"New Movement in the Making?"

Penelope Rosemont

Saturday, February 17, 2007 the founding convention of the Movement for a Democratic Society will take place. Students for a Democratic Society was reestablished this last summer. The following statement is by Penelope Rosemont, Co-pres/mds.inc:

In 1969 we didn’t realize what an important thing we had in SDS. SDS was a national organization of young people, FOR young people, and run BY young people.

It had its national office in Chicago on West Madison Street in two substantial suites of rooms. Ten to fifteen, sometimes more young people worked year round to keep the office going. Nearby we had two SDS Staff Houses, where the staff and numerous travelers stayed. SDS was unique in that it was NOT run by an adult organization as a youth group, but was a self-governing organization. It is thanks in a large part to Al Haber that SDS was independent.

SDS had its own newspapers––New Left Notes, the Movement and many other local papers all over the country. It had its own theoretical and cultural journal, Radical America, edited by Paul Buhle. It had community organizing programs like the one Michael James developed in Chicago’s Uptown.

SDS had great student strikes at universities—Columbia, Berkeley, San Francisco State, Harvard, etc. Under National Secretary Michael Klonsky the National Office organized demonstrations around the 1968 Democratic Convention and the whole world watched.SDS had an extensive pamphlet series that it published in its own printshop. Carl Davidson’s "New Students in the Multiversity" was a best seller.

When I think of how incredible that all was, I realize we should have given more priority to keeping the organization together and keeping our quarrels under control. It was an organization that we had built through our own struggles and hard work. 2000 people attended the last convention.

For years SDS was excluded from the media until its struggles grew too large to ignore. We had to develop our own press, our own network—and the beginnings of our own culture. As the African American poet Fenton Johnson once wrote, we got TIRED of building up SOMEBODY ELSE’S CIVILIZATION and decided to BUILD one of OUR OWN.

With MDS/SDS we hope to take the first steps toward building again that kind of organization: One that will define itself by its struggles, that will be a mutual support network, and will stand behind the words "AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL."

After 1969 we did not stop being active but moved our efforts into the struggles for equal rights, women’s equality, the environment, and other issues. I became active as a surrealist and later joined the Charles H. Kerr Co., the world’s oldest radical publisher, now just over 120 years old.

We meet here and now on a whole new level of consciousness and understanding, with years of real struggles behind us. We mean to put this experience to use in building a new movement. The next steps are up to you.

Don’t sit around arguing the fine points of organization or theory—get out into the world and try to make some real changes and build your organization and theory from that.

I have been asked. What is MDS?

It is what you will make it.

For more info see:
MDS or SDS.