Reflection on a Primary Document
In my history classes in high school I only learned about basic dates and events, teachers never told students the whole story. That is why historic events never fascinated me, I was given dates, what the name of the event was, and why it was important to U.S history. Now it is different, I don’t sit in class for an hour just listening to the teacher talk about the historic event and have the information go in through one ear and go out the other. My professors don’t simply talk the whole class time, they talk for a little and then give us time to do some research on our own. I find this more helpful because I’m not being told about it, I’m reading about it, researching the topic, or like this instance I watched a documentary. In the documentary, The Sixties: The Years That Shaped The Generation, was about all the historical events in the sixties. Not only was it filled with a lot of information but it also contained old videos of people talking about the events and pictures to go with it as well.
While watching the documentary the one things that caught my attention the most was Black Panthers. They were one of the few organizations that had attempted to organize and advance the interest of black communities. In the sixties, was the time where discrimination was a big factor in life. If you were of color many whites looked down upon you. Not many white people were aware that most of the US soldiers were african american. There were fewer whites in the US army because they would not join unless they were being forced too. Usually the African Americans were the ones being drafted.
Black Panthers Party were a manifestation of America’s growing frustration, Black communities were furious. The first city to start shootings was Watts in 1965, then it was New York, New Jersey on July 11, 1967 where the streets were being lit on fire, the following week there was nothing but chaos and destruction in Detroit. Its shocking how President Johnson didn’t do anything to stop it until the chaos in Detroit. Maybe if he would have acted sooner the fires in New Jersey wouldn’t have happened and neither would the chaos in Detroit. Johnson sent in nearly 5,000 federal troops but they had unloaded weapons and somehow 43 citizens died and 33 of them were African Americans. It is heartbreaking how many people died that night especially knowing that the troops went into Detroit with unloaded weapons.
America had a massive commitment to end racism but they feared that the Vietnam War would overshadow the war on poverty. Soon the war moved into Japan but most people believed that the war with Vietnam was to preserve independence of south vietnam. Only that wasn’t true, the U.S troops were sent to Vietnam to prevent the control of South Vietnam from North Vietnam by the communist. My personal opinion about the Vietnam war was that it was a waste of time and it was pointless. While I was reading the letters about the Vietnam war from actual citizens from 1971 it made me realize that the war in Vietnam. Over the years the Vietnam war was causing the United States more chaos than it already had.
In 1967 the anti-war movement focused on the draft. Most of the men being drafted were African Americans, instead of whites. The one black man that refused to be drafted in the war was Muhammad Ali. Since he didn’t want to go to the Vietnam war the US government threatened him with jail time to five years in prison and his bail was set to 10,000 dollars. Muhammad still refused to go to Vietnam so he got his world heavyweight championship in boxing when he got bailed out prison and got his passport revoked. Not only that but he was banned from boxing in the United States. In my opinion this is absurd because no one should have been forced to go to war especially since the war was pointless and it was already taking too long. Many citizens from the letter I read in class spoke about their loved ones that they have lost in the Vietnam war. Some bodies were never found and families still had hope that someday their bodies would be found.
