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Countless #BlackAmericans had openly opposed the #VietnamWar. As early as 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee produced a statement that unequivocally lambasted the war, and said that no Black American should “fight in Vietnam for the white man's freedom, until all the Negro people are free in Mississippi."

Still, thanks to the draft's implicit #RacialBias , Black Americans disproportionately served in Vietnam. This is largely because then-college students — the majority of whom were white men — could defer enlistment. As such, the burden of enlistment fell more on non-college educated men, particularly non college-educated #BlackMen. As a result, by 1967, 64 percent of all eligible Black American males had been drafted. Only 31 percent of eligible white men had.

Photo from Life Magazine archives.

#BlackAmericanHistory #SystematicRacism #WhitePrivilege #USA #KKKAmerica #MilitaryDraft #RacistUSA #AsianMastodon #StopAllWars #WarIsHell