Hard Hat Riot essays

Hard Hat Riot essays The late 1960s and early 1970s was a period of social growth and change, a time when American citizens searched for their own identity. The Hard Hat Riot of May, 1970, clearly showed the new divisions that had emerged in American culture. The middle class labor force, dubbed the blue-collared workers, were in opposition to so many of their fathers and sons going to war in Vietnam, while many college students were excluded from the draft. This brought about obvious tensions between the two groups, which were embodied in a riot of construction workers and their confrontation with protestors on the steps of Wall Street. The Hard Hat Riot not only left multiple people injured and arrested, but provided proof of the ever-growing divisions within America. On May 9, 1970, construction workers from all over New York City converged on a peaceful antiwar demonstration taking place on Wall Street. The workers, still wearing their construction helmets, attacked the group of protestors, leaving nearly 70 people in need of medical attention. The mob reached Wall Street at about noon, where students had been calling for the withdrawal of military presence from Cambodia and Vietnam, along with the release of political prisoners in America, and the cessation of military-oriented work by the universities. The construction workers were vehemently enraged by the contradiction they saw with these protestors. The middle class of white males was the single largest group that made up the struggle in Vietnam. Fathers and sons were being sent oversees to fight in one of the most dangerous and costly wars of our time. These workers believed that these college students had no right to be interfering with a cause they had nothing to do with. Th e mob did more than simply attack the protestors. Once the workers reached the Federal Hall National Memorial, they surged over...