: the Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era (New York: 1993).

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Peace Now!: American Society and the Ending of the Vietnam War (New Haven, 1999).

Patrick D. Kennedy, “Reactions Against the Vietnam War and Military-Related Targets on Campus: The University of Illinois as a Case Study, 1965-72,” Illinois Historical Journal 84:2 (1991): 101-118.

James Miller, “Democracy is in the Streets”: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (New York: 1987).

Michael Parenti, “Repression in Academia: A Report From the Field,” Politics and Society 1:4 (1971), 527-538.

Joel P. Rhodes, The Voice of Violence: Performative Violence as Protest in the Vietnam Era (Westport, CT: 2001).

Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?: American Protest Against the War in Vietnam, 1963-1975 (Garden City, N.Y.: 1984).