The San Marcos 10: An Antiwar Protest in Texas [Paperback]

On November 13, 1969, ten students at Texas State University were suspended for participating in a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War. They had kept vigil in front of the Huntington Mustangs, bearing signs that read, Vietnam Is an Edsel and 44,000 U.S. Dead, For What? while an increasingly hostile anti-protest crowd chanted, Love it or leave it! and Lets string em up! It was a day after news of the My Lai massacre broke. Part of a coordinated, nationwide Vietnam Moratorium effort that confounded and infuriated the Nixon White House, the San Marcos 10 challenged their suspension, taking their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Author E.R. Bills offers this fascinating glimpse into the 1960s antiwar movement in Texas, the extraordinary measures to quell it and the broader social activism in which it participated.E.R. Bills graduated from Texas State University with a BA in journalism in 1990. He is the author of Texas Obscurities: Stories of the Peculiar, Exceptional and Nefarious (The History Press, 2013); The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas (The History Press, 2014); Black Holocaust: The Paris Horror and a Legacy of Texas Terror (Eakin Press, 2015); Texas Far & Wide: The Tornado with Eyes, Gettysburgs Last Casualty, the Celestial Skipping Stone and Other Tales (The History Press, 2017); and 100 Things to Do in Texas Before You Die (Reedy Press, 2018). Bills has also written for publications around the state, including Texas Co-Op Power magazine, Fort Worth Weekly, Fort Worth, TX magazine, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Austin-American Statesman. He currently lives in North Texas with his wife, Stacie.