Here is an intimate portrait of the Students for a Democratic Society, the 1960s' most famous radical organization, the group that brought about a rebirth of white radicalism in the United States. Journalist Alan Adelson went to campuses all over the country to write this comprehensive profile of the organization--the first book to be published on the SDS. In it appears a picture of escalating radical consciousness, with the organization which once labored to work within the system later sworn to attack the system to its very foundations. Focusing on individual members and on individual chapters' attempts to direct student activism, Adelson presents vivid accounts of some of the major upheavals: the huge Black Panther rally in New Haven to "Free Bobby Seale," where the National Student Strike was born; Columbia's chaotic mass meetings and demonstrations; the turmoil in the streets and plazas of Berkeley. He describes in detail the internal struggles within the SDS itself, with a dramatic report of the angry confrontation that occurred in a dingy auditorium in Chicago when the SDS broke in two and the Weathermen were created. He reconstructs the most militant battle ever waged by American students, a constantly escalating attack on ROTC at Berkeley; from his report comes a sense of radicals driving themselves to greater militancy and violence while seeking to control the crowds they mobilized in order to prevent undirected destruction. What emerges is an in-depth profile of the SDS, its impact on students and society, and its labors--often futile, but sometimes effective--to attack a system which it believed inherently unjust.--Adapted from book jacket.