Port Huron Statement

Port Huron Statement
  During the late spring of 1962, 60 students whom where part of the Students For a Democratic Society gathered together for four days and nights, in Michigan at a lakeside camp of Port Huron. And this was the night the students made the "Port Huron Statement".  It was the first official document written by the SDS, In this statement it declared the students wanted to create a radically new democratic political movement in the United States. This would reject hierarchy and bureaucracy. In one of the most important parts of the statement they said they wanted a "Participatory Democracy." This meant citizens would have direct individual involvement in the decisions that affected their lives. The Statement was first called a manifesto, but the members decided to call it a statement. Tom Hayden was the was the chief author of the Port Huron Statement. 

    The main points of the statement were, 
  • The concerns students had about the government, economic, social, & racial.       
  • call for a direct participatory Democracy 
  • The oppression college students had about their college administrators wanting to control their lives.
  • The decline of available jobs with automation rising.
  • Fear of Communism. 
                                   











Want to read the whole Port Huron statement? Go here.

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