The New Left

Summary

The New Left was a updated, liberal political movement supported by various groups during the 1960s and '70s in the United States. It represented (and is often referred to as) a counterculture movement and was headed primarily by college students seeking political reform that would uplift and restore the influence of American communities and individuals. (ABC)

The Old Left

• Predominantly influential in the 1950s, a political ideology and movement called the Old Left represented the radical side of American liberalism throughout the early-mid 20th century. With roots stemming back to the Great Depression, the Old Left was involved in the fight for and creation of labor unions. During World War II, factions of the Old Left debated about and often embraced communist ideals.
• By the late '50s, the Old Left had been irreparably weakened by relentless and unbeatable objection to its acceptance of many tenets of communism, which, due to McCarthyism, were unacceptable in the eyes of the American public.
• By the early 1960s, young, liberal radicals were ready to rejuvenate the tattered American Left and, thusly, the New Left was created.

Origins of the New Left

• Motivated by the downfall of the war-worn Old Left, movers and shakers of the New Left were also spurred to action in direct response to the unquestioning, conformist attitude of 1950s culture.
• The movement started on college campuses and, as a whole, New Left activists were primarily white, middle-class college students disenchanted by the lack of their input and ideas American politics. Fed up with authority from their parents and universities, they were critical, opinionated thinkers who sought a total reconstruction of social order and instant gratification for their almost-utopian ideals.
• The New Left consisted of “a minority of an idealistic and privileged generation confronted the contradiction between American principles and American realities.” (UA)

New Left Groups and Leaders

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

• Al Haber was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan when he saw opportunity to mobilize and realize the ideas of his generation through college students and campuses. In 1959, he persuaded the limping Old Left to turn their nearly defunct League for Industrial Democracy into his brainchild, the Students for a Democratic Society.
• He called for bright, motivated students and his cofounders included Sharon Jeffrey, Robert Ross and Tom Hayden.
• The SDS became the preeminent New Left organization and quickly spawned other movements across the nation.
• The New Left was continually influenced and impacted by more informal uprisings including a 1960 civil rights sit-in in Greensboro, North Caroline and nuclear arms protests at Harvard and other colleges in '60-'61
• In 1962, Tom Hayden and fellow members of the SDS compiled the Port Huron Statement which was essentially the "manifesto" of the New Left.
  • The statement affirmed the Society's condemnation of racism, poverty, obsession, neglect and conformity. It called for individual rights, strengthened communities and a more participatory democracy.
• The zeal of the SDS and many other leftist groups of the '60s came to a head at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where enormous rallies, protests and demonstrations took place at a national level.

SDS demonstration on election day in 1968 in Washington, D.C.

Weather Underground Organizations

Weathermen march across Chicago River

Associated Leftist Groups

The philosophies of many splinter groups differed to varying degrees from the original ideals of the New Left and such groups were often at greats odds; however, they shared a common, overarching goal: to change. Conversely, the vastly different groups were nearly indistinguishable in the minds of middle-Americans who saw only uniform, radical assault on traditional values from America's youth.

Youth International Movement (Yippies)

Jerry Rubin: Berkeley drop out, organized Vietnam Day Committee, cofounder of Yippies (Youth International Party) 1967 (w/ Abbie Hoffman)

The war against Amerika
in the schools
and in the streets
by white middle-class kids
thus commenced.
-Jerry Rubin

Influences

Vladimir Lenin 

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Mao Zedong 

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Carl Marx 

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George Orwell 

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Ho Chi Mihn 

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Che Guevera 

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Downfall and Effect on U.S. Culture

By the late 1960s only 3% of non-college youth and 13% of college youth identified with the New Left. The movement was nearly totally exhausted by the 1970s as heavy wartime opposition to extremism and government surveillance and harassment further weakened its efforts. The youth were slowly lured away by communes, travel, rock-and-roll, and drugs. Without a sturdy ideological framework, the movement grew increasingly irresponsible, lost touch with social realities and died out with the decade.