In the late 1960s and early 1970s many countercultural activists became vegetarians in the context of the Vietnam War protests, choosing a peaceful diet as a complement to their public stance of nonviolence. In response to "posters that showed the devastation of people and property in Vietnam," one man asked himself, "What am I doing eating meat? I'm just adding to the violence," and became a vegetarian. Another nonviolent Civil Rights activist described the connection to vegetarianism in these words:

Under the leadership of Dr. King I became totally committed to nonviolence, and I was convinced that nonviolence meant opposition to killing in any form. I felt the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other—war, lynching, assassination, murder and the like—but in their practice of killing animals for food or sport. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life.

Vegetarian Ecofeminism
A Review Essay

Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 23.3 (2002) 117-146

Greta Gaard