A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed (Hardcover)

by David Barber (Author) "Until mid-1965, the black-led civil rights movement operated within a fundamentally liberal framework: racism was an aberration; it was something particular to the South; and..." (more)
Key Phrases: radical white women, own racialization, young white activists, United States, New Left, Black Power (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed is a model of committed historical writing. It passionately tells two important stories, describing first and excitingly the process of radicalization that brought Students for a Democratic Society together. It then details the limits of such radicalization, especially around gender and race, showing how suddenly and thoroughly the group came apart. Barber writes with a sense of urgency and possibility born of participating in the history that he describes, and with the deep and discerning commitment and close research necessary to learn from that history. --David R. Roediger, author of History Against Misery

In A Hard Rain Fell, David Barber has produced a critical yet sympathetic examination of SDS, the leading organization of the white New Left, arguing that the failure of SDS to effectively challenge racism and sexism in the dominant white society ultimately undercut the organization. Unable to transcend white supremacy and male chauvinism, in the end SDS itself fell victim to both. The book makes an important contribution in re-assessing the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. --Robert L. Allen, author of Honoring Sergeant Carter: Redeeming a Black World War II Hero s Legacy

The result of a lifetime of research and thought about why the white New Left and SDS failed, this brilliant historical study by David Barber proves that our terrible strategic choices especially revolutionary guerilla warfare' were due to our putting ourselves at the center of the coming revolution, instead of actually assessing, humbly, what our tasks really were. His is neither a right-wing attack on all radicals' nor a left-wing justification of good intentions gone awry. Rather, it is a mature, fully-reasoned critique of how racism, sexism, and national chauvinism produced a blinding arrogance. Amazingly, James Baldwin makes a posthumous appearance in each chapter as a kind of chorus helping the reader understand the dilemmas facing both black and whites in this land of white supremacy. Students of the New Left in the U.S. for generations to come should start with this book. --Mark Rudd, cofounder of the Weather Underground

With his book title David Barber makes clear for his readers what this text's purpose is: to explain the failure of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). With forty years to reflect on the history of this organization, Barber has clearly identified the mistakes of the past: a failure on the part of young male activists to comprehend the concept of white skin privilege and a refusal to follow the advice of African American activists, especially those in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party (BPP), who urged them to go back to their white communities and combat racism there. They also failed to acknowledge the intellectual leadership role that blacks had played in the past (W. E. B. Du Bois and Malcolm X) and should rightfully assume in the black liberation movement. Furthermore, men in SDS ignored the contributions of women in the face of a growing feminist movement, thereby driving out some of their most dedicated members. They also did not listen to Vietnam war protesters who urged them to build a broadly based antiwar constituency in the United States. Instead, many leaders in SDS succumbed to a macho, self-indulgent and, in the end, self-destructive vision of a revolutionary movement centered around white male leadership.

In order to make his argument, Barber presents an extremely detailed analysis of all the permutations of SDS: from its origins in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, when it developed as an ally of urban poor people and an initial leader in the antiwar movement, to its fractious end with bombings and confusion in the late 1960s. Along the way he explains the break with the more conservative Progressive Labor Party (PL), as well as the differences among the Revolutionary Youth Movement I (the Weathermen) and Revolutionary Youth Movement II factions. He also provides a nuanced account of the origins of the women's liberation movement that breaks down the divisions between the women who tried to stay within the ranks of the New Left (the “politicos”) and the radical feminists who, after being scorned and booed at SDS meetings, left and formed their own political groups.

The main theme of the author's criticism here is that the young, white, male activists in SDS did not see that they were continuing the errors of traditional American culture by assuming that, because of their white skin, they were necessarily the leaders of a progressive student movement. He argues that “the New Left failed not because it radically separated itself from America's mainstream, the claim of a number of important historians of the period. Rather, it failed because it came to mirror that mainstream, and in mirroring .… American racial attitudes, it ceased to represent a Left” (p. 8). In the end, SDS came to be dominated by the Weatherman and Weatherwoman factions that wanted to “out-macho” the white working class by brawling with the police and blowing up buildings. As a result, when huge numbers of Americans took to the streets to protest the war in 1969 and 1970, SDS was nowhere to be found. They had abdicated leadership in the most important antiwar effort of that decade. In the end, leaders in SDS were guilty of refusing to work at community organizing, building alliances, and resisting imperialism.

What then are we to make of all of this? Barber builds a solid case for the argument that many leaders in SDS were blind to their privileges as white men, and that they did not acknowledge the contributions of both African Americans and women. And yet I wonder if we can so clearly place blame on all those who were part of that time and that culture. I am reminded of Alice Echols's conclusion in Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (1999): “Nevertheless, mistakes were surely made, not the least being the assumption that personal and cultural transformation could be easily achieved—a matter of breaking off and breaking through. It was an assumption that blinded us to how deeply marked we all were by the conventions and expectations of the mainstream, no matter how ‘counter’ we proclaimed ourselves” (p. 305). The mistakes of activists in SDS were those of the culture that they came from, but those errors—and the ways in which women and African Americans reacted to them—paved the way for a more inclusive and more pragmatic progressive movement. Calls for revolution have been replaced by continued efforts for international peace and more-equitable distribution of opportunities for people of color and women, and there is obviously much more to be done. However, we do learn from the past, and Barber has served us well in making that point.

