STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY (SDS)

In the United States, the "New Left" was the name loosely associated with liberal, sometimes radical, political movements that took place during the 1960s, primarily among college students. The New Left opposed the prevailing authority structures in society, which it termed "The Establishment," and those who rejected this authority became known as "anti-Establishment."

The organization that really came to symbolize the core of the New Left was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The SDS marshaled anti-war, pro-civil rights and free speech concerns on campuses, and managed to bring together liberals and more revolutionary leftists.

The Port Huron Statement, its political manifesto, criticized the political system of the United States for failing to achieve international peace and to address social problems in contemporary society. It also advocated non-violent civil disobedience as the means by which student youth could bring forth a "participatory democracy".

SDS tried to organize white unemployed youths through a newly established program they called the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). At the summer convention in 1964 there was a split between those who were campus oriented, and the ERAP supporters. The campus activists were on the rise.

On October 1, 1964, the administration forbade the students to organize political activities on campus property at the University of California, Berkeley. Students refused to obey so the administration called in the police.

Led by a charismatic student activist named Mario Savio, three thousand students surrounded a police car in which a student, arrested for setting up a card table in defiance of a ban by the University, was being taken away. The sit-down prevented the police car from moving for 36 hours and the students took over Sproul Hall, the administration building.

Many were beaten, arrested, and some were suspended. Eventually the Berkeley faculty members came up with a proposal to restore free speech and the University Chancellor was replaced.