Our Back Pages: Conversations with the Sixties My Resistance: Standing Trial for Standing for Peace. Issue 2 (2nd July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kleyman, Paul
• Is Part Of: Sixties. Volume 13:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 173
• Page End: 186
• Publication Date: 2020-07-02
• Subjects: Vietnam War -- anti-draft resistance -- President Lyndon Johnson -- San Francisco -- Glide Church; Nineteen sixties -- Periodicals; Protest movements -- Periodicals; 909.826
• DOI: 10.1080/17541328.2020.1806589
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1754-1328

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Usually recalled through historical events and the stories of leaders, The Sixties also encompassed activism by "rank-and-filers, " ordinary people who found the start of their adult lives upended by the senseless Vietnam War. That tragedy depended on the escalation of the racist and class-divisive "peacetime" military draft system. Former draft resister, Paul Kleyman, now a grandfather of 75, tells his story of refusing Army induction in 1968, and being tried and convicted in US federal court. His story explores the depth of self-examination such turmoil can force on a nation's youth. And it exposes that standing for peace may profoundly affect those who judge, while also strengthening one's sense of purpose and service.