WORLDWIDE STUDENT STRIKE AGAINST VIETNAM WAR CALLED FOR APRIL 26
Chicago
The largest and most representative conference of American students opposed to U.S. aggression in Vietnam met here January 27-29. The conference voted overwhelmingly to call an international student strike against the war in Vietnam for April 26.
The more than 900 students and young people at the conference urged student organizations around the world to participate in the strike through teachins, demonstrations and other actions in solidarity with similar activities in the U.S. on April 26.
The conference was called by the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which played a key role in organizing the mammoth demonstrations April 15 in New York and San Francisco, and the confrontation at the Pentagon October 21.
Students from more than 150 colleges and high schools in 27 states took part in the conference. In addition to the student strike, the conference voted to call for 11 days of student antiwar action April 20-30, and planned student participation in an international day of protest on April 27 (demonstrations are being called in every major city for that date).
A nationwide all-black antiwar organization was formed during the Chicago conference. Black members of the SMC, who were functioning as a black caucus of the organization, decided to form the National Black Antiwar Antidraft Union, which would maintain fraternal relations with the SMC and participate in common actions with the student group.
The international student strike was planned as a political strike to protest the war. It was voted that each canpus decide its own tactics and activities during the strike. All those taking part in campus antiwar action April 26 anywhere in the world would be counted as part of the strike. Organizers expected hundreds of thousands of students to participate in the U.S. alone, even if few schools were closed by the strike.
A majority of the young people present at the conference were affiliated with the Student Mobilization Committee or were members of independent antiwar committees. There was also a significant representation of young members from a broad spectrum of political organizations. These included Students for a Democratic Society, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, University Christian Movement, Young Socialist Alliance, DuBois Clubs, Socialist Workers party, Resistance, Communist party, and Committee for Nonviolent Action. The Maoist Progressive Labor party opposed the strike and moved to dissolve the SMC. They walked out when this demand was overwhelmingly rejected.