Oakland Draft Protests

In October, 1967, protestors seeking to end the war in Vietnam, blocked conscription centers across the United States, but most notably in Oakland, California. Protesters blocked the streets, and built barricades to block buses from carrying recruits to the conscription center. Police used clubs and chemical sprays to repel the demonstration. The event was the largest anti-war rally to date, as part of the "Stop the Draft Week."

By 1967, the Vietnam War had become increasingly unpopular, in large part because of the system of involuntary conscription which required men to enter a lottery in which they might be chosen to serve, regardless of will or desire. The Bay Area of California was a hotbed of anti-war activism since the 1964, when the Free Speech Movement at the University of California Berkeley began uniting issues of civil rights with opposition to American foreign policy. In 1967, the National Mobilization Committee announced Stop the Draft Week for mid-October, and across the country protestors urged draftees to turn in their draft cards and burn them in public. Hundreds of protestors were arrested in the mass action, including Joan Baez in Oakland, and Norman Mailer in Washington, D.C.. The Oakland protests were among the most chaotic. After 250 demonstrators blocked access to the Oakland conscription center on October 16, resulting in the arrest of over 40 people, including Baez, 4000 demonstrators showed up on October 20, and engaged in skirmishes with police and overturned and set fire to cars.