Peace in the Mountains: Northern Appalachian Students Protest the Vietnam War by Thomas Weyant

Abstract

Reviewed by: Peace in the Mountains: Northern Appalachian Students Protest the Vietnam War by Thomas Weyant Robert S. Weise (bio) Peace in the Mountains: Northern Appalachian Students Protest the Vietnam War. By Thomas Weyant. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2020. Pp. xv, 252. $49.95 cloth; $49.95 ebook) Thomas Weyant brings us back to the college campus, in the tumultuous era of the 1960s–1970s. Not to Berkeley or Wisconsin or Columbia, but to the larger campuses in "northern Appalachia," to Ohio University, West Virginia University, and the University of Pittsburgh. Students at these institutions, Weyant tells us, joined in the movements that shook campuses throughout the country. Like their better-known counterparts, they protested the Vietnam War, demanded changes in curriculum, and challenged official institutional authority. The results were usually less dramatic than those seen elsewhere, and they garnered less national media attention. Still, the students followed the patterns of action and organization that prevailed on campuses nationwide. The Appalachian theme in the book is secondary and perhaps a little strained. The involvement of those three campuses in national movements, Weyant says, undermines the trope, commonly expressed in popular media in the 1960s, that Appalachia was an isolated region disconnected from national life. That's true enough, but, despite governmental regional delineations, few observers would have included these institutions or their surroundings in their mental geography of "isolated Appalachia." Beyond the geographic assertion, the author does not do much with the theme. Weyant might have identified students' regional backgrounds and assessed whether they expressed any kind of Appalachian social identity or commitment. What impact did an Appalachian background have on students' activist or political engagement? Weyant chose not to do that kind of research, and so the "northern Appalachian" angle of the book remains more a framing device than a fully developed idea. Weyant does develop very well the book's main theme—"student citizenship." With a careful demarcation of student actions, Weyant identifies three stages in the advancement of students' claims to [End Page 106] citizenship in the three universities. In the first stage, dated to the early 1960s, university administrations took on the paternalistic role of preparing students for the adult citizenship that would come after graduation. Student political activity occurred mainly as practice for later involvement, as exemplified by the mock conventions for the 1964 Republican primaries that took place on all three campuses. In the second stage, students began to claim their immediate adulthood, rather than accepting it as a future proposition. This stage dates to the middle years of the decade, in the era of War on Poverty mobilization and the civil rights movement. Here, students began direct involvement in these national actions. Over one hundred students from the three universities participated in the demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, in March of 1965. Antipoverty activism brought Pitt students into impoverished urban areas and WVU students into the southern coal fields of the state. In the third stage, students moved from participation to confrontation and opposition, claiming their power to shape practices on campus and to effect change nationally. Military escalation in Vietnam was, of course, the catalyst for this new expression of citizenship. In addition to taking to the streets in mass anti-war demonstrations, students also demanded the removal of ROTC from campus, the extension of Black Studies programs, and a more formal role for students in university decision-making processes. In detailing these stages, Weyant is adding to existing narratives rather than challenging them. He frames each step effectively within the prevailing historiography. The "citizenship" theme is more innovative and adds to narrative coherence. One book cannot cover everything. Weyant's linear exposition does not veer from its path. The source base consists mainly of student newspapers and official university documents, which, as Weyant acknowledges, allows some voices more representation than others. As such, the book has a clear, precise direction, but it also flattens the picture of what were surely diverse and multi-faceted student populations. Gendered understandings of activism, war, poverty, and [End Page 107] civil rights do not get much attention (a situation which Weyant regrets). Specifically, religious voices (say, those of Catholic students at Pitt responding to the...