A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why it FailedBy the spring of 1969, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had reached its zenith as the largest, most radical movement of white youth in American history—a genuine New Left. Yet less than a year later, SDS splintered into warring factions and ceased to exist. SDS's development and its dissolution grew directly out of the organization's relations with the black freedom movement, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the newly emerging struggle for women's liberation. For a moment, young white people could comprehend their world in new and revolutionary ways. But New Leftists did not respond as a tabula rasa. On the contrary, these young people's consciousnesses, their culture, their identities had arisen out of a history which, for hundreds of years, had privileged white over black, men over women, and America over the rest of the world. Such a history could not help but distort the vision and practice of these activists, good intentions notwithstanding. A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed traces these activists in their relation to other movements and demonstrates that the New Left's dissolution flowed directly from SDS's failure to break with traditional American notions of race, sex, and empire. |
Contents
| 3 | |
The New Left and the Black Movement 19651968 | 16 |
The New Left and the American Empire 19621968 | 52 |
The New Left and Feminism 19651969 | 95 |
The New Left Starts to Disintegrate | 145 |
Reasserting the Centrality of White Radicals | 188 |
The Price of the Liberation | 226 |
Notes | 235 |
| 259 | |
| 271 | |
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action activists American analysis antiwar argued attack attempted began beginning black movement Black Power building called Chicago civil rights continued defined demands demonstration developing discussion Dohrn early empire example experience face fact failed feminists fight force Freedom going hand Hayden human imperialism important insisted internal issue leaders leadership leading Left Notes Leftists lives male supremacy March means meeting months Moreover nationalist nature Oglesby oppression organizing Panthers Party police politics poor position practical privilege problem question race racial racism radical rejected relationship reported revolution revolutionary role Rudd SDS’s SDSers Second significance simply SNCC social society sought South struggle Third understand United University vanguard Vietnam Vietnamese Weatherman white radicals white women woman women’s liberation workers York young white youth