The Students for a Democratic Society Aren’t Going Anywhere
These disgruntled young activists are taking after their predecessors and fighting to make change like it’s the 60s.
By: Sammi DiVito
On a chilly Thursday evening in November, the University of Minnesota’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society were protesting out on the stone steps of the school’s Coffman Memorial Union. Shadows stretched across the campus as the sun began to dip behind the Minneapolis skyline. It had snowed the night before, and frost covered the ground. But despite the bitter conditions, the group was undeterred in its mission. While everybody else hurried to find shelter, they remained outside, bracing against the wind, donning gloves, and shoving flyers into the hands of students passing by.
Their demonstration had begun inside the building. After proudly unveiling a banner that read, “Disarm the UMPD” emblazoned with their group name, they proceeded to give speeches to a room full of students who mostly ignored them as they lounged about or tried to study. Within 15 minutes, an employee had come up and quietly asked them to leave. So, they packed up and parked themselves outside the front doors.
“That was bound to happen eventually,” one of the members explained, shrugging as we left. “You’re technically not even allowed to protest in there.”
It wasn’t the first time SDS had been kicked out of Coffman, and it certainly wouldn’t be their last. Like the original founders of SDS, this group wasn’t afraid of resistance. The national student activist organization was born out of the tumult of the 60s, and over half a century later, is still alive on campuses across the nation. Since that time, the world has changed mightily — as has campus protest and college student life. Social media has become the communication platform of choice, the collective anxieties of college students has steadily increased, and debates surrounding freedom of speech and its infringements on people’s safe spaces has become more apparent. Yet SDS members today feel no less responsible in their task to challenge issues afflicting the modern world. And on the UMN campus, they’re still going old school: tackling 21st century problems with tactics popularized long ago, including teach-ins, sit-ins, and events that push paper into the hands of passing students.
After the protest outside Coffman Memorial Union, they met up and discussed what went well about the event. In a Folwell hall classroom, they crowded their desks into a circle and faced the whiteboard, which listed their plans for actions and social justice carefully written out in dry erase marker. One of the chapter’s main goals for the semester was confronting the university’s new president, Joan Gabel, to discuss an initiative to disarm the campus police. Although members had disrupted her board of regents meeting, shouting out their demands before she could start speaking, as well as held sit-ins in her office, what they wanted was an in-person meeting. So far, all they had gotten was no answer.
“It’s not surprising,” a member said, “We’ve learned from past administrations that presidents aren’t willing to meet with student groups that threaten the balance on campus.”
I first stumbled upon SDS after spotting one of the many flyers they had taped up to boards all across campus (I later learned that they had been chastised by administration for their aggressive postering in the past). Donald Trump was going to be in Minneapolis for a rally at the Target Center that week, and the flyer urged people to attend the protest that would be taking place outside of his appearance. “Need a group to go with?” it read.
That had my attention. Not only were they going, but they were offering to help bridge the gap between the often-apprehensive student body and the activism world. They didn’t want the event to be just their own; they wanted their peers to rally along beside them. And true to their word, on the day of the protest, the group was there— nestled among the throng outside the Target Center, displaying an SDS banner and joining in the chants of the crowd. They had met up with interested students at the light rail station before trekking over.
SDS is an antidote to what some have called “slacktivism” — the idea that you can click a button on Facebook or Instagram to support activist causes but not invest much more. The modern world is in the midst of an era of Internet and social media, and while our technological advancements aren’t by any means unwelcome, they have provided popular new platforms for activism. People can now sign online petitions, repost about issues they care about, or donate to organizations they support. It’s free, accessible, and can be done in the comforts of one’s own home. While some claim it’s a viable form of protest that can instead be done remotely, others say that “slacktivism” is the death of true activism, and an excuse for people to all but remove themselves from a problem
By contrast, the Students for a Democratic Society on the UMN campus seem to forget at times there’s an online world. The group has a neglected Twitter account and a WordPress that hasn’t been updated in years. They have a Facebook account, which they do use on occasion to post about events they’re holding, demonstrations taking place around the Twin-Cities, or as a space to simply get the word out on issues. But in the grandscape of cyberspace, they’re a blip on the radar.
