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Williamstown and Vietnam

May 4 marks the 50th anniversary of the biggest antiwar event that Williamstown has ever seen: the student strike at Williams. Dusty Griffin has written an essay titled “Williamstown and Vietnam: The War at Home” which describes the events of the anti-war movement in Williamstown.

 Students participating in protest against May 1970 Vietnam War
Photo from the Williams College Archives and Special Collections

May 4 marks the 50th anniversary of “the biggest antiwar event that Williamstown has ever seen: the student strike at Williams, part of what was in effect a national student strike, beginning on May 4, the day when four students at Kent State University were killed in an ati-ROTC protest.  On May 6, the faculty agreed to suspend classes for the remainder of the semester.”  Frequent and popular WHM lecturer, author, and local historian, Dustin “Dusty” Griffin, has written an essay titled “Williamstown and Vietnam: The War at Home,” which details the opposition to the Vietnam War in Williamstown.  Providing background on the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War, Dusty’s essay provides readers with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the events that took place on the Williams College Campus and in Williamstown in the 1960s as opposition to the war grew.

The Soldier of the Civil War Monument outside of Griffin Hall holds a Strike Sign
Photo courtesy of Williams College Archives and Special Collections

You are invited to read Dusty’s essay by clicking here:  Williamstown and Vietnam: The War at Home 

 

Local historian and Professor of English Emeritus at New York University, Dustin “Dusty” Griffin,” has been a Williamstown resident since 2003. A 1965 graduate of Williams College, he is the author of many books on English literature. Griffin is a former board member of the Williamstown Historical Museum, he curated exhibitions on “Williamstown in the Civil War” (2012) and on “Big Days in a Small Town” (2014). His recent talks for WHM audiences covered the Thirteen Galusha Farms of Williasmtown, the writing career of Col. Prentice of Mt. Hope, and introduced his own book, Williamstown and Williams College: Explorations in Local History (University of Massachusetts Press, 2018).