Book Review: Quiet Protest

Hannah Viney reviews Effie Karageorgos, Quiet Protest: A New History of Activism During the Vietnam War (UNSW Press, 2026)

Anti-Vietnam protest is largely remembered for the mass Moratorium campaigns, city streets filled with demonstrators demanding an end to conscription and Australian involvement in the war. For Beverley Dunnett and other volunteers, however, their contribution to the June 1971 Moratorium was not loudly marching through the streets of Sydney but quietly “finger painting, drawing, story-telling & reading, building-block games” with babies, toddlers and young children. Their efforts with the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign (VMC) Child-Minding Centre, though not showy or dramatic, was an essential part of the movement, making it possible for more people to join the demonstrations.

Most histories of activism during the Vietnam War (and activism more broadly) focus on loud, visible, attention-grabbing actions—mass demonstrations, civil disobedience, illegal or dangerous awareness-raising stunts—while forgetting or dismissing the quieter, often background, support for a movement that makes the dramatic protests possible. Effie Karageorgos masterfully responds to this silence in Quiet Protest: A New History of Activism During the Vietnam War. This book is, itself, a quiet triumph. Tackling archival biases which makes finding these quiet voices difficult, Karageorgos challenges the idea that “protest only exists when in public view” (13).

To place some necessary limits on an enormous archive, Quiet Protest takes the NSW movement as a case study. Instead of focusing on the motivations of activists (which have been well-documented elsewhere), Karageorgos takes a broader look at the different factions of the movement, whether anti-war, anti-conscription or specifically anti-Vietnam War, to explore the how of protest more than the why. The book is split into thematic chapters, tracing the different demographics of protesters and the everyday actions through which thousands of Australians showed their support for the cause, whether through small financial donations, administrative work, pro-bono legal representation, or conversations over a cup of tea.

Public resistance relies on quiet planning. While the Moratorium marches are often remembered in popular culture as organic eruptions of mass public opposition to the war and conscription, Karageorgos persuasively demonstrates how the quiet work behind the scenes began months before the first Moratoriums in May 1970. In order to attract the roughly 25 000 people who rallied in Sydney, the VMC undertook a mountain of administrative work over at least five months, which included printing “2000 posters, 100 000 informational brochures, 100 000 leaflets for letterboxing and street distribution, 15 000 stickers and 500 information kits with material for speakers’ notes” (79) as well as manufacturing two thousand badges, twenty thousand black arm bands and fifteen thousand car bumper stickers.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is Karageorgos’ insightful handling of archival minutiae like the above—receipts, bank statements, accounts, lists—that often get ignored by busy researchers. Protest histories focus on the big public actions but rarely “highlight time, energy and funding as key elements” (131) of successful organising. One elegant example is the story Karageorgos draws out from a one-line printers’ declaration on Vietnam Action Committee (VAC) leaflets. Noting “Printed by the Hellenic Herald” (36) on a number of pamphlets, Karageorgos compellingly illustrates how Hellenic Herald owner Alexander Grivas and his son Nestor loaned their printing facilities to the movement, revealing support for the anti-war cause among the wider Greek migrant community.

Through such rethinking of archival documents often overlooked as too mundane, Karageorgos adds to ongoing efforts to uncover women’s roles in social movements. Through a discussion of the meticulously documented banking details for donations to the Bill White [Conscientious Objectors] Defence Committee (BWDC), Karageorgos illustrates how activist work was often gendered. This sort of background administrative work was often carried out by women; in this case, the time-consuming but essential work of noting where donated funds had been banked and if receipts had been issued was carried out by BWDC secretary Pat Ruffels and treasurer Nancy Short. While it may have often been men in leading positions of anti-Vietnam protest (notable examples like Save Our Sons aside), these organisations would not have seen success without the efforts of women.

By shining a light on small, quiet actions, Karageorgos extends our understanding of the diversity of people who support a movement. Factors such as age, disability, lack of time, or fear of repercussions can prevent someone taking an active part in protest. As Phyllis M Hamilton of Hornsby wrote to the Northern Districts Vietnam Moratorium Group, “I am in my 70s and have no transport for night affairs, so please excuse me from these” (226). This did not mean people like Phyllis did not wholeheartedly believe in the movement, only that external factors could inhibit their ability to reinforce this belief with loud action. In turn, Karageorgos argues that ignoring actions of ‘advocacy’ in favour of ‘activism’ “will almost certainly leave any calculations short” (237) when estimating the size of a campaign.

This is not simply a history book but an eloquent and hopeful ode to modern human rights campaigns. For anyone involved in protest in 2026, this book provides both examples and inspiration for rethinking how to build a thriving activist community. Karageorgos draws links between the methods used in the 1960s with modern protest, demonstrating to readers how the efforts of activists 60 years ago can inform current campaigns. In 1966, 58 writers issued a collective statement condemning conscription; in 2023, over 30 independent presses, poets, writers and translators hosted a Global Reading for Freedom of Expression and Solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon with readings and performances livestreamed for 24 hours on YouTube. The tactics and the supporters are the same, it is only the technology and platform that has been updated.

This is the book’s most powerful point. By persuasively arguing for the importance of not overlooking quiet protesters, Karageorgos encourages modern activists to value a diversity of contributions. As she points out, the quieter actions “remain powerful…because without them, louder actions would become impossible to execute” (166).  A protest movement’s success is often measured through the number of people who take to the streets but as Karageorgos expertly demonstrates, it is the community built through a quiet conversation that makes such loudness possible.