Socialism 2018

The 1960s marked, for the first time since the 1930s, a period of mass radicalization in the United States, a key part of which involved the mass mobilization of students. From its small beginnings in 1960, to its dramatic collapse in 1969, SDS became an important focal point for radicalization students in the north, inspired by the Civil Rights movement and outraged by the War in Vietnam. It tried to tie together criticisms of racism, economic inequality, and foreign policy into a coherent critique of an entire system, even if it was unclear about what drove that system or what, if anything, should replace it. It was the beginning of an attempt—beginning with moral outrage and ending in systematic social critique—to move beyond single-issue struggles toward a more radical project of changing the whole society.