A small kitten scampers up the steps of ivy-laden Cobb Hall at the University of Chicago. Nearby, a mohawked student attempts to spear a stale, “dumpstered,” bagel mid-air with a PVC pipe. He’s surrounded by dozens of other young radicals mingling in the school’s immaculate green courtyard, chatting about music, activism and revolution. Just inside the hall a complicated and exasperating argument rages over national organization and the delicate challenges surrounding differences in race, sex, class, sexual orientation and gender identity. Welcome to the 1st National Convention of the reborn Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
The New and the Old
Held August 4th-7th (2006) and attended by an estimated 200 students and activists from as far away as Washington State, Vermont, and Arizona, the convention was the first national event held by SDS since its re-inception just 7 months ago on Martin Luther King Day. The original SDS of the 1960s, before it collapsed into various competing factions (the final, disastrous convention in 1969 was also held in Chicago), is remembered as part of a powerful movement that funneled thousands of young students Southward to the front lines of the struggle for Civil Rights, and as one of the first and steadiest voices demanding the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from a place called Vietnam. 40 years later, while the nation is embroiled in a conflict over the civil rights of immigrants, and the American military is trapped in yet another foreign quagmire, a sentiment of disinterested cynicism, even hopelessness, has thus far maintained a firm grip on much of America’s youth. Meanwhile, the national organizations leading the fight against the rising tide of imperialism have been a regrettable combination of internet-based lobby groups soliciting funding from wealthy donors, along with sectarian groups stuck in the mid-60s strategy of massing bodies to clog city streets for one afternoon.
Pat Korte, one of the founders of the new SDS, says it was his experience with these “inherently undemocratic” organizations that dominate the American Left that pushed him and other students to talk about restarting SDS last fall, while Pat was still in high school. “We wanted a multi-issue organization in which the membership would have power over defining the organization, in which youth and students especially would be encouraged to have input, and which would build bridges between students and non-students in a democratic framework.”
SDS, especially the ideals embodied in the 1962 Port Huron Statement, presented an option for a different kind of organizing, “based on participatory democracy.” So Pat went about finding and contacting former members of the original SDS and received their permission to give the organization another try.
The Internet proved itself as a “terrific organizing tool,” and the group’s membership exploded. Within six months over 1,000 members had joined SDS via the website, representing 150 chapters around the country. Many of those who initially joined were former members of the original group during the Sixties, while most others were inspired by the group’s history from the Sixties. Yet, the history of SDS is a troubled story, and inheriting that legacy means resuscitating old challenges, along with some new ones. Would the new SDS be able to avoid making the mistakes of its predecessor, for example, white leadership and male dominance? Is the internet the best tool for organizing students located on campuses around the country, who had no previous face-to-face connection, and how could this be done in a “democratic,” “non-hierarchical” manner? Finally, could the new SDS manage to be a powerful voice for radical change without falling victim to factionalism, government infiltration, and a narrow, anti-war focus?
Across the Age Barrier
One of the first, most unique features that one notices about the new SDS is its intergenerational character. In every SDS gathering, amidst the students and youth you will find a healthy representation of “first generation SDSers,” friendly people who insist they are not trying to guide or lead the new organization, but are present to provide help whenever necessary. In fact, SDS is organized into two distinct components, the student and youth component, Students for a Democratic Society, and MDS, or Movement for a Democratic Society, which is a vehicle for original SDS members and other non-students. The two groups appear to coexist harmoniously, as the older folks, while providing much-needed financial aid and some lengthy motivational speeches, seemed content to spend most of the convention manning tables and occasionally leading panel discussions, while largely allowing the younger members to be the loudest and most decisive voices.
Strengths and Weaknesses
On Saturday the workshops began, with such diverse topics as “New Orleans: Organizing to Rebuild,” “Class Privilege: A Burden or a Tool?,” “Building the Palestine Solidarity Movement,” “The Modern Sex Workers’ Rights Movement” and “Creating and Sustaining an Anarchist Revolution.”
The best workshop I attended was entitled “Direct Action on Campus,” in which everyone participated in a mock confrontation between students and administrators (I was selected to play a bewildered police officer). Not only were theoretical and strategic considerations reviewed, but the participants were also given a hands-on application of their newly learned skills.
