The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), established in 1960, was a youth movement supporting “participatory democracy.” In other words, they believed that citizens should share directly in social decisions that affected their lives.
SDS was active on college campuses across the United States through the 1960’s. At the core of their mission was the idea that colleges and the students within them could fundamentally change the focus and direction of America.
Portraying American society as deeply flawed, the SDS manifesto, The Port Huron Statement, pointed out the hypocrisy of racial bigotry and the military expansion into Vietnam and other parts of the world by a country founded on the principle that “all men are created equal.”
The Port Huron Statement posited that political, economic, and social institutions “should be generally organized with the well-being and dignity of man as the essential measure of success.”
SDS supported the Civil Rights Movement and emulated its activism. Tom Hayden, who largely wrote the Port Huron Statement worked with SNCC’s (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) first voter registration project.
SNCC emphasized the need to address domestic issues like poverty and racism before engaging in foreign wars. SDS and SNCC were aligned in the objectives of racial equality and ending the Vietnam War, which was drafting more young people into a war they opposed.
When the Vietnam War began to escalate in 1965 and President Johnson ended automatic draft deferments for students, SDS focused more acutely on anti-war protests and marches. Some college students, many of whom became draft eligible with this change, supported SDS.
SDS members organized a march on Washington in response to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and Johnson’s escalation of the U.S. military presence in Vietnam. Various slogans conveyed SDS’s mission during the march.
· War on Poverty—Not on People
· Ballots not Bombs in Vietnam
· Freedom Now in Vietnam
Students from across the nation came to Washington for the protest, held on April 17th, 1965. Marchers first picketed the White House and then rallied at the Washington Monument. This turned out to be the largest peace protest up to that point in American history. Estimates of attendance range from 15,000 to 25,000 marchers. Other supporters of the march included Women Strike for Peace and SNCC.
By the late 1960’s, SDS had begun to splinter into widely different groups with differing visions of goals and approaches. As the various factions diverged, the more moderate members favored peaceful protests, while the more radical factions leaned into more militant approaches. It became impossible to hold the group together amidst their opposing goals as political tensions mounted in American society.
Many local SDS chapters began to lead more militant protests and became convinced that active resistance by any means possible was justified to overcome the American political establishment. This group evolved into the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), which later split further into the (RYM) and the Weathermen, an even more militant group.
Others within the SDS group leaned into Maoist doctrine and alliance with the working class. These were Progressive Labor members (PL). They clashed with the RYM group who aligned with students, rather than with the working class. PL members espoused a militant, counter-cultural program. SDS remained central to student protests like the Columbia University strike of 1968 and the disruption of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in the summer of 1968.
By the June 1969 National Convention, SDS officially split into three factions: Progressive Labor, Weathermen, and the Revolutionary Youth Movement. Within a year, the RYM group, lacking a coherent activist program, collapsed.
The Progressive Labor Party maintained its unity and is still active today. The PLP website states, “Progressive Labor Party (PLP) fights to destroy capitalism and the dictatorship of the capitalist class. We organize workers, soldiers and youth into a revolutionary movement for communism.”
The Weathermen, the third splinter group of SDS, continued to use violence as their tool for revolution. They protested the Vietnam War and racism. At their December 1969 “War Council” they decided to go underground and employ guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government. They changed their name from the Weathermen to the Weather Underground.
In early 1970 three members of the Weather Underground, Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins, were killed when a bomb they were building accidentally exploded in a Greenwich Village townhouse in New York City. Partly because of this accident, the group made the decision to continue bombings, but only with the intention of destroying property, not killing anyone.
The Weather Underground detonated more than two dozen bombs between 1970 and 1974, including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, the California Attorney General’s office, and a New York City police station. Some attacks were preceded by evacuation warnings to avoid deaths.
The FBI identified some of the members, but once the group went fully underground in 1970, the FBI’s ability to identify members was severely limited. Some leaders of the group such as Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dorhn, and Mark Rudd were on FBI wanted posters around the country. But guerilla tactics and small numbers enabled these and other members to hide under assumed identities for several years. A few members were arrested in 1978 and 1981, but many remained hidden for years.
The Weather Underground had resolved to bomb and destroy property but not to kill people, but in a botched robbery of a Brink’s armored truck in 1981 a guard and two police officers were killed north of New York City. Former Weather Underground members were part of that robbery.
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) and the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO) teamed up for the robbery. Kathy Boudin, David Gilbert, Judith Alice Clark and Marilyn Buck had been members the Weather Underground and later helped found M19CO. They were stationed as getaway drivers but were captured and sentenced to prison.
Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, former Weather Underground members who had been on FBI wanted posters for years, turned themselves in to authorities on December 3, 1989. They had been fugitives for nearly 11 years at that point.
Because of improper FBI surveillance and prosecutorial misconduct during investigations into the Weather Underground, charges against Ayers were dropped in 1980. Dohrn received a $1500 fine and three years’ probation for her role in the “Days of Rage” disturbance in Chicago in 1969.
A ”New SDS” went public in January 2006 with a new website. Campus chapters started popping up and remain active today. Chapters continue the legacy of student activism, supporting social justice issues and protection of educational programs.
According to the SDS website, “New Students for a Democratic Society is a national, multi-issue, progressive student organization with over 40 chapters all across the United States. We stand against US wars and intervention, racist discrimination, police crimes, homophobic and transphobic attacks, attacks on women, attacks on reproductive rights, and much, much more.’”
SDS held a National Day of Action for Palestine on October 7, 2025 demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza and the US aid to Israel.
A new generation is carrying on a tradition of activism and protest. As one who has seen the turbulence in recent American history, I can only hope the new SDS remains true to the principle of non-violence.