Instead, what they do have is a closet full of banners that have been collected from demonstrations over the years. They have poster-making parties before big events. They have a favorite printer they like to go to for their flyers, as well as get-togethers where they all go and hang them up. They hold meetings, they collect signatures, they protest outside of buildings.
So why, at the height of the online-world activist outreach potential, does SDS choose the route they do?
“I didn’t even know we had a Twitter,” Crull said when I first brought up the account.
Olivia Crull is one of the longer-standing members of SDS; she’s a history major who has been in the organization for about two and a half years. During SDS’s long discussions about bleak social issues, Crull remains cheerful and resolute. She’s bright-eyed and smiley, an activist who believes wholeheartedly in the change that the group is making.
I sat down with Crull after one of SDS’s weekly meetings and asked her why they stuck to more traditional SDS methods versus moving to the online world. She was quick to correct me. They did use social media; they had that Facebook after all. I went on to explain that while it was true that they did post online, their presence was weaker than those of most organizations today. Why, I asked, is this so? It wasn’t the 1960’s, but for all intents and purposes, they still conducted activism as though it was.
“We’re not doing it to copy the old SDS,” she said. “We’re a lot different from them. But we’re doing in-person activism because it’s tested and true. Activism can’t only be online.”
Crull thinks that most successful activism is just a matter of mobilizing people. She told me that I would be surprised by how quickly things can suddenly manifest; some of their smallest, least planned events ended up being the ones with the biggest turnout, the ones with the most information spread. Besides, history has proven time and time again, that the mobilizing masses can make a difference.
And if you want to understand SDS, you have to understand its history.
The Students for a Democratic Society arose in 1960 from the rumblings of undergraduates who were collectively unhappy with the state of government and society. Their first meeting was held in 1960 on the University of Michigan campus, and was defined by the idea of a “participatory democracy.” They were strongly opposed to any kind of central bureaucracy, both in and outside of their organization. Social change, the group argued, belonged in the hands of the people. They aligned themselves with the “New Left,” an emerging political movement that was breaking away from ideas of the “Old Left.” In 1964, there were only 29 SDS chapters existing across the country; by the end of 1964 there were 118.
At the time, the U.S. was in the midst of the Vietnam war, with the Johnson administration only continuing to escalate fighting and implementing drafts for a violent battle nobody wanted to be a part of. In response, SDS organized a sequence of anti-war protests across the country that quickly garnered the support of thousands. They practiced speeches and marches, as well as popularized sit-ins and teach-ins. The organization gained widespread recognition as being people of action. Those earlier members recognized that change could not occur without noise from the masses, so noise they rallied and made.
As their 1962 political manifesto, named the Port Huron statement, aptly explains in its first line, “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.”
SDS was dissolved in 1969, after a national convention resulted in the group splintering into factions over disagreements about different issues and demonstration-methods. For a while, the name Students for a Democratic Society seemed destined to remain in the dusty pages of history books, until 2006, when the group was refounded by two students in the wake of anti-war movements regarding Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Action,” Crull said defiantly, “Is the path forward more than anything else. We must unite in action.
But today, Crull explained, disengagement is a real problem, and it can often be discouraging. The members of Students for a Democratic Society are no different from other undergraduates hurrying around campus: they have full-course loads, jobs, and social lives they often struggle to balance. On top of that, they spend hours each week meeting up and organizing events, only to often be met with disinterest and criticism from those they encounter.
As SDS members attempt to hand out flyers, students often keep their heads down and shove past quickly. People RSVP online for events but don’t show. At one bannering event, when the group stood along the Washington Avenue bridge holding a sign that read, “Nothing’s scarier than police brutality,” they later joked about using candy to bribe passersby to get close enough to take an informational pamphlet.
“I like rejection,” one member commented dryly after being stiffed by someone on the sidewalk during a demonstration.