Not all of the convention ran so smoothly. The schedule as drafted allotted time for caucuses to meet, including a “Queer/Trans Caucus,” a “People of Color Caucus,” a “Feminist Caucus,” an “Environmental Caucus” and both “Anarchist” and “Marxian” Caucuses as well, but they were all scheduled for the same time. Therefore people who self-identify as, for example, a person of color and queer, would have to choose which caucus to attend and which identity to represent.
Just when worry of repeating the original SDS’s sexism hit everyone in the face, the knockout blow walked right into the room. Through the doorway emerged the People of Color Caucus, wearing sullen faces and armed with a devastating statement. By this point, the Structure meeting had been going on for over an hour and a half, yet the 15 members of the POC Caucus had not been present the entire time, and in fact had been meeting next door for the last 3-4 hours, to apparently no one’s recognition. When ashamed and confused murmuring in the white audience subsided, the People of Color delivered their statement. “As People of Color, we have witnessed that being at this conference was an alienating experience…” They were discouraged by the convention’s white-dominated atmosphere and expressed the worry that SDS was making the same mistakes which have divided and crippled the progressive Left of the U.S. for the past 40 years. They demanded to know whether SDS would be yet-another white radical organization, or if it would actively strive to be multiracial and all-inclusive, not only sensitive of racial lines, but gender and sexual orientation lines as well.
There could be no adequate response. Beyond applause, each member of the white-dominated audience struggled and squirmed to find some way to reassure the People of Color of their good intentions while admitting their failures and mistakes. In truth, the kind of conscious, sensitive and reflective discussion that the white members of SDS need to do around this difficult issue simply could not occur immediately following the statement, especially after such a demoralizing set of events. No one knew what to do next. At this point the panelists whose scheduled workshops were now more than one hour past their starting times demanded that the next session begin immediately, because they had to travel home before Monday. The roomed buzzed with confusion and people began to file out the door en masse, while some still shouted desperately that no decisions on national structure had been made. The convention gasped and nearly choked; all feared the new SDS was stillborn.
Solidarity Building
Yet, walking around the campus, it was clear that life was slowly breathing back in, simply through relaxed and friendly discussions that united the scattered students. Whatever animosity had existed in that room dissipated as the young radicals casually hung out together in Chicago.
This points to what was undoubtedly the most positive thing to come out of the convention: all the personal connections made. For the students to meet one another and share their experiences of how they’ve struggled in their own communities and campuses, trying to tackle problems which face all of us, was not only self-affirming but points to the real possibility that a national organization can affect change simply by bringing people together.
On Monday, the final day of the convention, with only 60 of the original estimated 200 attendees still around, the convention ended positively. In the first plenary of the day, entitled “Resisting Empire from Within: SDS and the Antiwar Movement,” SDSers brainstormed plans for a week of action this coming Fall semester called “Iraq Week,” hoping to spur the campuses to once again become hotbeds of militant resistance to what currently appears to be an endless war in Iraq and the Middle East. According to the panelists, this would be accomplished through “direct actions on campus and beyond [that] boldly illustrate the connections between educational institutions, war profiteers, and political elites within the imperialist establishment.”
It was also decided that SDS will be a national network tying together chapters, but that real power lies at the grassroots level in local campuses and communities. The next SDS conventions will be regional rather than national, so that people can meet one another without traveling across the country. It was suggested that each area should hold two regional conferences within the next year, with the second being focused on determining goals for a potential SDS constitution. Decisions regarding that constitution will then be confirmed at the 2nd National Convention, to be held next summer, location TBD. When the discussion ended with unanimous agreement, there was a little applause and a very big sense of relief.
High Expectations
It should be expected that an organization assigning itself such an audacious goal as shutting down imperial ambitions, and inheriting such a difficult legacy as SDS, should suffer a few birth pangs upon its first meeting. After all, these are difficult and strained times, and as Al Haber (founder of the original SDS) pointed out, “We haven’t had a national interracial movement since the mid-60s.” But many members I talked to felt that SDS is re-emerging at just the right time, to help a new generation of American radicals find their voice, and strengthen what thus far has been a fragmented and ineffective movement for peace and justice in America. On Monday afternoon, with the convention ended and people beginning the long trips back to all parts of the country, one got the feeling that what Pat Korte called “an experiment in participatory democracy” has an awful lot of potential, but to fulfill that potential will require a lot of patience, understanding, and determined effort in order to achieve the ambitious goal of creating a more democratic society.
This article was originally published in a longer version by Monthly Review’s MRZine: https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org
The Port Huron Statement can be accessed at: www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/sds_documents/port_huron.html
You can find out more about the New SDS at:
