Port Huron Statement Summary

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The Port Huron Statement was a manifesto written by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that details the paradoxes in American society and the need for social change. This manifesto was written in 1962 during the time of the Civil Rights Movement. During this period, African Americans continued to struggle to become integrated into American society. There was still segregation although African Americans were promised equality by the American government that was supposed to be “of, by, and for the people.” The Port Huron Statement was a form of civil disobedience that argued for the active participation of students in democratic institutions to create social change and equality for all. The group discussed nuclear warfare, participatory democracy, and forming an anti-hierarchical society. They wanted to bring students together to fight for an equal and just society. However, they faced difficulties that stood in the way of their goal. They noticed that America did not have any explicit values or practical alternatives to the present. America was not trying to improve. Rather, they continued to live the same and influenced others to …show more content…

Leftism is a type of political position that supports social equality and is against the idea of social hierarchy. The students wrote this statement as they “began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in [their] surrounding America” (SDS 173). They noticed that the declaration that “all men are created equal” did not apply to the African Americans in the South. Thus, “the permeating and victimizing fact of human degradation, symbolized by the Southern struggle against racial bigotry, compelled most of [them] from silence to activism” (SDS 173). When the students realized that African Americans were not getting fair treatment, they formed the Students for a Democratic Society and wrote the Port Huron

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