The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a student activist movement in the United States in the 1960s (1960 to 1969).
A new SDS group was also begun in 2006.
History 1960-1969
SDS held its first meeting in 1960 at Ann Arbor, Michigan. They had their first convention in 1962, and criticized the political system of the United States for not bringing international peace or fixing problems in society at home. It also called for non-violent civil disobedience so that student youth could bring forth a "participatory democracy."
In the school year 1962-1963, the President of SDS was Tom Hayden, who later became famous. There were nine chapters around the country with at most, about 1000 members. The national office (NO) in New York City had only a few desks, some broken chairs, a couple of filing cabinets, and a few typewriters.
On October 1, 1964, the University of California, Berkeley exploded into the free speech movement. Led by a Friends of SNCC student activist named Mario Savio, more than three thousand students surrounded a police car where a student, arrested for setting up a card table against a ban by the university, was being taken away. The sit-down stopped the police car from moving for 36 hours. The demonstrations, meetings and strikes all but shut the university down. Hundreds of students were arrested. SDS leaders watched and learned from this lesson.
In February 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson made the war in Vietnam much bigger by bombing North Vietnam and putting ground troops right into fighting against the Viet Cong in the South. The draft became a very real issue in the lives of students in America. Campus chapters of SDS all over the country started to lead small, local demonstrations against the war and the NO became the main group that organized the March against the war in Washington DC on April 17.
The first teach-in against the war was held in the University of Michigan. Soon hundreds more, all over the country, were held. The demonstration in Washington, DC attracted about 25,000 anti-war protesters and SDS became the leading student group against the war on most U.S. campuses.
The 1965 summer convention was held at Kewadin, Northern Michigan. and the National Office, moved from Manhattan to Chicago at about the same time. This brought more changes.
"For the first time at an SDS meeting people smoked marijuana; Pancho Villa mustaches... blue workshirts, denim jackets, and boots were worn by both men and women. These were people generally raised outside of the East, many from the Midwest and Southwest
The Winter and Spring of 1967 saw more militancy of the protests at many campuses. Harassment by the authorities was also on the rise. The hippie movement really began to take hold. The 1967 convention spoke on the draft and resisting within the Army itself, and made a call for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam. Also, a women's liberation vote was passed for the first time.
That Fall saw more anti-war actions. The school year started with a large demonstration against the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin on October 17 for letting Dow recruiters on campus. Peaceful at first, the demonstrations turned to a sit-in that was violently broken up by the Madison police and riot squad, causing many injuries and arrests. A rally and a student strike then closed the university for several days. Demonstrations against the draft led by members of the Resistance, the War Resisters League, and SDS added fuel to the fire of resistance. After regular civil rights tactics of peaceful pickets, the Oakland California Stop the Draft Week ended in mass hit and run fights with the police. The huge (100,000 people) October 21 March on the Pentagon saw hundreds arrested and hurt. Night-time raids on draft offices began to spread.
In the spring of 1968, National SDS activists led an effort on the campuses called "Ten Days of Resistance" and local chapters held rallies, marches, sit-ins and teach-ins, ending in a one-day strike on April 26. About a million students stayed away from classes that day, the largest ever student strike in the history of the United States. It was mostly ignored by the New York City-based national media, which was more focused on the student shutdown of Columbia University in NYC, led by an inter-racial alliance of Columbia SDS chapter activists and Student Afro Society activists. Because of the Columbia Student Revolt, "SDS" became a household name in the United States for a few years; and membership in SDS chapters around the United States grew greatly during the 1968-69 school year.