Dissolution with the democratic ideals of American society, influenced by the civil rights movement, sparked an alternative student movement in the 1960's. The 1962 Port Huron Statement, founding document for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), sparked a New Left student movement with a proclamation of “democratic alternatives, social experimentation, and participatory democracy.” (1) Author, Tom Hayden, influenced by The Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), began to draft the manifesto as a Freedom Rider imprisoned in Albany, GA. (2)
The statement, influential to the radical student anti-war movement, criticized American society's "complacency, idleness and submission to authority." The New Left ideals resonated with 1960's college students across the country that were disillusioned with American imperialistic initiatives.
SDS Membership Card
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The New Left created fear and controversy within the FBI and Johnson Administration. In response, the FBI started its fifth COINTELPRO program to combat “perceived threats to the existing social and political order…”. COINTELPRO operated in secret, using twelve techniques outlined to antagonize and impede organizations associated with the New Left, The SDS included. (3) For me, the scruples and tactics of the FBI will always be questionable. How do we not know the same programs or worse are not going on today?
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Tom Hayden Interview with Democracy Now!
1. Robert Griffith and Paula Baker, ed., Major Problems in American History Since 1945 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007), 245-249.
2. Tom Hayden, "The Port Huron Statement: A manifesto reconsidered," Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/06/opinion/la-oe-hayden-port-huron-statement-20120506 (accessed March 11, 2013).
3. Robert Griffith and Paula Baker, ed., Major Problems in American History Since 1945 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007), 252-255.
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