The 1960’s were full of powerful movements in effort to end oppression, enact change, and encourage America to get involved. One of the groups fighting for equality and democratic participation were the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. The SDS wrote a political manifesto where they proposed a system to encourage participation called The Port Huron Statement, or PHS
The Port Huron Statement was written by Tom Hayden and 58 other college students in the SDS, on June 15, 1962. The main purpose of the PHS was to express the dissatisfaction many college students in the 1960’s felt towards college administrators in regards to them telling them how to live their personal lives, to voice their opinions on how the current state of America …show more content…
Though the Allied forces successfully destroyed fascism in Europe, there was another political system that the United States saw as a threat; capitalism. America is notoriously reluctant to stray away from capitalism, so they see any other form of government as a threat. Though fascism and communism are polar opposites, America still remained afraid to change to avoid radicalization. The New Left drew inspiration from This inspired the New Left to create a new social justice movement that, unlike communism, focused on unionizing labor and questioning social class. It’s important to understand that the New Left drew inspiration from the black radicalism and the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King JR delivered a sermon explaining that “the underlying philosophy of Christianity is diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of segregation, and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot make them lie down together.” In other words, he was trying to convince Christians to help fight to end segregation. Speeches like this helped contribute to and inspire the New Left. because equality and democratic participation from everyone is the core value of the New Left. The Civil Rights movement was vital to the New left because it was inspiration fuel to the movements fire, without it the New Left wouldn’t have had inspiration to draw from. The liberal consensus of postwar America was that every single US citizen was entitled to prosperity and equality, but initially this was limited. Mainstream liberals only applied this to straight, white, educated men and minorities were still under oppression. Once the New Left started to gain traction, the liberal consensus wasn’t not limited to white men, it expanded to minorities as well. Everyone was entitled to the American way which includes individualism, capitalism, and gradual
The Port Huron Statement was written by Tom Hayden and 58 other college students in the SDS, on June 15, 1962. The main purpose of the PHS was to express the dissatisfaction many college students in the 1960’s felt towards college administrators in regards to them telling them how to live their personal lives, to voice their opinions on how the current state of America …show more content…
Though the Allied forces successfully destroyed fascism in Europe, there was another political system that the United States saw as a threat; capitalism. America is notoriously reluctant to stray away from capitalism, so they see any other form of government as a threat. Though fascism and communism are polar opposites, America still remained afraid to change to avoid radicalization. The New Left drew inspiration from This inspired the New Left to create a new social justice movement that, unlike communism, focused on unionizing labor and questioning social class. It’s important to understand that the New Left drew inspiration from the black radicalism and the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King JR delivered a sermon explaining that “the underlying philosophy of Christianity is diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of segregation, and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot make them lie down together.” In other words, he was trying to convince Christians to help fight to end segregation. Speeches like this helped contribute to and inspire the New Left. because equality and democratic participation from everyone is the core value of the New Left. The Civil Rights movement was vital to the New left because it was inspiration fuel to the movements fire, without it the New Left wouldn’t have had inspiration to draw from. The liberal consensus of postwar America was that every single US citizen was entitled to prosperity and equality, but initially this was limited. Mainstream liberals only applied this to straight, white, educated men and minorities were still under oppression. Once the New Left started to gain traction, the liberal consensus wasn’t not limited to white men, it expanded to minorities as well. Everyone was entitled to the American way which includes individualism, capitalism, and gradual