Connect Off Campus
Although primarily initiated and organized by students, the antiwar movements of in the 1960s were never restricted to campus. Instead, student activist organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Student Peace Union (SPU), the Student Mobilization Committee (SMC), etc. all developed awareness of the importance of gaining material and moral support and empowerment from the general public, both locally and nationwide. In an edited statement published in 1968, SDS directly argued for the necessity of realizing its “potential to reach out to new constituencies both on and off campus" (Hoover 1969, p. 295). SMC worked as one of the first groups that brought students and soliders together in its protest work (Kindig 2008). SPU consciously extended its membership from students to young people with shared anti-war commitments in its recruitment endeavors. Triggered by student organizations’ numerous endeavors in establishing off-campus connections in various forms, by the late 1960s, the campus-based student antiwar movements escalated into waves of nationwide protest.
In this collection, we include brochures, handouts, flyers, and handbooks from different student activist organizations, all of which spoke directly to a broader audience beyond the student body. These documents will direct our readers toward the tangible and concrete strategies deployed by student activist organizations in obtaining material support, public participation, and moral empowerment from the general public.
