Jesse Walker on Hardhats for Peace, Students for War
Jesse Walker reviews Hardhats, Hippies, and Hawks: The Vietnam Antiwar Movement as Myth and Memory, by Penny Lewis. The Hard Hat Riot of May 1970 has managed somehow to be both widely forgotten and universally remembered. The incident itself, in which rampaging New York construction workers beat up hippies and demanded that City Hall raise the American flag, is a piece of historical trivia. Most Americans born after it have little inkling that it occurred, and even the people who were around at the time are likely to be hazy on the details.