Written principally by student activists Tom Hayden and Dick Flacks, the Port Huron Statement was the founding political manifesto of the campus group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and represented a critical influence on the New Left progressive movement of the 1960s.
Originally conceived during an SDS meeting in the winter of 1961, the Port Huron Statement was to be a brief document articulating the SDS vision and functioning as an organizational and recruiting tool. Instead, the draft presented by Hayden to SDS members for ratification at a United Auto Workers retreat in Port Huron, Michigan, on June 15, 1962, numbered 55 single-spaced pages. The manifesto was discussed and debated by the approximately 60 SDS members in attendance and rewritten to reflect the group’s collective stance. After undergoing field secretary Hayden’s final revisions, 20,000 copies of the statement were mimeographed and distributed for sale around the country at the price of 35 cents each.
The overarching philosophy of the statement was “participatory democracy,” a humanistic term borrowed from University of Michigan philosophy professor Arnold Kaufman, one of Hayden’s college instructors. As articulated in the Port Huron Statement, participatory democracy required consensus decision-making and a positive attitude toward the social role of politics. It called for the integration and inclusion of all citizens (as opposed to isolation and alienation) and recognition of the well-being of the citizenry as the ultimate standard of political success. Students and the university were believed to be the vanguard of participatory politics.
The Port Huron Statement argued that without participatory politics, political conditions for African Americans and other minorities would remain oppressive The document viewed these conditions as a foremost concern, focusing particularly on failures to assure constitutionally guaranteed civil rights and basic economic opportunities. The statement called attention to the fundamental disconnect between democratic ideology and practice in America, saying that the emancipatory ideals of the U. S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence “rang hollow before the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North.”
The Port Huron Statement also offered a severe critique of the American economy and argued for the potentially redeeming role of participatory democracy in shaping a healthy private sector. SDS believed the economy was inextricably structured upon the Military-Industrial Complex, which had spawned a “warfare state.” The United States had a vested financial interest in sustaining the cold war and nuclear proliferation, the statement said, because workers and their families depended “on the Cold War for life.” To remedy this economic situation, the
Port Huron Statement called for increased corporate regulation, disarmament, and demilitarization.
Further reading: Tom Hayden, The Port Huron Statement: The Visionary Call of the 1960’s Revolution (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005); James Miller, “Democracy Is in the Streets”: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987).
—Stephan A. Cornell
Powell, Adam Clayton (1908-1972) U. S. representative, minister, civil rights leader A capable but controversial politician and clergyman, Adam Clayton Powell was the first African American elected to Congress from New York.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 23, 1908, Powell was raised in Harlem, New York, in a middle-class family. While attending Colgate University, the light-skinned Powell suppressed his racial background and attempted unsuccessfully to pass as white. After completing his bachelor’s degree at Colgate, he attended Columbia University, receiving a master’s degree in religious studies in 1932.
Powell later embraced his racial heritage and began to aid his father in ministering at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, taking over in 1937 following his father’s retirement. While in the pulpit, he engaged in political action. Protesting discrimination by promoting the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign, he succeeded in breaking hiring barriers in local stores.
Powell’s growing interest in politics led him to run for city council as an independent in 1941. Victorious, he became the first black man on the New York City Council. Four years later, Powell secured the support of Democrats and Republicans in winning a seat in Congress. Although not a prominent legislator, Powell demanded that racial epithets not be used on the House floor and that black journalists be admitted to congressional press galleries.
In 1956, Powell supported the Republican DwiGHT D. Eisenhower, following Adlai Stevenson’s refusal to meet with him about a civil rights measure that would have ended federal support to segregated schools. During the election of 1960, he returned to support his party and campaigned vigorously for John F. Kennedy, bringing with him the votes of many blacks. His enthusiasm led to his appointment as chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, another first in history for an African American. Powell used his influence to help push through Congress progressive legislation such as Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, an increase in the minimum wage, more protection of civil rights, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
At the same time, however, he became embroiled in scandals and accusations. Beginning in the 1950s, several of Powell’s aides faced charges of income tax evasion, leading to his own indictment for tax evasion in 1958. The trial resulted in a hung jury and the Department of Justice chose not to penalize him. In another incident, Powell accused a woman of transporting payoffs to police from illegal gambling groups. She sued for libel and won a large settlement. Later, critics attacked Powell for placing his wife on his payroll and billing personal vacations as committee expenses. In the face of such charges, he became a less effective legislator, holding up passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 by using his committee position to delay its presentation to Congress for four months while fishing. He further angered both politicians and citizens with his poor attendance at congressional sessions.
In 1967, all of his moves culminated in action by the House, which disregarded a committee’s recommendation of censure but excluded Powell from Congress. The House determined that Powell had “wrongfully and willfully appropriated” public funds and “improperly maintained his wife” by placing her on his payroll while she lived in Puerto Rico. Although a special election was held that year and Powell was reelected, the House refused to allow him to take his seat and it lay empty for two years. In January 1967, Powell paid a $25,000 fine, and he was permitted to return to his position but was stripped of seniority. The Supreme Court determined in June of that year that Powell’s expulsion was unconstitutional.
Stricken with cancer, Powell lost his reelection bid in 1970 to Charles B. Rangel, and he chose to retire from politics. Withdrawing to the Bahamas for his final days, Powell died in 1972 while visiting Florida.
Further reading: Curtis E. Alexander, Adam Clayton Powell and the Harlem Renaissance (New York: Dial Press, 1987); James S. Haskins, Adam Clayton Powell: Portrait of a Marching Black (New York: Dial Press, 1974); Adam Clayton Powell, Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr (New York: Dial Press, 1994).
—Katherine R. Yarosh
Poverty, War on See War on Poverty.
World History
