Cherry blossoms at the Jefferson Memorial, 1971

In July of 1971 eleven million new voters became eligible to cast ballots in the US. Youth Suffrage was one of the more durable responses to a half year of intense anti-war protests starting in late 1969. Amid the calls to leave Vietnam, protesters who were old enough to be drafted insisted that they were old enough to vote.

The demonstrations did not immediately impact the war, but most politicians saw wisdom in lowering the voting age - sort of a consolation prize for the demonstrators.

In April of 1970, Congress passed a law extending the right to vote to 18 year olds, but eight months later the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution did not allow Congress to set the voting age in states. So Congress quickly passed a constitutional amendment, which was ratified in record time and became law in July, 1971. And just like that, there were eleven million newly enfranchised voters, just in time for the fall presidential election.

We lived in a Maryland suburb of Washington DC at the time, so Tom documented the demonstrations and protests.

War Moratorium March – November 15, 1969

Over 500,000 protesters overwhelmed Washington DC – similar to crowd that listened to Martin Luther King during the August 28, 1963 March On Washington.

War Moratorium March on Washington, November 15, 1969

University of Maryland Cambodia Demonstration – May 4, 1970

On May 4, 1970, four students were killed at Kent State University while protesting the expansion of the Vietnam war to Cambodia. That same day, students at the University of Maryland held their fourth day of protests, occupying the administration building and blocking Route 1, a main artery next to campus. Just as the governor of Ohio had earlier in the day, the governor of Maryland called out the National Guard to clear the campus. As a graduate student at the University of Maryland, I was on campus at the time, and Tom had joined me to photograph events as they unfolded.

University of Maryland Cambodia Demonstration - May 4, 1970

I was waiting for Tom in the car with our two month old when the radio broadcast that campus was closed and everyone should leave immediately. The next thing I knew, National Guard vehicles were pulling into my small parking lot and one of the soldiers recommended that I leave immediately. Reluctant to leave Tom behind, I drove slowly out of the lot and made sure to get stopped by the traffic signal where I would turn away from campus. As I waited, I saw Tom running toward us, so I pulled up after the turn. Tom knew there was a bit of teargas on his clothes, so he threw his jacket into the trunk and jumped in the back seat, as far away from the baby as he could get. We opened all the windows and quickly drove away, leaving the teargas behind.

March on Washington – May 10, 1970

The following weekend, 100,000 people marched to the capital in Washington DC to protest the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State shootings, including my sister Jane and her boyfriend. Tom took them to the event and captured more amazing photographs.

March on Washington - May 10, 1970

How did these Protests get Organized?

There was no Internet in 1970. There were no mobile phones, no personal computers, no word processors. Xerox copying machines were large and inaccessible; long distance calls were too expensive for students. So how did the anti-war demonstrations get organized?

Advertising an alternative event, Marquette Student Union, 1966

Every campus in the US had ways for students to communicate with each other - from setting up a table in the student center to staging an eye-catching demonstration, it was easy to broadcast messages. Cheap mimeograph machines were widely available and used to crank out copies of typed sheets and drawings. Every cause had a student activist group which joined with similar groups on other campuses to spread information around the country.

Editor-in-Chief, Gloria Babler checks Marquette Tribune printing press, 1965

Student newspapers were another source of communication. Tom was a photographer for the student newspaper at Marquette University, which documented campus activities from sports rallies to controversial speakers to marches and demonstrations. It was a ten page paper, written and edited entirely by students, and printed on a printing press every Wednesday and Friday throughout the school year.

Notice that most of the people in the pictures above are young. There's a good chance their parents suffered through a war 25 years earlier and gave it their full support. Watching their children criticize the Vietnam war was one of many contributors to the generation gap between boomers and their parents.