The Tet Offensive, a surprise attack by the Viet Cong on South Vietnamese installations (See Jan. 31), was begun. The Viet Cong's strength belied reports that they were being defeated. Between 1965 and 1968, the U.S. had dropped a million tons of bombs on North Vietnam. In May, peace talks opened between the U.S. and North Vietnam in Paris.
The voluminous report of the president's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders held white racism primarily responsible for the riots of the summer of 1967 and made numerous detailed recommendations for dealing with racial antagonisms, warning that American society threatened to divide into separate and unequal white and black sections.
ASSASSINATION OF REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., the influential leader of the nonviolent civil rights movement, in Memphis. This act led at once to an epidemic of urban violence affecting some 125 cities, including Washington, D.C. In many places the National Guard and even army troops had to be called out.
A civil rights act banned racial discrimination in housing and made it a federal crime to injure civil rights workers or even to cross state lines with the intention of inciting to riot.
A crisis at Columbia University epitomized the political unrest in academic circles. The radical Students for a Democratic Society protested the building of a gymnasium in an area needed for low-income housing and also denounced the University's Institute of Defense Analysis as an agency of the military establishment and American imperialism. Protesting students eventually occupied the university library and sacked the president's office. After much hesitation, the administration called on the police to clear the protesters from the buildings (April 30). Hundreds were arrested and allegedly were abused by the police. Similar disturbances took place at many other institutions.
Poor People's March on Washington. Thousands of poor people of various races attempted to set up Resurrection City on the Potomac. Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, successor to Dr. King, hoped to impress Congress with the needs of millions of Americans for food, clothing, and jobs.
ASSASSINATION OF SEN. ROBERT F. KENNEDY, presidential candidate and brother of the late president, in Los Angeles. The assassin was a young Arab, Sirhan Beshara Sirhan, evidently outraged by the pro-Israeli utterances of the senator.
