M a r k D i l l e y

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Summer of Love 2004

"James Southern of Trinity College wrote:
SDS was founded in 1959 as a branch of the League for Industrial Democracy based in Ann Arbor Michigan. In 1962, a convention composed of 59 members from cities all over the East Coast and mid west met in Port Huron Michigan. The convention was led by the president of the organization, Robert Allen (ed. note Alan) Haber, who, along with Tom Hayden, drafted the Port Huron Statement, a document that set forth the ideals and intentions of the SDS.
In 1962 the SDS was primarily a civil rights movement that addressed American issues such as poverty, racism, the arms race, and the narrow limits of participation and social change that were possible in electoral politics. Throughout the members of SDS believed that they were part of a revolution. Labeled as ‘democratic utopians,’ they held very close to them a vision new democracy in America. The ultimate aspirations of the SDS were to replace power derived from possession, privilege, and circumstance, with power rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason, and creativity. This philosophy is outlined in detail in the Port Huron Statement.
As the war escalated, so did active participation in SDS. By 1968, SDS could count on 135,000 supporters from over 400 chapters nationwide. Mass participation led to mass demonstrations, which occurred in schools as well as in the streets. The largest student led revolt held at a school was the takeover of Columbia University in 1967. Students caught wind that Columbia was one of the chief universities for the IDA, (Institute of Defense Analysis). Columbia was among a group of universities that supplied the pentagon with vital military research, and thus was a direct contributor to Industrial Liberalism, which the Left detested. Sit-ins, marches, and picketing were other forms of mass protest carried out by the SDS that stirred up an abundance of revolutionary sentiment on campuses nationwide. Until 1968, the vast majority of these protests were peaceful, however, the turbulence of events in 1968 escalated many demonstrations into acts of violence.
The downfall of SDS (in 1968) was that 'it lacked a policy that linked immediate action to revolutionary strategy.' Furthermore, 'the left was still not strong enough to build any lasting political framework without a coalition with the peace forces, and particularly the left-liberal wing of the Democratic Party.' As the SDS began to fictionalize and breakdown, many groups ended up resulting to violence and chaos, which only resulted in disaster."