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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dancis, Bruce.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dancis, Bruce.

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

Vietnam War, 1961-1975.

Draft resisters--United States--Biography.

Draft resisters.

Political prisoners--United States--Biography.

Political prisoners.

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

Physical Description:

1 online resource (380 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

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?.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780801470400

0801470404

9780801470417

0801470412

OCLC:

966869041