In mid-1960s’ America, a majority supported President Johnson and his policies in Vietnam. Opposition to the war had been growing . . . slowly . . . and by 1967, reached a tipping point following large antiwar protest marches in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC and elsewhere. All of the photographs in this essay were taken at a protest march that took place in New York City on April 15, 1967.

The antiwar protesters, estimated to number 400,000, converged in Central Park and organized within interest groups. In orderly fashion, the groups moved east along Central Park South (59th St.), down Fifth Avenue, and then headed east piecemeal (as rain began to fall) where approximately 100,000 gathered in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the UN, to rally and hear Martin Luther King, Jr. speak.

“100,000 Rally at U.N. Against Vietnam War; Many Draft Cards Burned --Eggs Tossed at Parade,” New York Times, Apr 16, 1967.

Who at that protest march would have imagined -- or anyone in the world, for that matter -- that in less than a year’s time, the incumbent American president would quit his bid for reelection?

“The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.” -- Lyndon B. Johnson

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” -- Dwight D. Eisenhower