The numbers prove, however, that the issues presented by SDS are ones that the student body feel strongly about. Last semester, during the all-campus elections, the Students for a Democratic Society submitted a referendum that called for more diversity on campus in order to adequately represent the population of the surrounding Twin-Cities. Part of this included the initiative to disarm the UMPD— because, as they argued, University police possess an intimidating arsenal of military grade weapons more fit for an army base.
The referendum calling for more diversity passed, while the disarming of UMPD lost by only 200 hundred votes. Clearly, the students were compelled by the topics presented by SDS. Historically, part of winning a referendum vote meant meeting with the University president to discuss the changes a group would like to see moving forward. At the time SDS won the popular vote, President Eric Kaler was leaving office and Joan Gabel was settling in to replace him. Sometime during the switch, SDS is convinced that it wasn’t articulated that the president was supposed to meet with them, and they haven’t been able to get in-contact with her since. Thus, their semester-long campaign.
But they don’t let themselves get too discouraged. They stand firm in the belief that at the end of the day, they’re doing what’s right. Although it would be easier, in theory, to simply post about issues online and walk away, that’s simply not an option for them no matter what opposition they face.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Crull declared during a speech she gave at a public forum. Dressed in a yellow beanie and matching yellow sweater, she commandeered the attention of the crowded room. “We want to apply pressure until they can no longer ignore us.” By the end, she had the whole audience chanting along with her.
Eric Dorland, a current SDS member, wasn’t always an activism enthusiast. Initially, he was a member of the UMN Parliamentary Debate Club, but over time began to notice that he was debating about topics that he could recognize as being major issues. What’s the point, he eventually realized, about arguing over them, if he wasn’t trying to change any of it? He joined SDS last spring to dip his toe into the idea of activism groups, and has been there ever since, drawn to the group’s organizational capabilities and boots to the ground mentality.
When I caught him at a bustling campus coffee shop, he had just returned from a long weekend in Chicago. Dorland had made the seven-hour drive down to the Windy City to attend the refounding of the National Alliance against Racism and Political Repression. He spent two days at the event, which amassed a crowd of over a thousand, and excitedly explained to me that at one point he had gotten to hold a boom over Angela Davis when she spoke for cameras. He was starstruck; she was, after all, the face of 70’s black liberation and a well-known activist.
I ended up asking him the same question I had asked Crull. Why does current day SDS perform activism the way that it does? Sit-ins were first popularized in the 60’s, is it safe to assume that they’re not a tactic that’s grown stale? There are lots of older practices that society has discarded simply because they don’t translate in the modern world.
Dorland seemed amused by the idea that they were closely aligned with their 60’s counterparts, like Crull, it had clearly not crossed his mind. But he defended their decision. “Ultimately, it’s just what’s effective,” he explained matter of factly, “If it wasn’t effective, we wouldn’t do it.”
Dorland went on to explain that he wasn’t dismissive of activism on social media, he actually thought it was a great space to raise people’s attention and collective consciousness to certain issues. But, at the end of the day, it’s just a simple tool for building campaigns. Social media doesn’t possess the structure necessary to achieve societal strides, as the nature of online discourse does not always facilitate change.
He was an expressive talker, smiling throughout our conversation about SDS— it was undoubtedly a part of his life he was proud of. I was nervous to kill the good mood with any criticizing questions; the group had been apprehensive about letting me follow them around when I first approached. They had been tricked by people claiming to write about them before, and I often found myself walking on eggshells to avoid being seen as enemy Number 1. But I had to know: If the group truly believed that 60’s activism still worked, then why were people less involved than they used to be? At the peak of the SDS frenzy, there were about 30,000 supporters recorded nationwide and 300 registered campus chapters. Today, those numbers come in at much less.
Dorland was by no means taken aback by my skepticism. “We’re just not in the same place as we were in the 60’s and 70’s. Maybe activism today isn’t as apparent in student organizing, but globally, there are people fighting for very intense things.”
