When was students for a democratic society formed

We can build a sustainable movement that actually wins material change, and ultimately transforms society. History shows that most of the basic rights we have today, from the 8 hour work day to Ethnic Studies, were won through mass mobilization and direct action. We can take control of our campuses, workplaces and our communities when we organize. That is why SDS says: Dare to struggle, dare to win! Why was the SDS revived? What about the SDS speaks to a modern generation of students?

How do you think those goals compare to the 60s SDS? How did the SDS as a group revive themselves even after the the negative image they gained in the early 70s with the Weather Underground? My most memorable chapter was going down to Tennessee for the national meeting, ended up taking position as a regional coordinator of sorts for a year and was heavily involved during that time. I think SDS is more relevant than ever in this Trump climate, but at that time it was more a sense of complacency, liberals were feeling pretty comfortable with Obama newly in office but there was a strong sense that nothing had changed amidst our collective, lots of those conversations.

You would find the meeting s would be very disorganized - within SDS were so many different factions. But we could definitely get together and make things happen. Did the National Guard just come because the meeting was being held or because of an incident? Just because we were there. Honestly I forget which college we were as but some professors there were from the original SDS and they had gotten us clearance to be there during the summer.

One of the older professors was a very extreme guy by the way. Cool cat, but damn he was intense I could see why things in old days had gotten overboard. So it would be an argument as to whether we would openly associate with that kind of thing. I have forgotten the details to be honest, but basically hire and fire in cycles, no benefits, etc.

And we had protests going trying to change that and the president of our school was pretty much like fuck you guys. So we chained in the main office parking lot, spiked the road, etc. Amongst people at higher levels, we ask others if they want to get involved referring to private emails sent between leaders in SDS, specific example was over the issue of Palestinian students being arrested by Israeli forces, backed by the US , due to all the differences of beliefs within the collective.

The more extreme things tend to happen on a campus by campus or group by group basis. But all the old folks like us still get involved, move on to bigger things and then connect again. I feel like I am not really the best person for most of these questions - in that I was always concerned with the moment, the day to day goals and working with the people around me.

I didn't really concern myself with the past vs. That being said I can offer some minor insights just from experience I had - the general goal of the SDS I was involved with was, naturally, to lead to social change and introduce students across campuses nationwide to perspectives they hadn't considered.

We grew up in a generation defined by W. One often finds there are intelligent people who are just gently unaware of the harsher realities of day to day America, they're not part of an agenda so much as just ignorant. Having marches and action across campuses makes some people angry but inevitably introduces others to something they just hadn't considered. So that being true, obviously the was to reintroduce the SDS to a world that viewed us as "scary" extremists, to create something more identifiable and less intense.

This did lead to plenty of challenges. It was often discussed if it would have been better to just create a new organization altogether. The argument in this case would be two fold in the value of the existing name recognition and further still others within our current SDS that still believed in and idolized the more extreme actions of the past. Still, especially among adults, there would be an immediate impression of "on no, you're not going to blow anything up are you?

So as far as revival goes, the goal would be just to be present, letting people see we were less extreme in our actions, this could get complicated between those who wanted to still be doing more extreme things, as I discussed. I don't think the who're accusation is without merit. I think there were great things going on within, and things going on within, and I don't agree with a "negative" view of SDS.

But there were moments when I'd witness people interested or newcomers being put off by a sense of talk and self-adulation over action, but that would depend on the group of people you'd be involved with. But also to be fair, I don't think the who're thing and etc prevailed down on the base.

You'd witness some nonsense at the gathering of the people who felt they were in charge. Egos battling as to which perspective was right, but when I just got on campuses, with the kids out there just wanting to do something, it was a much more organic atmosphere without pretension. First Published August 16, Accessed on March 27, September- October Followers of hard-line philosophies, such as those of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong, as well as that of the radical Weathermen Underground or Weathermen, became the subjects of investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI for terrorist activities.

The FBI scrutiny, along with the end of the Vietnam War , saw the national SDS organization diminish rapidly and its membership drift away sufficiently so that by the mids the SDS was effectively dead. This article was originally published in William W. Halberstam, David. New York: McGraw-Hill, Hodgson, Godfrey.

New York: Vintage Books, Kissinger, Henry. New York: Simon and Shuster, No longer was the defining political issue of the Left labor, and no longer was the entire political sphere systematically categorized by the power elite identified by C. Wright Mills in The Power Elite, They debated things going on around the world.

Tom Hayden was one of these students whose interest was sparked by the sit-ins and Civil Rights Movement taking place in the South. To Hayden, this circumstance in McComb serves as a microcosm of the racial tensions across the nation and as an indicator that Americans have to take an active role in politics in order to change its social structure. SDS defined itself in the Port Huron Statement as an organization that valued mass political participation as both an ends and a means to accomplish their goals related to democracy, civil rights, and university reforms.

SDS was one of the formative groups of the New Left, and it clarified a new political position that would redefine the traditional standards of what was accepted as political. The sociologist C. Wright Mills was the foundation upon which SDS built its ideology. The masses were distanced from the actual decision-making of the state, even when these decisions affected them. Participatory democracy is an amorphous concept, but it is founded upon the idea that politics should be seen positively and be inclusive to all citizens, and it should serve the interests of the people while operating in public.

Students in Berkeley saw the same problems that students in Ann Arbor saw with the administration of universities: after World War II, the university viewed itself as a surrogate and supreme parent to its students, able to provide the necessary environment to produce exemplary citizens.

The power of the Port Huron Statement lies in the concept of a participatory democracy, in which people take part in making decisions that affect their lives. This view of political ownership is a central theme in the rise of the New Left. Growth brings conflict.