The Mifflin Street Block Party has been a Madison tradition for thirty-nine years. This event originated in 1969 as a community based protest to the Vietnam War when a group of young activists and leaders in the Mifflin Street neighborhood hosted a street dance. 

People gathered on porches, listened to music and danced until police eventually ordered the crowd to disperse. The confrontation soon turned violent and ended that day’s protest. However, the gathering caught enough attention to become a Madison tradition.

Each year in early May students from around Wisconsin celebrate the Mifflin Street Block Party. 

Recently however, this party has signified something far different from an anti-war protest. Students no longer gather to contest worldly conflict or voice their political unrest, instead they get together to celebrate the end of the school year, the arrival of spring, and the last weekend before finals.

I attended this year’s block party to ask the questions: “Should our generation be protesting the war in Iraq like others protested the war in Vietnam?” “Are we, as youth, politically apathetic?” “What makes our generation different from generations before us?”  

See what people had to say.