On April 15, 1967, massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations swept across the United States, marking one of the most powerful public rejections of the war to date. In New York City, an estimated 300,000 people gathered in Central Park, waving signs, singing protest songs, and listening to speeches before marching to the United Nations headquarters. The demonstration was a colorful and passionate display of dissent: students, clergy, veterans, civil rights activists, and middle-class families walked side by side, carrying banners with slogans like ;End the War Now; and ;Bring the Boys Home.; Folk singers such as Pete Seeger performed, while the air was filled with chants, drumming, and the scent of spring blossoms — and, for the first time, the protest had the feeling of a true mass movement rather than a student fringe.

Among the most significant moments was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s speech at the rally, where he drew a sharp connection between the struggle for civil rights at home and the violence being carried out abroad in Vietnam. His moral authority electrified the crowd. Meanwhile, counter-protesters, some waving American flags and accusing demonstrators of disloyalty, jeered from sidewalks — a reminder of how polarized the country was becoming. Across the country, similar rallies took place, including a major march in San Francisco, where more than 60,000 people flooded Golden Gate Park. The events of April 15, 1967, revealed that the antiwar movement had crossed into the American mainstream. It was no longer limited to radical students: clergy in robes, mothers with babies in strollers, and returning veterans all marched that day. It was a pivotal moment that signaled a profound shift in American public opinion — and foreshadowed even larger protests yet to come.