October 21: The Mobe

Approximately 100,000 people marched on Washington on this date in 1967 to protest the Vietnam War, after a year-long organizing effort by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War, a coalition of some 150 groups. Among the lead organizers were several Jews, including Robert Greenblatt, a Cornell professor, Sidney Peck, a Western Reserve University professor, Yippie co-founders Jerry Rubin and Stew Alpert, Karen Wald, a writer, and Eric Weinberger, a lifelong peace activist who died in 2006. The biggest rally of the day was held at the Lincoln Memorial, but a second demonstration, inaugurated by Abbie Hoffman, attempted to levitate the Pentagon with chanting and dancing led by Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg, and others — while thousands more demonstratorsfaced off with some 2,500 armed soldiers and U.S. marshals at the Pentagon’s entranceway.

“They provided something for everyone, from committed pacifists to Vietcong sympathizers, united only by the common aim of ending the war.” —Jo Freeman