Students for A Democratic Society

THE HISTORY OF Students for A Democratic Society (SDS) can be traced to 1905 when writers Upton Sinclair and Jack London joined with lawyer Clarence Darrow and journalist Walter Lippmann to found the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS), which aimed at motivating young people to adopt leftist philosophies. In 1921, the student arm of ISS (SLID) evolved into the League for Industrial Democracy (LID), which in turn became Students for A Democratic Society in 1959. In its heyday, Students for A Democratic Society claimed over 100,000 members with 400 chapters on college campuses across the United States. After the publication of the Port Huron Statement in 1962, which became the manifesto of America's New Left by calling for a commitment to “participatory democracy,” SDS surfaced as the voice of young people who demanded substantive political rights.

The goals of SDS, which were often perceived in the 1960s as too far to the left to represent the views of America's college students, have become mainstream in contemporary American politics. Those goals included civil rights, women's rights, anti-poverty programs, military draft resistance, and unemployment measures. Internally, SDS reforms focused on making college campuses more responsive to the rights of students. The SDS call for an end to the war in Vietnam motivated anti-war protests around the United States. SDS also began the move toward disarmament of nuclear weapons that continued into the 1980s. The SDS-influenced anti-apartheid movement ended only when blacks were granted political and civil rights in South Africa in 1994.

Tom Hayden and his associates in SDS were influenced by philosopher and political activist John Dewey who had been introduced to them by their philosophy professor, Arnold Kaufman of the University of Michigan. The philosophy introduced in Hayden's Port Huron Statement also paid homage to the work of C. Wright Mills who endorsed Dewey's belief that the United States needed a well-defined political left-wing.

Students for A Democratic Society used a number of strategies to spread their leftist views throughout the United States: marches, rallies, sit-ins, teach-ins, picketing, vigils, conferences, leafleting, and education and research projects. On college campuses where SDS chapters favored militant action, members took over university buildings, frequently targeting the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) or blocking military recruiting stations. SDS militarism at Kent State University in Ohio had tragic consequences on May 3, 1970, when students set fire to the ROTC building. In the subsequent clash between students and the national guard, four students were fatally shot. SDS members frequently took over university buildings to achieve their goals. The most successful takeover was at Columbia University in New York, where in April 1969 SDS members led a month-long strike to protest racism and the Vietnam War.

SDS activities sometimes had an extensive political impact. SDS was responsible for much of the chaos of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois, that split the Democratic Party and propelled Republican Richard Nixon to victory. SDS attempted to influence foreign policy in the late 1960s by visiting the communist-controlled countries of Cuba and North Vietnam.

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