Why Did African Americans Enter Vietnam Dbq

Many people in the 1960s and early 1970s did not understand why the United States was involved in the Vietnam War. Therefore, they had no desire to be a part of it. The Selective Service System, which was used to conduct the draft, had aspirations of directing people into areas where they were most needed during wartime. However, people took advantage of the draft system’s deferment policies to avoid going to war. Others refused induction or simply did not register. There were also people who left the country to escape the draft. The Vietnam War proved to be an event that many Americans did not agree with, and as a result, citizens took action to elude the draft entirely or to beat the draft system.

On the 19th of December 1946, The Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh leadership launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. The first few years of the war were a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the Northern border of Vietnam in 1949 the conflict became a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons. These were supplied by the Chinese communist and Russian communist.

The French were highly involved with Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) due to the abundant harvesting riches that were favorable with their own economy. Historically, Vietnam first established the communist party through the influence of China after their conversion into a Communist country in 1949. Ho Chi Min, a nationalist leader, had

During the Vietnam War, Americans were selected for military service by a government agency called the selective service. Those young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty six were forced into an involuntary process called the draft. Protesting against conscription or “the Draft” had always been a part of wartime America. Though for many citizens the Vietnam War would be the drawing line. Mentioned in What’s Your Number? an article written by Historynet, the first drawing of numbers using a draft lottery system to select who would and would and would not be drafted for the Vietnam War took place on December 1, 1969 (Historynet 2009). This marks the beginning of turmoil and uncertainty for those men born between the years 1944 and 1950

North Vietnam had its southern allies known as the Viet Cong: a network of communist agents and subversives supplied and controlled by North Vietnam that began with the Geneva Accords of 1954. After the Viet Minh party rose to power in North Vietnam with leader Ho Chi Minh, who formed the Viet Minh party to fight Japan after they invaded and occupied Vietnam during World War II and to fight the French colonial administration since they had been controlling Vietnam since the late 19th century. The Viet Minh forces quickly seized control of the northern city of Hanoi and declared Ho Chi Minh president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. France, in attempt to

The two sides of the Anti-war movement in the U.S that had a major influence in bringing troops from Vietnam, were the civilian population and the G.I soldiers. Together, along with various movements such as the student movement, black movement, and working class movement mobilized to bring awareness of the truth happening in the Vietnam War abroad. The reason these groups lead social actions such as the student movement and the GI movement was due to the direct effects the war was bringing upon them. With so many soldiers coming home in coffins, the military was forced to open drafting to people as young as 19 years old. These teenagers were not even allowed to drink alcohol legally nor vote but yet were fighting a war abroad. Resentment and anti-war sentiments began to increase among students since education funds were being spent on funding the killings of many in Vietnam. They were a minority of students, artists and activists who did not sympathize with the killings, the drafting, or the values the American government was trying to impose. As a movement, they burned draft cards in college campuses, burned ROTC buildings, and organized walkouts, protests and distributed the truth through newspapers and media. In 1970, there was a height of protest on campus, they slowly realized that 41% of all drafted were black, 80% were high school dropouts and 37 % were being sent to direct combat due to their low

In 1967, 64 percent of all eligible African-Americans were drafted versus only 31 percent of eligible whites (Black 2009). This fact testifies to only a small portion of why nearly all African-Americans found themselves protesting against the Vietnam War. The lack of civil rights in the U.S deterred many blacks from supporting Vietnam, a conflict aimed at liberating the rights of another people. African Americans were frustrated with a country who fought for other citizens and saw no purpose in fighting for a peoples’ freedom but their own. Although African-Americans were specifically discriminated against both in Vietnam and America, they were not alone in their anti-war position. The majority of the American public opposed the Vietnam War. As the war dragged on, people found no reason to fight in Vietnam and believed that the United States should prioritize their own citizens first. Many public figures, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali, held similar claims. Their opinions aligned with the public’s concern and suggested that the U.S withdraw troops and focus resources on the civil rights issues at home. These public figures fought for a specific minority, but, in light of the entire American population, the majority of people opposed the war.

The conquest of Vietnam began in 1858 and ended in 1884. Vietnam was part of Indochina in 1887 but gained their independence after World War II. France continued to rule it until 1954 when it was defeated by communist forces under Ho Chi MINH. From that point forward under the Geneva Accords, they were divided into the communist north, and the anti-communist south. US aid grew in the south in the 1960’s to try and boost the government, but they were pulled out following a cease-fire agreement in 1973. Two years later the North Vietnamese forces took over, reuniting the country under communist rule (CIA, 2014).

