On October 15, 1965, antiwar activists stage , drawing 100,000 people in some 40 cities. In one event staged by the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the public burning of a draft card leads to the first legal consequences for the act.
In New York, , a young Catholic pacifist, burned his draft card in direct violation of a recently passed law forbidding such acts. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation later arrested him; he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to two years imprisonment.