Today’s conditions are different; young adults aren’t being forcibly drafted, taken from their homes and forced to fight and die on the front lines. While there is still violence, human rights issues, and problems with our justice system, today’s students exist in a different, sometimes admittedly more comfortable, world. In the 60’s, students were dying at gunpoint for causes they believed in. Although it may be less evident, that fire still exists in the hearts of students today.
“If I could someday be in that type of situation,” Dorland later went on to say, “And it was for something I believed in, I would put myself there.”
He’s majoring in sociology, with a concentration on policy analysis; essentially a career dedicated to creating change. But his activism won’t just stop at graduation, however. As Dorland so eloquently puts it, being part of SDS is only one part of his life-long project. The goal? To build a more just and equitable world.
“I want to be there at the start,” he said, “Not trail behind.”
I was baffled by this student group. Here I was, using my busy schedule and burdening schoolwork as an excuse to not attend anything that didn’t directly benefit me, while SDS was constantly sticking their neck out for others. They sat outside in the cold and rain, they hounded people for signatures, they skipped class to attend public forums. Today’s SDS members had decided to undertake the enormous challenge of literally changing the world.
They were, in every sense of the word, true activists. And whether or not their old-school practices really did capture the attention of today’s world like it used to, they were keeping the fight alive. As long as there was someone, somewhere, working to fight back, the spark that was originally alight in the hearts of former SDS members would never be stomped out. Activism comes in many forms, but true change, as Crull and Dorland liked to say, comes in numbers.
As the semester drew to a close, SDS finally got word of something they had been waiting all school year for: that they could sign-up for Joan Gabel’s office hours. So, they did.
They had reached the height of their disarm campaign, steadily increasing the intensity and militancy of their protests until it had reached its grand finale: getting into the office of Gabel and demanding they be taken seriously. The office hours were being held in Morrill Hall; it was a chance for students who signed up to spend ten minutes talking about whatever issues or concerns they chose. SDS arrived early, standing grouped together in a tight knot outside the administration building, armed with one of their signature banners. Their moment had come. A few members stayed outside to display the signage while the rest of us trekked up to the second floor.
“Are you nervous?” I asked Crull. We were sitting on the floor of the waiting room, surrounded by other student groups. I watched as she checked over her notes, reviewing what she was going to say.
“No,” she said, “Not at all.”
Much to my surprise, the group let me accompany them to their meeting, mostly under the condition that I took notes. Like always, they were steadfast in the idea of strength in numbers. We were led into a private room and settled around a long wooden table, facing off against Gabel on the other side. After seeing her picture plastered on UMN websites and hearing her name conspiratorially tossed around at SDS meetings, it was all too shocking when she addressed me and asked me to please turn off my recording device. She claimed she would speak differently if recorded, so I obligingly tucked it away.
“Did you read through our list of demands?” Crull asked, her composure steely.
Joan Gabel had. But, for the sake of transparency, she came right out and said that she didn’t agree with them on the issue of disarmament. She went to explain that while she could tell it comes from a legitimate concern, she thought it was better to address police violence and racial biases in an alternative way. Joan Gabel went on to say that she was, after all, the daughter of a cop. Our ten minutes with her finished quickly, and we were dismissed with a comment about some sort of later follow-up.
The group retreated quietly and met up again on the main floor of the building. “She filibustered us,” a member said.
“I can’t believe she’s the daughter of a cop,” another remarked. “That’s good to know."
Crull seemed the least bothered, saying the meeting went just about how she expected. She didn’t think the group was going to get in there and immediately change the mind of Gabel, but they needed that traction in order to at least wedge the idea into the consciousness of people in more political power.
To me, this seemed to be the end. They had fought long and hard all semester, but here they were, face-to-face with the university president who more or less told them that their demands were never going to happen. Their opposition was huge, their support was slipping. Wouldn’t now be the time to give-up and admit that maybe they should put their collective energy into something they had a better chance of making happen?
But that was not the nature of SDS.
“We’ll be back here next semester,” a member said, and they all agreed decisively. Same time, same place, same mission.