| 2/16/06 06:49 pm - notmine
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a part of the New Left, a peaceful student political movement that was associated with the civil rights movement. In 1965, SDS decided to make their principle target the protest of the Vietnam War. At this point in time, 41% of America’s population was under the age of 20.[1] For the first time in history, due to the activities of SDS, college students began to actively question the way that the government of the United States was run. They were against the government’s policies concerning nuclear weapons, poverty and racial discrimination. However, the students’ overriding concern was about the strengthening of our commitment to the Vietnam War. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson’s administration announced that it would abolish automatic student deferments from the draft.[2] In this country’s draft history, college students were always exempt from the draft and could count on finishing their education before being called upon to serve their country. The students’ anger over the elimination of deferments, the continuing escalation of the war and the problems at home with the government sparked the growth of the SDS movement across college campuses around the nation.[3] In no time since the Civil War had the country been so divided. This was a war that many Americans did not support. Without SDS, youth apathy would have continued to plague the nation. Their anti-Vietnam War protests created a truly participatory democracy that directly affected the active involvement of college students in American politics.
Unlike other wars, it is unclear exactly when the Vietnam War started. The United States slowly became involved in Vietnam between 1950 and 1965. President Harry Truman sent a modest amount of economic and military aid to the French, who were trying to keep control over their Indochina colony.[4] By 1954, the Vietminh army had defeated the French. They then created Communist North Vietnam north of the 17th parallel, leaving a non-communist South Vietnam. When President Eisenhower took office, he decided that the U.S. needed to build a nation out of South Vietnam by creating a government, taking control from the French and sending military advisors to train the South Vietnamese army.
In 1961, President Kennedy secretly sent Green Beret soldiers to continue teaching the South Vietnamese army to fight. President Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963. At that point in time, there were more than 16,000 U.S. military advisors in South Vietnam and 100 Americans had been killed.[5] One must keep in mind that the United States had not yet declared war against North Vietnam. In 1964, President Johnson got Congress to agree to a functional (not actual) declaration of war: the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Johnson escalated the war by sustained bombing of North Vietnam and an enormous increase of the numbers of Marines being sent to fight. The reason that this war was so controversial was that it was secretive, it was never officially declared and so many “military advisors” were needed that college students were drafted. By the time the war ended, 58,219 American soldiers were killed over a non-declared war.[6] As the war in Vietnam progressed, SDS heightened their activities in an effort to end a war that they believed was pointless and hugely destructive.
The formation of SDS reaches back in American history. In 1905 the Intercollegiate Socialist Society was founded by Jack London, Upton Sinclair
and other radicals of the time.[7] During the 1930s, the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) was formed to join the fight against Communism. The SLID faltered over time but was brought back in the 1960s when students at the University of Michigan began forming SDS.[8] The primary focus of the newly formed SDS was on peaceful efforts to promote civil rights and improve intolerable conditions in the inner city ghettos. However SDS quickly evolved into leading student opposition to the Vietnam War. At this point SDS became the center of the counterculture in the 1960’s known as The New Left or “The Movement”.[9]
In June of 1962, in a United Auto Workers’ camp located in Port Huron, Michigan, SDS held a national convention. Tom Hayden, an SDS staff member, delivered the Port Huron Statement, a mission statement, which was the basis on which to erect a movement to form a participatory democracy.[10] Tom Hayden understood participatory democracy to mean,
“…action; we believed in action. We had behind us a so-called decade of apathy; we were emerging from apathy. What’s the opposite of apathy? Active participation…by personally committing yourself and taking risks, you can enter history and try to change it…we believed, as an end in itself, to make the human being whole by becoming an actor in history instead of just a passive object…the idea of participatory democracy was our central focus.”[11]
The Port Huron Statement was the first official document of SDS and marked the beginning of their fight against student apathy. The statement was aimed at college students. Hayden, among the other leaders, wanted to spark something inside the hearts and minds of the masses that would urge them to take action to change American politics. The first task at hand was to break out of apathy by building a movement to challenge “a mass society of drifting individuals without power or information.”[12]
One of the main goals that Tom Hayden and his cohorts spoke of was that of “participatory democracy.” The members of the meeting in Port Huron were convinced that they had a new vision for America. If only they could get college students to participate, they could change the future of their country. Participatory democracy meant that each individual had a direct responsibility for all decisions affecting their lives. The founders believed that if everyone became an active member of society, then life in America would change in fundamental ways. Tom Hayden believed that this new type of action would fight apathy and would in turn make history. At its peak, SDS had over 100,000 members, mostly college students radicalized by the Vietnam War.[13] They organized into 350 chapters working with a budget of $125,000 per year.[14]
SDS became the organizers of a huge movement against the War in Vietnam. They organized the first anti-Vietnam national demonstration, The March on Washington, on April 17, 1965. “Tom Hayden changed America…he was father to the largest mass protest in American history”.[15] Although there had been organizations that were aimed at affecting the government before the 1960’s, it was unheard of for students to challenge the United State’s foreign policy in such an organized way. The March on Washington was the first anti-war demonstration to be acknowledged on the front pages of major newspapers. This recognition expanded the public’s awareness of SDS activities.
This protest turned out to be the largest anti-war demonstration in American history with over 25,000 protesters marching on Washington. The protesters were made up of a diverse group of students and adults with varying political views but coming together with the goal of ending the war. The participants heard the words of well known Senators, authors and SDS president, Paul Potter. They shouted slogans “Get Out!” and “End the War!” and sang protest songs such as “We Shall Overcome.” The anti-war protesters refused to leave the area until the police accepted a petition to end the war in Vietnam. After the petition was taken, the demonstrators left Capital Hill peacefully. The demonstration received coverage by the mass media. Charles De Benedetti wrote that, “…the news and media were sufficiently impressed by the size and seriousness of the Easter demonstrations that they gave national coverage to SDS and student antiwar movement.”[16] Due to the media coverage, SDS was overwhelmed by new members.[17] Finally, participatory democracy was beginning to take hold and the nation began to arouse itself from its apathy. |
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