Local and State Police Spying in the 1960s and 70s
Thursday, May 4th, at 7:00 p.m.
Zoom
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This program will address the hidden history of how state and local police contributed to the climate of political repression and surveillance during the Vietnam era. While it mainly focuses on state police surveillance of college activists and suspected “subversives,” it also details how local police in New Rochelle, Yonkers, and Mt. Vernon monitored social movements during the 1960s and 70s. Importantly, it also talks about how civil liberties groups and concerned citizens joined together to end political investigations by the police. Presented by Seth Kershner.

Seth Kershner is currently a PhD student in history at the University of Massachusetts. Kershner’s dissertation project explores GI resistance in American military prisons during the Vietnam War. Kershner is the author (with Scott Harding) of Counter-recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools (Palgrave, 2015). He also co-authored Breaking the War Habit: The Debate Over Militarism in American Education (University of Georgia Press, 2022).