Students For A Democratic Society - SDS-WSA: 1969 To 1974 and Beyond

SDS-WSA: 1969 To 1974 and Beyond

SDS-Worker-Student Alliance (SDS-WSA) continued to function nationwide, with a focus on (a) fighting racism; and (b) supporting workers' struggles and strikes, including the 1969 General Electric strike and 1970 Postal Workers' strikes. The WSA organized a support demonstration for the post office strikers, which worried the Nixon administration a lot. This is the entry from H.R. Haldeman’s diary:

Now calling itself simply SDS, SDS-WSA continued to publish the newspaper New Left Notes. It held a convention in Boston in 1971, at which a striking General Motors worker was a featured speaker.

In 1972, SDS-WSA demonstrated at the Democratic National Convention in Miami against Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's retreating from his original stronger campaign positions against the Vietnam War. Several hundred SDS members staged a sit-in at the Doral Hotel as McGovern and his staff met upstairs with protesting members of Grassroots McGovern Volunteers and sympathizers angry over the same issues.

In Newark, New Jersey, SDS-WSA demonstrated against Anthony Imperiale and his North Ward Citizens' Council which was opposing the construction of Kawaida Towers, a building complex sponsored by a community organization led by Black nationalist and poet Amiri Baraka (formerly Leroy Jones) (New York Times January 3, 1973, p. 84)

SDS joined with PLP and others to protest the writings of Arthur Jensen, William Shockley, and Richard Herrnstein, all of whom promoted the notion that there might be a genetic component to the observed below-average performance of black people on IQ tests. In October 1973, SDS-WSA, PLP, and others organized a convention at the Loeb Student Center of New York University dedicated to opposing academic racism. SDS circulated a petition entitled "A Resolution Against Racism" that was published in the New York Times on October 28, 1973 (p. 211). Out of this convention the Committee Against Racism (CAR) was formed to continue the fight against racism. CAR later changed its name to International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), when some chapters were formed in Canada.

In 1974, National SDS(-WSA) voted to dissolve as a separate organization and reform as chapters of InCAR. However, individual chapters of SDS continued to exist for some time. A chapter at Purdue University was active as late as 1976.

All references to contemporary activities of SDS in sources such as the New York Times after early 1970 are to SDS-WSA. For example, SDS confronted Indiana Senator Vance Hartke at an antiwar rally in New York City in 1971 (New York Times July 3, 1971, p. 3 and July 4, 1971, p. 3). SDS denounced liberal Democrats as having been the authors of the Vietnam War in the first place. SDS demonstrated against the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida in August 1972 (New York Times August 21, 1972, p. 20; August 22, 1972, pp. 1,36; August 23, 1972, pp. 1, 28).

Unlike SDS-RYM and the Weathermen, SDS-WSA strongly opposed bombing and terrorism. In 1971, SDS-WSA published a pamphlet titled Who Are The Bombers?. It warned readers against police agents sent into the anti-Vietnam War movement to foment violence to justify police attacks. It also sharply criticized the Weathermen, which had begun its campaign of bombings.

On June 26, 1972, the US Supreme Court gave a unanimous opinion, in the case Healy v. James, stating that members of the SDS had been unconstitutionally deprived of their First Amendment right to freedom of assembly when a group was denied permission to form on the campus of Central Connecticut State College in New Britain, Connecticut.

A few early SDS leaders went on to careers as Democratic Party politicians, including Tom Hayden, who is still active in politics and writing. Hayden is a former member of the legislature of the state of California and is well known as the former husband of actress Jane Fonda, a prolific author, and a former candidate for offices such as Governor of California, Mayor of Los Angeles, and US Senator.