Public Opinion on Long Island about the Vietnam War: A School Year Project Using Local Sources and Perspectives in the Classroom and in Student Research Papers

A school-year research experiment using primary resources to teach an important national issue--protest movements against the Vietnam War at the local level--is an excellent way to motivate students and energize classroom teaching. Every local community in America has its own story to tell about the war in Vietnam. Whether it is about a local son who lost his life in combat or a young college student living away from home expressing anger about the draft and the morality of the war, there is information waiting to be uncovered. In the hope of providing a historical research rather than a text-book centered approach to learning, the author developed a school project on Vietnam that used local Long Island sources and perspectives. He discovered that working with an abundance of primary sources enables students to place events in proper historical perspective. The documents the students found illustrated how extensive and emotionally charged opposition to the war was on Long Island. Of all the lessons the students learned from this worthwhile project, there is one that truly stands out: local communities can overcome their own resistance to change and develop forms of protest enabling diverse coalitions to call for change in national policy. (Contains 20 notes.)