The American Historical Review





Review
The main theme of the author's criticism here is that the young, white, male activists in SDS did not see that they were continuing the errors of traditional American culture by assuming that, because of their white skin, they were necessarily the leaders of a progressive student movement. He argues that “the New Left failed not because it radically separated itself from America's mainstream, the claim of a number of important historians of the period. Rather, it failed because it came to mirror that mainstream, and in mirroring .… American racial attitudes, it ceased to represent a Left” (p. 8). In the end, SDS came to be dominated by the Weatherman and Weatherwoman factions that wanted to “out-macho” the white working class by brawling with the police and blowing up buildings. As a result, when huge numbers of Americans took to the streets to protest the war in 1969 and 1970, SDS was nowhere to be found. They had abdicated leadership in the most important antiwar effort of that decade. In the end, leaders in SDS were guilty of refusing to work at community organizing, building alliances, and resisting imperialism.

The American Historical Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi (February 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934110175
• ISBN-13: 978-1934110171
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #759,446 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lights the Path for Future Organizing, August 29, 2008

By	Hope E. Marston (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"A Hard Rain Fell" was hard to find. But I was finally able to borrow a copy from a distant library. It's an expensive book. I don't often plunk down $40 for a book. But after reading the library version, I had to have one to mark up in pencil. This one is worth the 40 bucks.

Until I began reading about SDS this year, I didn't realize its roots were in the civil rights movement - that many in SDS were committed to continuing the civil rights work - to abolish racism in the U.S. A worthy goal - but a dance that white organizers tried to master, yet ended up stumbling all over their own clunky privileged walking shoes.

Not only does "A Hard Rain Fell" chart the trajectory of SDS' destruction, the book's analysis of how white and male privilege interfered with the best intentions of 60s and 70s activists illuminates a still persistent problem. White privilege continues to blind white folks to the support position we must assume in throwing off the chains of oppression to achieve widespread liberation.


It may seem that there are fewer people available now to do the work that was left unfinished in the 60s and 70s, but if we take Stokely Carmichael's challenge to organize against racism in white communities first -- we will build the movement that must grow and thrive if we are ever to see real change. As book author David Barber paraphrases Anne Braeden, "you could not organize white people without placing racism at the center of the agenda 'from the very beginning.'"


And now, here we are, in an election year that thrusts so much unacknowledged racism out into the open. Here's yet another opportunity to take the best from "A Hard Rain Fell," and use it to make a difference. It may not involve demonstrations or takeovers of buildings. It may not be the kind of movement that makes heroes of those who do the work or allows you to project your own unacknowledged racism onto someone else and call him or her wrong (ah, that satisfaction that comes from confronting worse people than yourself! -- Later for that kind of breast-beating, friends). Trying to be or provide the vehicle that dawns awareness on someone new or strengthens new awareness in ourselves and in those around us is the consciousness most of us have yet to attain (and nurture).


David Barber has given us a glimpse of how we can move forward from here. I highly recommend "A Hard Rain Fell" by David Barber.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Blinkered Analysis, September 14, 2008

By	R. L. Huff "An old reader" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Serious works on the SDS are rare, and this one certainly ranks among them. Yet its view of the SDS as just another bastion of white male supremacy does more to show the bias of its author than describe the full, complex spirit of SDS.

Many individuals of diverse backgrounds went into the organization. One could surely find those "infected with the viruses of white racism and male chauvinism." And yet among white males of their generation there were, as a group, none more committed to combatting these vices in American society than the SDS. Its members came across to majority, non-radical Americans as the equivalent of Abolitionists: preachy, self-righteous, and self-excluding in their purity. How to square this with the image projected in this book, and buttressed by admittedly real examples of hypocrisy?

By keeping in mind that feminists and black militants were themselves quite capable of hypocrisies. While denouncing white racism, black radicals like the Panthers weren't above indulging in "f--- whitey" racism of their own. Feminists could and did sink to female chauvinism of the "all men are pigs" variety. More than a few white male SDSers found themselves rejected by radical female and black comrades, no matter how hard they tried to behave "correctly," simply because - in the end - they were neither black nor female, nor could they be.

Another factor not given its true deserts was the embrace of Zionism and Israel by New Left members. The Jewish heritage of white radical SDSers was in greater proportion than mainstream life. The rise of militant groups like the Jewish Defense League attracted many Jewish male radicals to reaffirm their own unique roots and was - as in the career of David Horowitz - a backlash against the rising brick wall of black militant exclusion.

White male intolerance was a factor within the SDS, but it was in my view secondary to the rise of black and feminist exclusiveness in fragmenting the movement. Other factors surely were the end of the Vietnam War and the passage of Affirmative Action. These longterm victories within the Establishment removed the movement's central grievances, encouraging racial splintering and sexual sectarianism as it floundered in drying waters.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not radical enough?, November 14, 2008

By	Walt (Syracuse, NY USA) - See all my reviews

The author's analysis is that the New Left wasn't radical enough, and that's why they failed to mobilize the white working class. I have to wonder if he's old enough to have been there.