Student Movements of the New Left

The 1960s were a time of increasing prosperity for many Americans. Though White Americans benefitted most, people from a variety of races, ethnicities, and social classes experienced economic improvements. The average family income rose by 33 percent and, consequently, material culture bloomed. Washing machines, refrigerators, cars, and televisions could be found in 70-80% of households; U.S. consumers, including members of the working and middle classes, spent over $85 billion per year on entertainment. Movies and sports were regular aspects of the weekly routine, and the family vacation became an annual custom for both the middle and working class.

Meanwhile, many baby boomers raised in an environment of affluence streamed into universities in unprecedented numbers. The new students quickly became frustrated with the rigidity of required courses, seemingly irrelevant programs of study, and campus rules limiting what they could do in their free time. These young people were only too willing to take up Kennedy’s call to action, and many did so by joining the civil rights movement. The more radical aligned themselves with the New Left activists of the 1960s who rejected the staid liberalism of the Democratic Party. New Left organizations sought reform in areas such as civil rights and women’s rights, campaigned for free speech and more liberal policies toward drug use, and condemned the war in Vietnam.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

One of the most prominent New Left groups was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Organized in 1960, SDS held its first meeting at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In the Port Huron statement, Tom Hayden captured the group’s dedication to fighting economic inequality and discrimination. The statement called for greater participation in the democratic process by ordinary people, advocated civil disobedience, and rejected the anti-Communist position held by most other groups committed to social reform in the United States.

On a local level, SDS members demanded a number of changes, including greater student participation in university governance and the disentanglement of universities from the military-industrial complex. To address poverty, a small group of SDS members moved into Chicago’s uptown district in the summer of 1964. Here, they tried to take on racism and poverty through community organizing.

Figure 1. Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison protested the war in Vietnam in 1965. Their actions were typical of many on college campuses across the country during the 1960s. (credit: “Yarnalgo”/Flickr)

Under the umbrella of their Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP), they created Jobs or Income Now (JOIN) to address problems of urban poverty and resisted plans to displace the poor under the guise of urban renewal. They also called for police review boards to end police brutality, organized free breakfast programs, and started social and recreational clubs for neighborhood youth. Eventually, the movement fissured over whether to remain a campus-based student organization or a community-based development organization.

Free Speech and Antiwar Movements

During the same time that SDS became active in Chicago, student activists at the University of California, Berkeley formed Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement. The movement was a response to university rules restricting fundraising and advocacy for political causes; only members of the student Democratic and Republican organizations could participate in these activities. In October 1964, a student was arrested for distributing political literature and refusing to show campus police officers his student ID card. Angry students surrounded the campus police car in protest and refused to let the vehicle move for thirty-two hours until the student was released. Two months later, students organized a massive sit-in to resolve the issue of political activities on campus. While unsuccessful in the short term, the movement inspired student activism on campuses throughout the country.

A target of many student groups was the war in Vietnam. In April 1965, SDS organized a march on Washington for peace; about twenty thousand people attended. That same week, the faculty at the University of Michigan suspended classes and conducted a 24-hour “teach-in” on the war. The idea quickly spread, and on May 15, the first national “teach-in” was held at 122 colleges and universities across the nation. Originally designed to be a debate on the pros and cons of the war, at Berkeley, the teach-ins became massive antiwar rallies. By the end of that year, there had been antiwar rallies in some sixty cities.