Whatever Happened to Radicalism? Voices from the George Vickers Papers
Antiwar and Social Justice Movements, 1958-1972
Materials linked to Vickers' early activism evoke two phases in the US antiwar movement: one focused on nuclear disarmament and the other opposing US military intervention in Southeast Asia.
![A flier reading "Hiroshima Day 1962" in large, bold letters, with a block of text above discussing the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima as the impetus for an anti-nuclear picketing event organized by the Chicago Area High School Student Peace Union.](https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/files/fullsize/346c5a4511bba5d86d389344eaf0fcf0.jpg "A flier reading "Hiroshima Day 1962" in large, bold letters, with a block of text above discussing the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima as the impetus for an anti-nuclear picketing event organized by the Chicago Area High School Student Peace Union.")
![Two pamphlets side by side. One features a design in two vertical segments: above is an illustration of a normative 1950s white middle class family holding hands near a tree under a sunny sky; below is an illustration of an atomic bomb with a skull inside, and text reading "that men may live! an alternative to atomic death." The second pamphlet, which reads "Student Peace Union," features a collage of photographs depicting protesters on city streets holding signs with messages opposing nuclear testing.](https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/files/fullsize/29f20808a177e742552c5413b7a340a0.jpg "Two pamphlets side by side. One features a design in two vertical segments: above is an illustration of a normative 1950s white middle class family holding hands near a tree under a sunny sky; below is an illustration of an atomic bomb with a skull inside, and text reading "that men may live! an alternative to atomic death." The second pamphlet, which reads "Student Peace Union," features a collage of photographs depicting protesters on city streets holding signs with messages opposing nuclear testing.")
These pieces of anti-nuclear ephemera capture the development of a countercultural peace movement in the Chicago area. In the late 1950s, a chapter of the American Friends Service Committee (a Quaker organization) began to hold anti-nuclear demonstrations throughout Chicago, distributing literature such as the pamphlet titled “that men may live!” The Student Peace Union, founded at the University of Chicago in 1959, helped spread this movement to other campuses and local high schools, as evidenced in the “Hiroshima Day” flier.
The pamphlet below evokes the more militant rhetoric and tactics adopted by opponents of US involvement in the Vietnam War. A year after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, during which police violently suppressed mass antiwar protests, the controversial Weathermen faction of Students for a Democratic Society planned a new series of protests in Chicago, known as the Days of Rage. These antiwar actions, including deliberate confrontations with police, also voiced opposition to the prosecution of organizers of the 1968 protests (the Chicago Seven).
![Antiwar pamphlet opened to show the cover and two inside pages. The cover reads "Bring the war home!" and includes a stylized image of a Southeast Asian combatant lifting an assault rifle overhead and shouting. Photographs included on other pages depict a figure in tactical gear scaling a fence and a group of protesters with raised fists.](https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/files/fullsize/9c5debdb7dc1eef2e35aa646a04586cd.jpg "Antiwar pamphlet opened to show the cover and two inside pages. The cover reads "Bring the war home!" and includes a stylized image of a Southeast Asian combatant lifting an assault rifle overhead and shouting. Photographs included on other pages depict a figure in tactical gear scaling a fence and a group of protesters with raised fists.")
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