US Students Campaign to Stop Dow Chemical Company From Manufacturing Napalm (1967-1969)

The United States first used Napalm as an incendiary device in Japan
during WWII. It melted flesh and produced horrific wounds. Napalm once
again took on a functional role for the US in Vietnam, and the
government requested bids from chemical manufacturing companies to make
Napalm in 1965. Dow Chemical, based out of Midland, Michigan, won the
contract.

In January 1967, Rampart magazine published color photographs of
mutilated Vietnamese napalm victims, cementing napalm's reputation as an
unethical tool in the arsenal of US military tactics. This was a
culmination of images of brutal napalm effects that had been flooding
into the US news stream during the previous year and a half.

Students for a Democratic Society launched the campaign to get DOW to
stop manufacturing Napalm with a rally at the corporation’s headquarters
on 8 August 1966. Dow responded that they had no say in the execution
of military orders and were only fulfilling their duty to country by
signing the contract. In October 1966, Students at the University of
California Berkeley held the first campus demonstrations in the form of a
rally and march against Dow Chemical and it's napalm production. This
demonstration sparked a wave of national campaigns against Dow and its
recruitment practices on college campuses. Movement leaders demanded
that colleges divest from DOW and end its recruitment on campus.
Initially, the campaign was organized by Students for a Democratic
Society and the Student Peace Union.

In the fall of 1967, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
launched a series of sit-ins at Dow recruitment offices on campus. At
the second sit-in, in October 1967, administrators called in police, who
beat demonstrators with clubs. Students returned the violence with
stone throwing, spitting and name calling directed at the police.
Seventy-five protesters and 10 police officers were injured in the first
recorded incidence of violence at a campus protest against the Vietnam
war. Elsewhere across the US, student and faculty organized teach-ins
and blockades against Dow recruitment. Organizers at Harvard blockaded a
Dow recruiter in an office for 7 hours, and similar such stories were
commonplace on campuses across the US. In response to these tactics, Dow
launched a public image campaign aimed at countering the narrative of
the protesters and analyzed student organizing before sending recruiters
to campuses.

Organizers with the Student Peace Union and the National Committee of
Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam organized a lecture to the Dow
Board on 6 May 1968, hoping that what they considered was a thoughtful
demonstration of the effects of napalm would convince board members to
discontinue their contract. Internal division among the organizers over
tactics became apparent however during the planning process with
students advocating for more coercive tactics of civil disobedience than
persuasive ones. In the end, the board voted to renew the contract. As
1969 began, burnout and infighting in student groups across the country,
including Students for a Democratic Society, is reported to have led to
disarray and a loss of momentum.

In June 1969, Dow lost it's bid to continue manufacturing napalm for the
U.S. government, and ceased to produce the chemical. Despite this
development, student protesters continued to target Dow for it's
manufacture of other devices used in the deployment of napalm and other
weapons in Vietnam. Organizers shifted the campaign tone in a way that
aimed specifically at getting universities to sever ties with the
military industrial complex as a whole by cutting off recruitment and
selling endowment investments in Dow chemical. Neither demands were met,
and Dow reported that its recruitment numbers remained stable
throughout this period. While the campaign failed to meet its goals of
divestment and an end to recruiting, Dow did lose its contract. The
campaign against Dow continued past June 1969, merging with the larger
Vietnam war protest movement aimed at severing university ties with
companies engaged in the war effort.