The use of force was a fatal mistake. Within afew days, 16,000 angry students and faculty hadshut down the Berkeley campus.

Although university regents acquiesced to thestrikers' demands and reopened the campus beforewinter vacation, the damage was already done.

In Ioco parentis had given way to a newparadigm in student-administrator interactions: asformer Berkeley student Jack Weinstein said,"Don't trust anyone over 30."

"It was an enormous range of grievances thatall came together during these uprisings,"Brinkely says. "It was an effort to shake up thegoverning structure of the university and,indirectly, society."

While Berkeley students were protesting, SDSinitiated a new organizational structure, with tenregional organizers to coordinate chapteractivities.

No SDSers were at the forefront of the freespeech movement at Berkeley. But SDS leadersrecognized the importance of the student strike of1964 and many met with Berkeley leaders to learnabout their activist techniques and offer support.

After President Lyndon B. Johnson launchedbombing raids on northern Vietnam and called forincreases in the draft in February 1965, smallSDS-run demonstrations cropped up across thecountry.

SDS officers scrambled to hire more assistantsand began to plan a rally in Washington D.C. forApril 17, 1965. The march brought together across-section of the New Left, with groups fromthe National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policyto the Young People's Socialist League clamoringto join in.

The Washington demonstration was the largestpeace march in American history. As many as 25,000people (estimates vary) from at least 50 collegesand universities assembled behind the WashingtonMonument to hear singers, speakers and theobligatory SDS representatives.

Coverage of the march gave SDS nationalpublicity and a new period of growth. More than 80chapters and 2,000 official members were on thebooks by the end of the 1965 academic year. Thatsummer, the annual national convention drew 450participants.

The newcomers brought a different style to theorganization. Many had been involved in otherorganizations and were more interested in socialaction than in social theory. They were infantryin the new, hierarchical SDS that grew out of themarch.

The newcomers also gave SDS a willingness toengage in the politics of confrontation anddisobedience rather than those of reasoneddissent. Many of them were not even universitystudents.

SDS was now fully focused on the war inVietnam, planning regular protests. In the weekfollowing a sit-in at the Ann Arbor draft board,the national office received 1,000 newmemberships.

But the tension between SDS veterans and newermembers was increasing. The students' protests hadplaced the league's tax-exempt status at risk.

After the split, SDS continued to grow, with anational budget of almost $80,000 a year.