Tom Hayden

Hayden drafted SDS's manifesto, the Port Huron Statement, subtitled "An Agenda for a Generation," which is credited with making the term "participatory democracy" common parlance. The objective of the Port Huron Statement was the creation a "radically new democratic political movement" in the United States that rejected hierarchy and bureaucracy. This ideal would become the centerpiece of the student movement of the 1960s, a movement that came to be known as the New Left. Read Less

It depicts their travels through North and South Vietnam in the spring of 1974.<br /><br /> Hayden also founded the Indochina Peace Campaign (IPC), which operated from 1972 to 1975. The IPC, operating in Boston, New York, Detroit, Santa Clara, mobilized dissent against the Vietnam War, demanded unconditional amnesty for U.S. Draft Dodgers, among other aims. Jane Fonda, a supporter of the IPC, later turned this moniker into a name for her film production firm, IPC Films, which produced in whole or in part, movies and documentaries such as F.T.A. (1972), Introduction to the Enemy (1974), The China Syndrome (1979), Nine to Five (1980), and On Golden Pond (1981).<br /><br /> Writing about Hayden's role in the 1960s New Left, Nicholas Lemann, national correspondent for The Atlantic, said that "Tom Hayden changed America", calling him "father to the largest mass protests in American history", and Richard N. Goodwin, who was a speechwriter for presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy, said that Hayden, "without even knowing it, inspired the Great Society. Staughton Lynd, though, was critical of the Port Huron and New Left concept of "participatory democracy" stating, "we must recognize that when an organization grows to a certain size, consensus decision-making is no longer possible and some form of representative government becomes necessary." Read Less