Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen

1
Students for a Democratic Society and the
Weathermen
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Students for a Democratic Society Port Huron
Statement (1962)

• The Port Huron Statement represented several
  months of writing and discussion among SDS
  membership, a draft paper, and revision by the
  Students for a Democratic Society national
  convention meeting in Port Huron, Michigan in
  1962.
• SDS laments the fact that American culture does
  not evaluate individuals based upon the strength
  of their character, but relies on superficial
  means of assessment such as possessions and test
  scores.
• Note the concerns relating to disengagement from
  societya common theme in 1960s cultural
  discourse.

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From the Port Huron Statement
When we were kids the United States was the
wealthiest and strongest country in the world
Many of us began maturing in complacency.   The
worldwide outbreak of revolution against
colonialism and imperialism, the entrenchment of
totalitarian states, the menace of war,
overpopulation, international disorder,
supertechnology--these trends were testing the
tenacity of our own commitment to democracy and
freedom Loneliness, estrangement, isolation
describe the vast distance between man and man
today. We would replace power rooted in
possession, privilege, or circumstance by power
and uniqueness rooted in love, reflectiveness,
reason, and creativity. As a social system we
seek the establishment of a democracy of
individual participation The university
"prepares" the student for "citizenship" through
perpetual rehearsals and, usually, through
emasculation of what creative spirit there is in
the individual. America is without community
impulse, without the inner momentum necessary for
an age when societies cannot successfully
perpetuate themselves by their military weapons,
when democracy must be viable because of its
quality of life, not its quantity of rockets.  
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The SDS Vietnam Protest (1965)

• The first anti-Vietnam War demonstration to gain
  front-page coverage from The New York Times was
  organized by an obscure little organization
  called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
• At the time, it was the largest antiwar protest
  in American history, with 25,000 marching on
  Washington.
• They were a diverse group of students and adults
  of various universities and political
  affiliations.
• 10 were African-American and many had attended
  the civil rights demonstrations in Washington
  D.C. years earlier.

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The SDS Vietnam Protest (1965)

• The demonstrators constructed a petition to end
  the war and refused to disperse until the
  declaration was accepted by a police officer.
• The petition offered many schemes to end the
  war, including reconvening the Geneva
  Conference, negotiating with the NLF and North
  Vietnam, immediate withdrawal, and UN-supervised
  elections.
• The non-violent demonstration drew neither police
  action nor altercations between protestors and
  counter protestors.

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The SDS and the Weathermen

• By the late 1960s, the SDS had splintered.
• One of its resultant movements, Weather
  Underground, supported violent action as a
  necessary means to destroy capitalism and, in
  their opinion, the oppression that arose from
  such a system.
• This photo is from one of the first Weather
  Underground protests, the "Day of Rage" in
  Chicago which led to over 70 arrests.

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The Violent Weather Underground

• As the 1960s yielded to the 1970s, the Weather
  Underground became increasingly violent and
  radical.
• This photograph shows a bombing attributed to the
  Weathermen during that time.

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FBI Files on the Weather Underground (1976)
The Weathermen, of course, did not just happen to
come about during the June, 1969, SDS National
Convention. They fully admit their radical
heritage began during experiences gained in
SDS The campus base was forgotten and the WUO
began to recruit greasers and assorted oddments
who had displayed their hatred of authority in
direct combat with the police regardless of
their continued seeking of ideological clarity,
the WUO has maintained consistency on several key
points. They are -The understanding that the
primary contradiction facing the world is that
between U.S. imperialism and the oppressed
peoples of the world, especially Third World
people. -That revolutionaries are
internationalists and as such they have a duty
and obligation to the international communist
movement which must guide it. -That armed
struggle is the ultimate necessity of the
political revolutionary which must be used in
order to seize state power and defeat U.S.
imperialism
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Citations Slide 2 http//www.sds.revolt.org/butt
on-change.jpg Slide 3 http//coursesa.matrix.msu
.edu/hst306/documents/huron.html Slide 4
http//scoop.diamondgalleries.com/news_images/3323
_9152_11.jpg Slide 5 http//bentley.umich.edu/bh
l/exhibits/sixties/protestwebimages20lr/peace001.
jpg Slide 6 http//www.thestudentunderground.or
g/images/articles/20.jpg Slide 7
http//www.newyorkcitywalk.com/images/nycwweatherm
en/FireCrowd.jpg Slide 8 http//foia.fbi.gov/fo
iaindex/weather.htm Slide 9 http//thisdistracte
dglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Weather20Un
derground20pic2.png