The Vietnam War and American Civil Rights Movement

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The Vietnam War and American Civil Rights Movement
The Vietnam War was a remarkable event in the modern world's history as it was a long, drawn-out war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam that was fought between 1955 and 1975. The most prominent feature of this war was the U.S. involvement, which raised severe social, diplomatic, and political problems for American society and created a social divide between various races in America. The U.S. involvement in the war badly affected the American Civil Rights Movement as controversies originated in the movement as its members had to take a side in this war. Since this movement championed Cold War liberalism, several members came forward to oppose the war. In this way, the social unrest at home directly affected military endeavors abroad. The following paragraphs provide substantial historical facts and evidence to validate that failure in the Vietnam war was considerably linked to the Civil Rights Movement.
America militarily supported its ally South Vietnam in its fight against North Vietnam, which had the support of communist Russia and China. Even before the beginning of the war, the emergence of McCarthyism in the national sphere and the propagation of the Red Fare significantly influenced American citizens' decisions about the Vietnam war (Lucks 4). Since McCarthyism entails levying charges of treason against anyone who opposed the national foreign policy, there was great apprehension and dilemma amongst the members of the Civil Rights Movement about the U.S. foreign policy well before the war. For the same reason, one scholar states that America's involvement in foreign activities that suppress the fundamental rights of man received disdain at home from the civil rights activists (Shapiro 1). Therefore, there was a simmering discontent amongst the champions of civil rights against the U.S government since its foreign policy contradicts the aims of the domestic movement for civil liberty.
Although the general American population was in a dilemma about their support of the war, minorities, especially African Americans, were reluctant. There were several reasons behind their attitude. First of all, these Americans had experienced a state-sponsored violation of their rights in social targeting, marginalization, and hatred. More specifically, the event that the befell black community during the late 1940s and early 1950s were fresh in their collective memories; consequently, these people were the proponents of peace and anti-colonialism (Lucks 4). So, this experience made them hesitant to put the approval stamp of this grave violation of civil rights on foreign land. Therefore, this hesitancy made the entire subject of the Vietnam War highly controversial, and the U.S. administration found it very difficult to gain national consensus over the issue.
Many of the African American leaders of the civil rights movement believed that the military adventure in North Vietnam could not be dealt with in isolation without considering racism and racial discrimination at home (Mack 108). Another crucial factor that made the Civil Rights Movement play a crucial role in this war was its anti-war doctrine. In this connection, the example of James L. Be...