The Rise and Fall of Students for a Democratic Society Lauren Storch School of Humanities and Global Studies, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, NJ, 07430

Introduction The Progressive Labor Party Revolutionary Youth Movement Students for a Democratic Society was created as The Progressive Labor Party joined SDS in In 1969 another radical faction called the an organization whose goals were to activate 1966 as a platform to gain members for their Revolutionary Youth Movement split from SDS after young people into become political vehicles in own organization. The PL faction continued opposing its stance on labor rights. RYM gained order to spread democracy. SDS found its home to grow and dominate SDS. PL activists support by rallying with Hispanic organizations like across college campuses and its numbers soared wanted to emphasize the working class to the Young Lords and Brown Berets, along with the during the early 1960s. SDS became subject to combat issues surrounding workers rights Black Panther Party. RYM eventually split into institutional collapse during the later half of the and Capitalism, while SDS was more another faction within itself called RYM II that decade as internal and external forces conflicted focused on ending the war in Vietnam and positioned itself against the Weathermen. RYM and with the movements overarching ideology. The combating racism. In 1969 SDS removed the RYM II were unstable groups with little to no radical factions that distanced themselves from PL Party from its organization due to a lack institutional structure or strategy, making their efforts SDS contributed to the collapse of the organization of joint fundamental beliefs. Internal ineffective and dangerous. and by the 1970s there was a new revolutionary conflicts in SDS caused many to lose culture that had gained prominence in the United confidence in the organization and either States. distance themselves or created their own factions. The overall structure of SDS was How Its Foundation Led To beginning to crumble during this time. Its Collapse The Port Huron Statement SDS was founded upon principals which The statement calls for “participatory supported universal inclusion and lack of strong democracy” as a way for individuals to determine The Weathermen organizational authority. The irony of SDS is their own independence and assist in creating a that its founding institutional features were more civil world. The critical manifesto essential simultaneously the reason for its collapse. to the foundation of SDS was drafted by one of A group of SDS deserters who began to call themselves the Weatherman believed in using Membership soared due to lack of singular their future presidents, Tom Hayden. The early leadership, but that same structure gave room for leaders' ability to articulate democratic messages violence and destruction to display their oppositional groups to take hold. In the instance of and create a digestible narrative of reinvention political beliefs. A slogan used by the group came across in their communications both stated for activists to “bring the war home,” SDS, bringing in bureaucratic methods may have verbally and through written statements. So long by inflicting damage on American soil instead saved the organization from institutional collapse. as the organization maintained reasonably of Vietnam. The group moved underground in It is because of this complicated dynamic that manageable numbers, SDS was able to speak, 1969 after its formation due to being resistance movements are unable to compete with disagree and make arrangements for protest as investigated by the FBI for criminal activity stable institutions, forcing a constant readjustment one unified group. and general public backlash. They began to be in goals and ideology which ultimately leads to known as the Weather Underground. organizational chaos.