Students for a Democratic Society

The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a student activist movement in the United States in the 1960s (1960 to 1969).

A new SDS group was also begun in 2006.

History 1960-1969

SDS held its first meeting in 1960 at Ann Arbor, Michigan. They had their first convention in 1962, and criticized the political system of the United States for not bringing international peace or fixing problems in society at home. It also called for non-violent civil disobedience so that student youth could bring forth a "participatory democracy."

In the school year 1962-1963, the President of SDS was Tom Hayden, who later became famous. There were nine chapters around the country with at most, about 1000 members. The national office (NO) in New York City had only a few desks, some broken chairs, a couple of filing cabinets, and a few typewriters.

On October 1, 1964, the University of California, Berkeley exploded into the free speech movement. Led by a Friends of SNCC student activist named Mario Savio, more than three thousand students surrounded a police car where a student, arrested for setting up a card table against a ban by the university, was being taken away. The sit-down stopped the police car from moving for 36 hours. The demonstrations, meetings and strikes all but shut the university down. Hundreds of students were arrested. SDS leaders watched and learned from this lesson.

In February 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson made the war in Vietnam much bigger by bombing North Vietnam and putting ground troops right into fighting against the Viet Cong in the South. The draft became a very real issue in the lives of students in America. Campus chapters of SDS all over the country started to lead small, local demonstrations against the war and the NO became the main group that organized the March against the war in Washington DC on April 17.

The first teach-in against the war was held in the University of Michigan. Soon hundreds more, all over the country, were held. The demonstration in Washington, DC attracted about 25,000 anti-war protesters and SDS became the leading student group against the war on most U.S. campuses.

The 1965 summer convention was held at Kewadin, Northern Michigan. and the National Office, moved from Manhattan to Chicago at about the same time. This brought more changes.

"For the first time at an SDS meeting people smoked marijuana; Pancho Villa mustaches... blue workshirts, denim jackets, and boots were worn by both men and women. These were people generally raised outside of the East, many from the Midwest and Southwest^[1]

The Winter and Spring of 1967 saw more militancy of the protests at many campuses. Harassment by the authorities was also on the rise. The hippie movement really began to take hold. The 1967 convention spoke on the draft and resisting within the Army itself, and made a call for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam. Also, a women's liberation vote was passed for the first time.

That Fall saw more anti-war actions. The school year started with a large demonstration against the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin on October 17 for letting Dow recruiters on campus. Peaceful at first, the demonstrations turned to a sit-in that was violently broken up by the Madison police and riot squad, causing many injuries and arrests. A rally and a student strike then closed the university for several days. Demonstrations against the draft led by members of the Resistance, the War Resisters League, and SDS added fuel to the fire of resistance. After regular civil rights tactics of peaceful pickets, the Oakland California Stop the Draft Week ended in mass hit and run fights with the police. The huge (100,000 people) October 21 March on the Pentagon saw hundreds arrested and hurt. Night-time raids on draft offices began to spread.

In the spring of 1968, National SDS activists led an effort on the campuses called "Ten Days of Resistance" and local chapters held rallies, marches, sit-ins and teach-ins, ending in a one-day strike on April 26. About a million students stayed away from classes that day, the largest ever student strike in the history of the United States. It was mostly ignored by the New York City-based national media, which was more focused on the student shutdown of Columbia University in NYC, led by an inter-racial alliance of Columbia SDS chapter activists and Student Afro Society activists. Because of the Columbia Student Revolt, "SDS" became a household name in the United States for a few years; and membership in SDS chapters around the United States grew greatly during the 1968-69 school year.

In the summer of 1969, the ninth SDS national convention was held at the Chicago Coliseum with some 2000 people attending. Many groups of the movement were there, even Communists, and set up their tables all around the edges of the hall, together with undercover spies, creating an air of excitement.

Each of the delegates was given a paper saying "You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows" (a lyric from a Bob Dylan song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"). This was written by a group who later became called the Weathermen and were involved in more violent protests. They took over by voting out another large group, the convention quickly fell apart, and so did SDS.

2006: The New SDS

Beginning January 2006, there is a movement to start a new SDS. A small group of old SDS members joined with a Connecticut high school student to call for a new SDS fighting for civil rights and against war. Several chapters at various colleges were later started. On Martin Luther King Day of 2006, these chapters called for the first national convention since 1969 to be held in the summer of 2006 ^[2]

Lately SDS has been in actions against war. The Pace University chapter of SDS protested against a speech by Bill Clinton held at the campus, causing the university to hand over two students to the United States Secret Service. When the school was going to kick these two students out of school, Pace SDS began a movement in March 2006 protesting the university's actions.

On March 19 2006, SDS marched in New York City against the war in Iraq. Seventeen people were arrested at the Times Square Recruitment Center, including several SDS members. Beginning in March and continuing into April and May, SDS chapters across the country participated in the Immigrant Rights Movement. On April 29 2006 SDS was in the march for Peace, Justice and Democracy in Manhattan, NY. As of July 2006, there are 150 SDS chapters around the country and over 1000 members.

The newly formed SDS held its first national convention from August 4 to August 7, 2006 at the University of Chicago.^[3]

Other websites

SDS Historical Documents and other links Archived 2008-08-19 at the Wayback Machine
"Shut It Down!" Archived 2006-03-28 at the Wayback Machine Includes Port Huron Statement, "SDS: The Last Hurrah" (an account of Chicago 1969 written by an undercover federal agent), and the Revolutionary Youth Movement mission statement.
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections - Vietnam Era Ephemera This collection contains leaflets and newspapers that were distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. They reflect the social environment and political activities of the youth movement in Seattle during that period.

"New SDS"

National SDS home page
"The Organizer" - National SDS Blog Archived 2006-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
National SDS Web Forum Archived 2006-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
List of SDS Chapters (US) Archived 2006-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
Pace SDS home page Archived 2007-04-20 at the Wayback Machine
University of Central Florida SDS home page Archived 2020-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
University of Arizona Tucson SDS home page^{[permanent dead link]}

[1] Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS: Ten Years Towards a Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1974. Mass market paperback, 752 pages, ISBN 0-394-71965-4 (this ISBN sometimes leads to another book). It is available online [1] Archived 2006-08-20 at the Wayback Machine

[2] [2] Archived 2007-07-04 at the Wayback Machine.

[3] Doster, Adam (25 August 2006). "SDS, New and Improved". Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 11 February 2019 – via In These Times.

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[2]

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Students for a Democratic Society

History 1960-1969

2006: The New SDS

Further reading

Articles

"New SDS"

Books and references

SDS Publications

U.S. Government Publications

Other websites

"New SDS"