Abstract

Obituary for SDS

The article discusses recent arrest of members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) movement in Chicago, Illinois. From its inception SDS was part of the student movement, and it must be understood in terms of its relationship to that movement as a whole. The civil rights movement of the early sixties created large numbers of student activists who went out from their colleges into projects or demonstrations in the South and in their local communities. Their activities were rarely directed against the university or college from which the activists were drawn and their role was of detached involvement in the struggle for freedom of an oppressed group. These students tended to accept the image of themselves that was held by society as a whole.