Anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote in 1961 thatstudents saw conformity as the key to conventionalsuccess: "[S]tatistics on national contests forscholarships and for admissions to especiallydesirable institutions have increased thewidespread sense that to succeed today it isnecessary to conform and to complete in terms ofnational norm."

SDS wanted to change that. In the grandiloquentphrases of hard-core idealists, the SDSersproclaimed their humanism at the Port Huronconference, writing that individualism "imprintsone's individual qualities in relatons to othermen, and to all human activity."

Early SDS projects emphasized members'commitment to social change and groupdecision-making. Volunteers moved to low-incomeareas of northern cities such as Chicago, wherethey attempted to organize unemployed neighborhoodresident and live according to the principles ofparticipatory democracy.

The project, known as Economic Research andAction Project (ERAP), caused substantial changein a few cases. In Chester, Penn., for example, aSwarthmore ERAP group successfully pressured thelocal government and school board for a variety ofreforms.

Many of these students had spent the summerlearning about activism and facing tear gas inMaryland under the Student Non-violentCoordinating Coalition (SNCC). The coalition, theother major activist group during the decade,sponsored protests against segreation and drivesfor voting in the South. SNCC had the tightdiscipline and organization that SDS'sparticipatory democracy often undermined.

During the activists' 10 days of protest in thestreets of Chester, 57 students were arrested.These arrests represented the first large-scalestudent strike by any white, Northern campusgroup.

The Money Problem

SDS has 610 paid members and 19 officialchapters, and the 17-member Harvard-Radcliffebranch was one of the largest.

The group did not, however, have a coherentnational agenda, between the grand goalsarticulated in the Port Huron Statement and thefrustrating reality of grass-roots organizing forERAP projects lay gap that was a source ofconstant debate.

SDS was surviving on a monthly total of about$600 in dues and contributions, plus theoccasional more generous donation.

And it was nearly impossible for anorganization whose typical members were young,full-time students with a disdain for thetrappings of capitalism to become a fundraisingpowerhouse.

But in 1963, they got what they needed.

The events of 1963, including the Kennedyassassination and the escalating conflict inVietnam, radicalized students as noconsciousness-raising session could. SDS alredyhad unofficial chapters whose members organizedunder the SDS aegis without bothering to submitrecords or pay official dues. By the start of the1964-65 school year, the list of official chaptershad grown to 29.

And they showed it. At the University ofCalifornia Berkeley, 500 students--both liberaland conservative--marched on Sproul Hall onSeptember 14 to protest a university memorandumforbidding groups to offer literature on a campussidewalk. Eight were arrested after an all-nightsit-in, and other students began activelysolicting on the sidewalk in deliberate defianceof the new rules.

Threats of disciplinary action by theUniversity prompted a second sit-in in SproulHall. About 800 students entered the building andremained there until the state governor, facingconservative pressure, sent in more than 600police officers to remove the demonstrators.