Tom Hayden

We seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation . . ." —from the PORT HURON STATEMENT Four key periods in American history have most influenced what America is like today: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, and the 1960s. No document better frames and explains the 1960s than the PORT HURON STATEMENT. The statement was a generational call for direct participatory democracy in which Americans would have greater say over the decisions affecting their lives. It called for the extension of democratic principles to the workplace as well as the electoral arena. It opposed the dominance of the military-industrial complex with the hope that social movements could reform the Democrats as a party of progressive opposition. In its vision greater democracy would lessen individuals' alienation. The manifesto's 1962 publication preceded the phenomena of the counter-culture, hippies and back-to-the-land. It is truly the intellectual roots of the social change of the 1960s and its impact is still being felt in 2005. In "The Big Lebowksi," the character played by Jeff Bridges claimed authorship; it was condemned by right-wing justice Robert Bork, recalled with nostalgia by Garry Wills and E.J. Dionne, and sections have been printed in countless readers on American history.

The Vision Call of the 1960s Revolution

The Port Huron Statement

Presents essays, interviews, articles, and correspondence centering on the revolutionary conflict in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

The Zapatista Reader

Ron Sossi

Frank Condon

Dramatically edited transcripts from the explosive 1969 conspiracy trial are paired with historic contextual writings to provide the essential Chicago Conspiracy handbook

A Generation on Trial

Voices of the Chicago Eight

The sixties activist turned 1980s legislator tells of his involvement in student movements, his visits to Hanoi, and the events of the 1968 Democratic convention, describes his personal life, and reaffirms his commitment to dissent

A Memoir

Reunion

Robert Reich

Robert Cohen

Lynne Hollander Savio

The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, California, was pivotal in shaping 1960s America. Led by Mario Savio and other young veterans of the civil rights movement, student activists organized what was to that point the most tumultuous student rebellion in American history. Mass sit-ins, a nonviolent blockade around a police car, occupations of the campus administration building, and a student strike united thousands of students to champion the right of students to free speech and unrestricted political advocacy on campus. This compendium of influential speeches and previously unknown writings offers insight into and perspective on the disruptive yet nonviolent civil disobedience tactics used by Savio. The Essential Mario Savio is the perfect introduction to an American icon and to one of the most important social movements of the post-war period in the United States.

Speeches and Writings that Changed America

The Essential Mario Savio

Seamus Heaney, Seamus Deane, Gabriel Bryne, Tim Pat Coogan and Nell McCafferty are among the contributors to a collection of personal reflections on the Irish Famine of 1847. The works explore and analyze the Famine's hidden legacy within cultural and family histories.

Personal Reflections on the Legacy of the Famine

Irish Hunger

The author describes how he regained his Irish identity and provides an analysis of Irish and Irish American history.

Tom Hayden

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