The Port Huron Statement served as the first official statement of the Students for a Democratic Society and was an extension of a draft statement written by an SDS staffer, Tom Hayden. This document serves as an excellent call to action in a time of great societal upheaval. While the world was turning upside down due to a number of events, this group of students was attempting to outline the flaws of general society in their efforts to gain control over life’s unfortunate circumstances. Throughout the document, the author(s) discuss how the newfound world order in the 60’s was to address societal fears about the world’s affairs, which were to dominate. The goal of this society and statement was to prove to a younger generation that democratic systems were attainable. While this is a rather peaceful form of disruption in the way that it was calling for a return to an older, more democratic society, it is disruptive all the same in the way that it pushed back against the ever increasing societal understanding that violence and domination were the only ways to combat the fears and apprehensions of the age.
Our work is guided by the sense that we may be the last generation in the experiment with living.
The dominant institutions are complex enough to blunt the minds of their potential critics and entrenched enough to swiftly dissipate or entirely repel the energies of protest and reform, thus limiting human expectancies. Then, too, we are a materially improved society, and by our own improvements, we seem to have weakened the case for further change.
