Some used tools. At least a few police were seen standing by as the attack
continued. 58
From Wall Street the workers, their ranks enlarged to 500, marched to
city hall, where the American flag was flying at half-mast, on Mayor John
Lindsay's orders, in memory of the four students killed at Kent State. The
workers demanded that the flag be raised. When it was, the men cheered
and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." Then, observing an antiwar ban-
ner at nearby Pace College, the workers broke down the glass doors of
a Pace building and beat more students. Throughout the day, dubbed
"Bloody Friday" by the media, about seventy victims were injured badly
enough to require treatment.
Some workers reported that the attack was far from spontaneous and
that it had been orchestrated by union leaders in the Building and Trades
Council of Greater New York. Even so, the leaders seemed to have no
trouble finding volunteers. Two weeks later the council, perhaps hoping to
offset the violent imagery of Bloody Friday, organized a peaceful march to
demonstrate their "love of country and love and respect for our country's
flag." Time magazine described it this way: "Callused hands gripped tiny
flags. Weathered faces shone with sweat. ...For three hours, 100,000
members of New York's brawniest unions marched and shouted. ..in a
massive display of gleeful patriotism and muscular pride. ..a kind of
workers' Woodstock."59 These events were crucial in shaping an idea that
came to dominate middle-class thought about the war-that the "hawks"
were workers and the "doves" were privileged. As the New York Times
put it, "The typical worker-from construction craftsman to shoe clerk-
has become probably the most reactionary political force in the country."60
This stereotype received perhaps its most significant dramatization a
few months later in the form of Archie Bunker, hero of the situation
comedy "All in the Family." Archie could be counted on for mindless
verbal swipes at blacks, Jews, feminists, and peace activists ("coloreds,"
"kikes," "libbers," and "pinkos"). But rail as he would against his long list
of enemies and the liberal views of his "meathead" son-in-Iaw, Archie's
hostility was cushioned by a larger family devotion. While the nation came
apart at the seams, the Bunkers kept their conflicts "all in the family."
Part of the show's liberal condescension was to suggest that the working
class, however retrograde in its views, does not really act out its hostilities
and is therefore essentially harmless.
Of course, the image of the hawkish worker (be it Archie Bunker or the
hard-hats of Bloody Friday) had enough surface familiarity to serve for
as a sufficient model of a whole class. After all, many working-class
But was the working class as a whole
prowar than the rest of society? (Or more racist?) Not so. In
virtually every survey of public opinion on the war found little or no
between the responses of the working class and those of the
and upper classes. There were, in other words, at least as many
--in corporate office buildings as there weere in factories. Part of the
with the hard-hat stereotype is that it made white, Christian
.The working class, of course,
women, blacks, Hispanics, Jews~an enormous variety. Polls
.., .., three groups most consistently opposed to the war over
were blacks, women, and the very poor. Yet, even white, working-
group than Archie Bunker. One
taken in the same year the media invented the term hard-hats
found that 48 percent of the northern white working class was in
immediate withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, while
of the white middle class took this dove position. More-
the New York construction unions continued to be prowar,
of the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers had turned
In 1972, a higher percentage of blue-collar workers voted for
than did white-collar professionals.61
was, however, one very telling difference between the war-
of workers and the middle class. More workers were
favored immediate and total withdrawal from
were nevertheless opposed to antiwar demonstrators. This, I
that working-class anger at the antiwar movement-
-often represented class conflict, not
The union men who marched in the
signs that said "Support our boys in Viet-
sign can be read quite literally. Many of their sons were in
Working-class people opposed college protesters largely be-
saw the antiwar movement as an elitist attack on American
who could avoid the war. At its best, the antiwar move-
, , -, "
0. But class division-
ran the war-continued to
.A significant segment of the student antiwar
denounced the unequal distribution of power and
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