War Posters

David Breslin: This selection of posters, it's a really multifaceted way of looking at how images and text could be used to fight against the war in Vietnam. You'll see things that look almost like cartoons, you’ll see other posters that are using photographs of historical figures like presidents, like John Kerry who famously was a soldier in Vietnam and later came home and protested the war, like many soldiers who were involved did. 

Narrator: David Breslin.

David Breslin: Probably the most famous poster on the wall is the one that the Art Workers Coalition made in 1969 based around the My Lai Massacre, which was a massacre in Vietnam where US soldiers were involved in the killing of civilians and it's a photograph of these bodies, overlaid on top of it is Q, standing for “question,” “and babies,” and then A for “answer” “and babies” as the response. This is a famous interview that Mike Wallace did in 1968 with one of the soldiers who was involved in this incident. Really wanting to spell out who was involved and obviously the tragedy of having children and babies being part of that story is something that is—if there's ever a demonstrable and affecting way to bring the war home, this was it.