SDS: The Way the Wind Is Blowing

Oakland, Calif.

"The New SDS" by Christopher Phelps [April 16] articulates something a lot of young people are feeling more and more: the bubbling of a new student activism that's just beginning to define our generation. As a national student organizer for SDS and Rainforest Action Network, I see it daily across the country. Social movements come in waves and cycles; the pendulum is swinging back in our direction right now. The student movement has, of course, not yet reached the proportions of the 1930s or '60s, but the depth and sophistication of student organizing is growing and evolving by leaps and bounds. The new student activism is grounded in a vision of participatory democracy, student power and liberation. It seeks to be relevant, thoughtful and strategic, by taking intergenerational organizing and mentorship seriously, without nostalgia for the past. Despite the complexities of taking on the name SDS--both the opportunities and the baggage--we are a new organization for a new generation. SDS is growing because students are hungry. We are growing because we are providing an entry point into the movement that so many students are looking for.

JOSH RUSSELL
SDS organizer

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