Mailed Document Addressed to Lt. Gerding of Austin Police Department, UT Committee to End the War in Vietnam (CEWV)

Mailed Document Addressed to Lt. Gerding of Austin Police Department, UT Committee to End the War in Vietnam (CEWV)

Student activism--Texas--Austin; Police surveillance--United States; Vietnam War protests--Texas--Austin; University of Texas at Austin--Students; Student protest movements--1960s; Political surveillance

This document, addressed to Austin Police Department Lieutenant Bert Gerding, appears within the Student Mobilization Committee (SMC) files and reflects not only the monitoring of student activists during the Vietnam War era but also students’ awareness of that surveillance. Gerding, an Austin Police Department officer who worked in coordination with the University of Texas Police Department, was involved in tracking campus political activity.

The presence of this addressed correspondence suggests that student activists understood they were being observed by law enforcement and, in some cases, engaged directly with or responded to that surveillance. As part of the broader anti–Vietnam War movement, UT students organized protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, placing UT Austin students within national networks of dissent. This item demonstrates that surveillance was visible enough to shape how student activists operated, showing the relationship between protest and policing in the 1960s.

Unknown; University CEWV

Bert Gerding Papers, 1959-1980, 1994. Box # 4zf351, UT Committee to End the War in Vietnam (UEWV) Student Mobilization Committee (SMC), 1969, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

Hidden Histories: UT Austin

1969 (approximate; exact date pending archival verification)

Bert Gerding; Austin Police Department; University CEWV; University of Texas at Austin; Jennifer Ferrell Brantley

Materials reproduced with permission of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Items are made available for educational and research use. Further publication, reproduction, or commercial use may require additional permission from the repository and/or rights holders.

Bert Gerding Papers Finding Aid: https://txarchives.org/utcah/finding_aids/03430.xml

Printed item

English

Text

bert_gerding_cewv_hidden_histories_ut_austin_spring_2026

Austin, Texas; 1969