Learning Target: I can identify the SOCIAL, POLITICAL and ECONOMIC tensions of the Vietnam War.

• Opener:• Define what these words mean in your own words

• SOCIAL• POLITICAL• ECONOMIC

Welcome to the TENSIONS of the Vietnam War.

26th Amendment

• “The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.”

• Passed by Congress March 23, 1971. Ratified July 1, 1971. The 26th Amendment changed a portion of the 14th Amendment

Muhammad Ali• “ I ain`t got no quarrel with the Vietcong.” and declared: “They want

me to go to Vietnam to shoot some black folks that never lynched me. Never called me nigger, never assassinated my leaders.”

His subsequent refusal to enlist as a serviceman led to a harsh rebuke from the American Government: he was subsequently fined and sentenced to prison- effectively stripping him of his World title.

• Soon rumours (sic) abounded that the U.S. government were using the Vietnam War as a form of genocide. Money was being pumped into Vietnam instead of poor black communities in America. Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver noted the contradictory situation, and complained: “black Americans are asked to die for the system in Vietnam, in Watts (a poor black suburb of Los Angeles) they are asked to die by it.”

J. Maycock, “War Within War”, www.guardian.co.uk, p2, 15/9/2001 11/6/04