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issues—participatory democracy, racial justice, women’s rights—to oppose the
U.S. intervention in Vietnam. But the war created a paradox as well; Vietnam
created a political left but the emphasis on antiwar activity overshadowed
other causes and frustrated and alienated large segments of that left as well.
By decade’s end, Blacks, women, and others had a much different place in
American society, in good measure because of the grassroots activism of mil-
lion of women and men— Black, White, and Brown, gay and straight. Fighting
for social justice and against a war, they led the movement to create a new
society. Still, the war in Vietnam would overshadow all that and haunt the
nation for the entire decade, ultimately making it harder for other groups to
seek reform and leaving many segments of American society in the same
powerless positions they always inhabited.