1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910823451603321

Autore

Dancis Bruce

Titolo

Resister : a story of protest and prison during the Vietnam War / / Bruce Dancis

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca : , : Cornell University Press, , 2014

ISBN

0-8014-7040-4

0-8014-7041-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (380 p.)

Disciplina

959.704/38

Soggetti

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 - Draft resisters - United States

Draft resisters - United States

Political prisoners - United States

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 - Protest movements - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Boy from the Bronx -- Socialism in two summer communities -- First year at Cornell : runs, pledges and sit-ins -- Tenant organizing in East Harlem -- From protest to resistance -- Draft cards are for burning -- The summer of love and disobedience -- The resistance -- SDS, South Africa and the security index -- From resistance to revolution -- Trials and tribulations -- Rebellion and factionalism in black and white -- Brinksmanship, or, Cornell on the brink -- Safety and survival in my new Kentucky home -- A typical day in prison, and a few that weren't -- Politics in prison, or, Keeping up with the outside world -- Getting out -- Did we end the war? did draft resistance matter?.

Sommario/riassunto

Bruce Dancis arrived at Cornell University in 1965 as a youth who was no stranger to political action. He grew up in a radical household and took part in the 1963 March on Washington as a fifteen-year-old. He became the first student at Cornell to defy the draft by tearing up his draft card and soon became a leader of the draft resistance movement. He also turned down a student deferment and refused induction into the armed services. He was the principal organizer of the first mass draft card burning during the Vietnam War, an activist in the Resistance (a nationwide organization against the draft), and a cofounder and



president of the Cornell chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. Dancis spent nineteen months in federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky, for his actions against the draft.In Resister, Dancis not only gives readers an insider's account of the antiwar and student protest movements of the sixties but also provides a rare look at the prison experiences of Vietnam-era draft resisters. Intertwining memory, reflection, and history, Dancis offers an engaging firsthand account of some of the era's most iconic events, including the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Abbie Hoffman-led "hippie invasion" of the New York Stock Exchange, the antiwar confrontation at the Pentagon in 1967, and the dangerous controversy that erupted at Cornell in 1969 involving African American students, their SDS allies, and the administration and faculty. Along the way, Dancis also explores the relationship between the topical folk and rock music of the era and the political and cultural rebels who sought to change American society.