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Civil Rights, Counterculture, and Vietnam

The 1960s are lacking in Devil-Goat day photographs, but this was a period of massive social change throughout the US. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, ending legal segregation. The initial Civil Rights movement sparked a number of other rights movements, including movements for women’s liberation¹, Chicano rights², Native American sovereignty³, and LGBTQ+ rights (marked by the Stonewall Riots in 1969)⁴

In 1965, the US started becoming more involved in the Vietnam War, sending combat troops over that year. While the US military draft would not have had a massive effect on the population of Mary Washington College, as a women’s college. Many of the women at MWC dated or knew men from Marine Corps Base Quantico, near Triangle, Virginia, many of whom could be sent overseas to war at any moment. These social changes extended past the 1960s, too. In 1970, many students on campus participated in a nationwide protest of the Vietnam War.⁵

“At a college that lacked male students until the 1970s and did not have antiwar irritants such as ROTC units or government-military research contracts, concern about the war might have been expected to be less present than at larger coeducational research institutions. Yet there were several factors that led to unusual intensity of interest in the Vietnam conflict among Mary Washington students. For one thing, many students came from northern Virginia—an area that had extensive governmental ties, either political or military…More important, again because of the College’s location, there was the U.S. Marine Corps connection. Located only twenty miles from Quantico, Mary Washington’s more than two thousand students were an alluring source of dates for the young officers being trained at the base. In the 1960s particularly, formal social events on campus were notable for the grandeur of the young men in their immaculate dress uniforms…But the Vietnam War cast a pall over this felicitous arrangement—sometimes in an all too-literal sense. This was because, in a war in which the Marines played an extensive combat role, the young officers who were often in the forefront of battles were the very men who had trained at Quantico. As the war stretched on and the casualty lists mounted, the grim reality of it too often came home to Mary Washington in a personal way as word arrived that boyfriends or fiancés had been wounded, or worse.”⁶

While much of this change is less visible in its effects on events like Devil-Goat Day, it certainly had an effect on student culture on campus. Mary Washington College admitted its first Black students in 1962, with Jacquelyn Pulliam attending summer classes that summer, and Kaye Savage becoming the first Black residential student that fall.⁷ The college did not formally desegregate until 1964.⁸ MWC’s first Black graduate was Dr. Venus Jones, who graduated in 1968.⁹

1962 – Student Scrapbook

“Freshie” Caps

The “Freshie” Caps are a longstanding tradition in which the freshman class is required to wear them during celebrations and is allowed to take them off and throw them in the air only at the end of the Devil-Goat Day competition.

(This analysis comes from the sources available to us during the process of the Devil-Goat Day Team’s research.)

1. Burkett, E. “women’s rights movement.” Encyclopedia Britannica, April 13, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/event/womens-movement. ↩︎
2. Britannica Editors. “East L.A. walkouts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, February 14, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/event/East-L-A-walkouts. ↩︎
3. Luebering, J. “American Indian Movement.” Encyclopedia Britannica, March 26, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Indian-Movement. ↩︎
4. Britannica Editors. “Stonewall riots.” Encyclopedia Britannica, April 19, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/event/Stonewall-riots ↩︎
5. William Crawley, University of Mary Washington : A Centennial History, 1908-2008 (University of Mary Washington, 2008), 131-136. ↩︎
6. William Crawley, University of Mary Washington : A Centennial History, 1908-2008 (University of Mary Washington, 2008), 131-132. ↩︎
7. Noelle Clark, “City, UMW Unveil on-Campus Stops for U.S. Civil Rights Trail.” Fredericksburg Free Press, July 16, 2024. https://www.fredericksburgfreepress.com/2024/07/16/city-umw-unveil-on-campus-stops-for-u-s-civil-rights-trail/. ↩︎
8. Laura Moyer, “Remembering Venus R. Jones.” University of Mary Washington Magazine, April 27, 2018. https://magazine.umw.edu/spring2018/departments/1564/. ↩︎
9. Jenna Gilbert et al., “The Venus Jones Project,” The Venus Jones Project – University of Mary Washington, The Venus Jones Project, 2022, https://venusjones.umwhistory.org. ↩︎

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