Tens of thousands marched on the Pentagon on October 21, 1967. It was the largest anti-war demonstration the United States had yet seen, and it put the Vietnam War's critics at the very gates of the war machine. The day marked a turning point.
The march began at the Lincoln Memorial. Speakers addressed a crowd estimated at fifty thousand or more, and then the protesters moved across the bridge toward the Pentagon, where soldiers and federal marshals waited behind barricades. The mood was tense but largely peaceful.
At the Pentagon it turned ugly. Some demonstrators tried to push past the lines, and there were scuffles and arrests, and a group of radicals made a symbolic attempt to levitate the building, a gesture that drew mockery. Hundreds were taken into custody over the weekend.
The image was powerful. It endured. A young man placing flowers into the barrels of the soldiers' rifles became one of the iconic photographs of the era, and it captured the contrast between the movement and the military. The war was now being fought on two fronts.
The march changed the debate. Opposition to the war was no longer confined to students and radicals, and the movement had shown it could bring the middle class into the streets. The Pentagon was not levitated, but the wall of public support behind the war was cracked.