More than 7,000 protesters were arrested on May 3, 1971 alone — the largest number of arrests in US history.
More than 200,000 protesters and veterans converged on the US capital to demand an end to the war in Vietnam forty years ago on May 3, 1971.
“The idea was to shut the city down because the war wouldn’t stop,” said Eddie Becker, a documentarian who filmed the protests. “The only way to stop the war was to stop the government, and that was by putting your bodies on the road and blocking traffic.”
Protesters blocked roads with cars, trash cans and their own bodies in order to prevent government employees from getting to work across Washington and at the major bridges and roadways leading into the city. Becker was filming protesters blocking Washington’s Dupont Circle.
Police used tear gas and clubs to disperse protesters. Then President Richard Nixon called in the military and paratroopers landed at the National Monument. Retired Lt. Robert Klotz was a police captain working the protests that day.
“Later, the 82nd airborne came in with helicopters, and I was assigned as the liaison with the commanding general,” Klotz said.
But the protests lasted throughout the day, with more than 2,000 people arrested before 8 a.m.
“People were trying everything to end the war and nothing would end it. So this was one of those last ditch efforts and in a sense, it was almost like an Indian tribe. The image of Mayday was Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull was part of a massacre, so for us it was that last stand of dignity, of trying to end the war. And people were willing to put their lives on the line to do it,” Becker said.
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