When Nazi Germany invaded and conquered France in 1940, the puppet Vichy French government was established. The vichy French government signed a peace treaty with the Japanese later that year in 1940, giving Japan control over Vietnam. Japan had been fighting an aggressive land war against the Chinese. Japan was looking to exercise its own ambitions of an empire as they tried to conquer all of South East Asia. Vietnam was a strategic part in Japan’s ambitions to open up a new southern front against the Chinese. The Vietnamese who were not pleased about their previous Chinese and French invaders, were not in any way gracious with the arrival of Japanese soldiers. Thus nationalist like Ho Chi Minh now found a new enemy in the Japanese. This is an important turning point in Vietnamese history. Now that Vietnamese nationalists are resisting Japanese occupation, a relationship with the United States begins. By 1945 the Japanese had ousted the Vichy government, and now maintained complete control over Vietnam by instituting a puppet Empower, Bao Dai. American support is established and Ho Chi Minh is sent weapons and material to fight of the Japanese. In August of 1945, Viet Minh forces, led by Ho, overthrow the Japanese and establish a pro communist government in Hanoi. At last it seems that the Vietnamese have won their independence. However with the end of the Second World War, the Cold War would begin, and Ho

Under Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam was able to defeat the colonial powers of France and Japan, and establish their own nation. In September 1945, Ho declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This was appropriate

In the 1960s the United States was in a heated cold war with communism. In their efforts to stop the spread of communism America came to the aid of other countries to assist them in the efforts to stop the the spread. With in doing this a lot of younger Americans didn't feel it was right to invade another country, and get involved in their matters. The peace movement also did not help this. Because men were not enlisting like they had done in the past to help the country, for the first time, there was a draft. Due to the new rebellious nature of the people,a mass amount of people still refused to join the efforts. As it was the law that the men joined the military to fight in the end they were shipped off. The above article gave the people

Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh was a Communist, who had announced Vietnam independent. He was a Marxist and believed in “national Communism ". Throughout the war with the French, Ho Chi Minh took refuge in northern Vietnam and settled there with his followers. He founded the Indochina Communist Party and the Viet Minh. North Vietnam was a deprived area and was cut off from the agricultural profit of South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was forced to ask assistance from main Communist allies, the Soviet Union and China. Both aided North Vietnam before and during the war. (Dong Si Nguyen, Duong xuyen Truong son: hoi uc.  Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 1999). Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This had been a tremendously significant event in world history perhaps the most important event since the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. It marked the first occasion in human history in which a radical national movement under Communist leadership had succeeded in overthrowing the influence of a colonial state and establishing and maintaining its own new, independent form of social and political system. However, Ho’s type of communism was markedly different than that of Marxist ideology that had been the metaphorical icon of the October Revolution. alike to Jose Antonio’s fascist movement, the hierarchical communist party (later renamed the Vietminh) conformed intimately to the ideas of the person at its head, but unlike Antonio’s movement, did not

This reason is linked to the Domino Theory as Truman supported the French in the hope that communism would not spread into Vietnam and hence preventing it from spreading to the rest of the world. Furthermore, this is a long term cause as containment was introduced even before the Domino Theory. A third reason why the USAbecame involved in Vietnam was when Eisenhower supported Diem's corrupt government in the South. Until this point it was a civil war between the communist north and the capitalist south.

The League for Vietnamese Independence also known as the Viet Minh was formed by Ho Chi Minh in 1941. It was a communist political party. “The coalition's project was to achieve independence for Vietnam from France, which then included Vietnam as part of its empire.”(Pennybaker) When the Japanese came to Vietnam to occupy the country’s territory during World War II, the Viet Minh were resistant. However, then when the war was over, France came back and reoccupied the country. Since then, Ho Chi Minh’s communist party, the Viet Minh, returned to its primary goal of achieving independence from France.

As stated in the lecture for Political Science 458 – The Vietnam Wars, Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist who wanted Vietnam to gain its independence from its colonizer – France. France occupied Vietnam during the period of 1887 – 1954, when Vietnam declared its independence after a war against France and the subsequent withdrawal of France from Vietnam as a result of France’s