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.

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.”

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 Organization

• The Weather Underground Organization, known informally as The Weathermen (named for a Bob Dylan lyric), was a group founded in 1969 in the wake of opposition the Vietnam War. Its founders split from the SDS at its 1969 convention.
• Later that year, the Weathermen organized Chicago riots including the "Days of Rage" and other violent demonstrations into the 1970s.
• They vehemently opposed U.S. imperialism and protested, first and foremost, against the war in Vietnam.

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.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

• The SNCC originated at the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins in a protest by African American college students.
• SNCC members believed that America did not create a fair, democratic society.
• The organization sought to achieve true results and gains for African Americans through non-violent civil disobedience (ex. marches and sit-ins).
  • While the group separated itself from other civil rights organizations, it was definitely a part of the 60s counterculture and the New Left ideas.

Youth International Movement (Yippies)

• Cofounder Jerry Rubin was a Berkeley drop out and organized the Vietnam Day Committee, cofounder of Yippies (Youth International Party) 1967 (w/ Abbie Hoffman)
• Founded the Yippies in 1967 with Abbie Hoffman

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

Black Panthers

• The Black Panther Party was founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in 1966 to fight for a socialist program and for black power in a more militant manner.
• In promoting black freedom, the Black Panthers sought alliances with the radical whites that made up the New Leftists.
  • described as a "very progressive revolutionary party"

American Indian Movement

• AIM's tactics were initially modeled after the Black Panthers, but were meant to help Indians.
• AIM was founded in 1968 in Minneapolis in order to monitor actions of the police, then went national, bringing widespread attention to the grievances of American Indians.
• Organized protests called for better treatment on reservations but faced opposition from the federal government.

Chicano organizations

• The Chicano movements and feelings of "brown power" were results of the countercultural challenges to institutions and conventional ideas.
• Most Chicano organizations (Community Service Organization, National Farm Workers Association, United Farm Workers Organizing Committee) were led by Cesar Chavez in hopes of helping Chicano farm-workers in California.
  • the main goal was to "achieve equal power with other groups"

Women's Liberationists

• The National Organization of Women (NOW) united liberationist women to call for equality.
  • members promoted equal educational opportunities, abortion rights, fair policies in the workplace, and day-care centers
• They protested for women's suffrage and women's rights in society and the workplace.

Influences

The New Leftists were influenced both nationally and globally by leadership figures. The following people influenced the New Left ideas and goals.

Vladimir Lenin 

• Lenin was a Russian Revolutionary, best known for being a communist politician.

Mao Zedong 

• Zedong was the leader of the Communist Party of China and of the People's Republic of China for almost thirty years.

Karl Marx 

• Marx is often referred to as being the "Father of Communism." He pushed for socioeconomic change, and his philosophies and political theories had a huge impact on future societies.

George Orwell 

• Orwell was an English writer whose writings regarding social injustice were well known and had an impact on society.

Ho Chi Minh 

• As a Communist, Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, Minh became the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

Che Guevara 

Blip

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 mid-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.

References

Hamilton, Neil. The 1960s Counterculture in America. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1997.

Matusow, Allen J. The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1984.

Burns, Stewart. Social Movements of the 1960s: Searching for Democracy. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Aronowitz, Stanly. "When the New Left was New." The 60s Without Apology. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1985.