40 Years Ago at BFS: The 1960s — Traditionalism Gives Way to Turbulence in the Age of Aquarius
by John R. Martin
The 1960s was a turbulent time in our nation’s history. In a period of ten years the nation elected its first Catholic president, survived disaster at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, continued to be on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, fought for civil rights, endured the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and fought a losing battle in Vietnam that caused uproar and unrest at home.
It was a trying time for anyone to live through, let alone grow up and come of age, as the students of Brooklyn Friends School did during that time. While the decade may have been difficult, the students of BFS found their own voices, formed opinions on pressing issues, and found opportunities to make an impact on the world.
The start of the 1960s began much as the 1950s had ended for the students of Brooklyn Friends. Boys wore jackets and ties and girls dressed in blouses and skirts. Where to go out on Friday night or what movie to see on the weekend were pressing questions for many. Over time, however, students became more and more interested in politics.
Days before the 1960 election, for example, students held a panel to debate political views. Each panel had two debaters who expressed the positions held by their party’s candidate (Kennedy for Democrats and Nixon for the Republicans) on such topics as the Civil Rights Bill and U.S. prestige abroad. According to an article in the Nov. 14, 1960 edition of the student newspaper, The Life, the debate produced “a considerable amount of interest and excitement among the debaters as well as the audience.”
While the school already had a debating club, it was not until February of 1962 that a debating team was formed. What was the difference between a club and a team? The club was open to all, but the team was composed of seven of the best debaters on the club. Moreover, they entered meets with other schools to debate on such topics as whether the federal government should support private as well as public education.
As student interest in politics continued to grow, BFS also began to bring in speakers and films that dealt with current events and issues. In March of 1963, still the infancy of the Vietnam War, the school showed a film from Walter Cronkite’s “The Twentieth Century” TV series about the guerilla-fought war that was being waged in South Vietnam. The March 12, 1963 issue of The Life noted that the film proved in a forceful manner that “the Hot War in Vietnam is merely an offspring of the East-West Cold war, and that if fighting is not soon resolved, it could erupt into another Korea.”
The Quaker ideals of peace and pacifism were congruent with the anti-war sentiment expressed in The Life. BFS students were well aware that nonviolent protest had been used to a degree of success in India by Mahatma Gandhi and in the U.S. civil rights movement by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From the get-go, they believed that the problems in Vietnam were not going to be solved by war. In November 1965, William Bryant, a government worker, lectured to the students about the time he spent in South Vietnam as a foreign aid worker. He stressed that in order to solve the problems in Vietnam the people themselves must “train new leaders, learn to work together and achieve a sense of national identity.
By 1967, the country and its culture had changed dramatically from the start of the decade. Students, both boys and girls, were wearing their hair long thanks to musical idols like the Beatles. As American casualties rose and the draft escalated, people grew frustrated with the war and the president, Lyndon B. Johnson. That year The Life ran an article about the possible Republican replacements for President Johnson, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Romney, father of 2008 presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
In 1968, high school students joined together for the first time to voice their opposition to the Vietnam War. On April 26, 1968, a nationwide student boycott of schools was held. Tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders at BFS joined with Friends Seminary in Manhattan for a program to give them insight on the problems of war. A United Nations correspondent from India spoke at the gathering and told students, “The lesson to be learned in Vietnam is that to prevent further war, we must learn to speak the language of diplomacy, not of conflict.”
The following day, BFS students took part in a march in Manhattan to protest the war. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., joined these students and thousands of others in Central Park that day. Addressing the gathering, she read from notes that were found in her husband’s jacket the day he was assassinated, outlining his Ten Commandments of War, the last being “Thou shalt not kill.” The day was remembered as one of brotherhood and peace, and the editors of The Life wrote, “We feel that much more participation in community activities as these is essential to the life of the school. After all, nothing can live in a vacuum.”
Over the next two years, the participation of BFS students in protest against the war was outstanding. Students instituted a draft-counseling seminar to explore issues relevant to them. One 1969 issue of The Life prepared college-bound students on what to do if they were arrested during a protest at their college, letting them know about their rights and how to pay bail.
In November of 1969, BFS students circulated a petition against the war by asking President Nixon to withdraw troops from Vietnam immediately. Nearly 2,900 people signed this petition. When December came, the students had the signatures of an even greater number of people, nearly 10,000, who sent a holiday peace message to President Nixon. The message asked the president to pull troops out of Vietnam so all soldiers would be home with their families by the holidays next year.
While President Nixon did not grant this wish, the students of the 1960s at Brooklyn Friends ought to be proud of their part in political activism. When you are only a teenager, conflicts and wars may seem like something you don’t need to be worried about, but it is essential to be engaged in the issues of the day. That’s why it is so gratifying to look back on the students of the 1960s and see how they attempted to voice their opinions and change the world and times in which they lived.