Civilian Support for GI Resistance
View the webinar recording here
GIs for Peace and the Antiwar Movement - Join us for two programs that explore the support of the wider antiwar movement for active-duty service members who opposed the Vietnam War. Thursday Nov 9th, 6pm, EST
This program offers a different twist to Armistice Day commemorations by recalling the tens of thousands of service members who opposed war and militarism during the Vietnam War and the civilians who helped them.
• David Cortright, Moderator Vietnam era GI activist, scholar, author of Soldiers in Revolt and co-editor of Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War.
• J.J. Johnson, a member of the Ft. Hood Three who refused orders for Vietnam in 1966 in one of the earliest acts of collective GI resistance to the war
• Susan Schnall, Navy nurse who was court-martialed for helping to organize an antiwar march of soldiers and civilians in San Francisco in 1968, currently President of Veterans Fo Peace
• John Kent, a former Navy fighter pilot who turned in his wings rather than fly combat missions in Vietnam and helped to organize the Concerned Officers Movement
• Kathy Gilberd, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force, a specialist on GI rights who was active in the antiwar movement and helped to provide legal aid for GI organizing
• Paul Lauter, former Chicago Region Peace Education Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee and executive director of the U.S. Servicemen’s Fund, which provided support for GI coffeehouses, underground newspapers, and organizing projects
Films of the GI Antiwar Resistance: Wednesday, November 29, 8 p.m., EST
A panel of filmmakers discussing their role in producing films on the scale and impact of the GI movement, the role of artists in supporting antiwar soldiers, and honoring helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson who tried to halt the killing and rescue civilians in the midst of the My Lai massacre.
• Paul Lauter, moderator, former President American Studies Association
• Jane Fonda, producer/performer of FTA (1972)
• Holly Near, musical artist and performer for FTA
• David Zeiger, director of Sir! No Sir! (2005)
• Connie Field, director of The Whistleblower of My Lai (2018)
Paul Lauter:
Radical Teacher, Issue #126,
Teaching (About) Socialism
This issue of Radical Teacher provides a variety of examples of how educators, in and out of classrooms, approach teaching the Great American Bugaboo: Socialism. Given the healthy increase of Americans drawn to socialism, this issue addresses none of the prohibitions and many of the possibilities inherent in this long-marginalized enterprise.
Paul Lauter’s 90th Birthday Zoom
Pictured: Thich Nhat Hanh meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Junior and Paul Lauter, at AFSC Chicago,
Summer 1966
A Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee Webinar
on Afghanistan and Vietnam (and Cambodia)
Monday, September 13, 5 p.m.
Register by clicking here
What Happens When the Illusions End? Link to Speaker Bio’s here
Speakers: H. Bruce Franklin, Doug Hostetter, Laura Jedeed, Ben Kiernan, Suraya Sadeed
Moderator Paul Lauter is A. K. and G. M. Smith Professor of Literature Emeritus at Trinity College. He is the author, most recently, of Our Sixties: An Activist’s History. Lauter served as president of the American Studies Association (USA) and has spoken and consulted at universities in almost every state and in 25 countries. Earlier in his career, he worked for the American Friends Service Committee, ran a community school in Washington, DC, helped found The Feminist Press, directed the US Servicemen’s Fund, and was active in a variety of Movement organizations.
Virtual - 1960’s Activism, Archives and the Now:
A Talk by Paul Lauter
April 20, 2021, 5:00PM - 6:15PM EDT VIRTUAL, LECTURE
In his new book, Paul Lauter, Allan K. and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of Literature, Emeritus, recounts his experiences in the tumultuous 1960’s as an activist involved in the many movements to fight against war and for social, racial and gender equality. It was a transformational decade which echoes in today’s social justice activities and political turmoil.
Dr. Lauter has donated his personal archive to the Watkinson Library and has also facilitated donation of the RESIST organization’s entire archive. RESIST, with Dr. Lauter as a founding member, was initially formed to encourage resistance to the Vietnam War draft but grew to encompass other progressive movements. The Watkinson and Trinity College Library have collaborated to digitize a portion of these materials. As a result, Dr. Lauter’s academic and social works are reflected in both the print and digital collections.
Virtual Author Talk
w/ Paul Lauter @ the Farmington Public Libraries
Date: Thursday, February 18th
Time: 6:30 - 7:30 pm
Location: Virtually, on Zoom
Event Details:
Join Professor Emeritus Paul Lauter as he discusses his new book, Our Sixties: An Activist's History.
In Our Sixties, Lauter uses his wide-ranging experience as an activist and writer to examine the values, exploits, victories, implications, and sometimes the failings, of the sixties "Movement". He writes about a range of movement activities - 1964 Mississippi freedom schools; Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); the Morgan community school in Washington, DC, (which he headed); a variety of antiwar, antidraft actions; the New University Conference, a radical group of faculty and graduate students; The Feminist Press (which he helped found); and the United States Servicemen's Fund, an organization supporting antiwar GIs - all from the perspective of a full time participant. Lauter got fired, got busted, got published, and even got tenure. He gives the details in his book.
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE 1960S - LEARNING FROM BLACK LIVES MATTER
A lecture with Paul Lauter @ the Uniondale Public Library
Date: Thursday, January 14th
Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Virtually, on Zoom
Zoom Meeting Link / Meeting ID: 934 5818 5644 / Passcode: 528816
This is a dramatic moment in America: a time of seemingly unprecedented conflict about the nation's character, values and future. A half century ago, as Paul Lauter reports in Our Sixties, the Civil Rights movement and the anti-War Movement challenged the Establishment to expand notions of justice and opportunity. Mr. Lauter, a retired Allan K. and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of Literature, will discuss his efforts during the 1960s on behalf of racial justice along with the anti-war movement, experiments in educational change, and the Women's Movement. These undertakings to expand justice and opportunity, he will argue, live on today in Black Lives Matter, Climate Change activism, and Medicare for all - - among many such progressive endeavors.
Paul Lauter @ the Neilly Author Series
Date: Tuesday, November 10th
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Virtually, on Zoom
Register Here
Paul Lauter was incredibly active throughout the movements for social change during the 1960s. The ways in which he participated are extensive. In his new book, Our Sixties—An Activist’s History, Lauter examines the values, the exploits, the victories, the implications, and sometimes the failings, of that conflicted time.
Paul Lauter is the A. K. & G. M. Smith Professor of Literature Emeritus at Trinity College (Hartford). He was president of the American Studies Association and has won many awards, including, most recently, the Modern Language Association's Francis March Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession of English Studies and the Working-Class Studies Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.