The discontent with the status quo that was beginning to seethe apon college campuses drew young veterns of the civil rights struggle to a meeting in Port Huron, Michigan, in 1962. During that meeting they organized Stundents for a Democratic Society, whose soul purpose was to tear apart militarism, racial injustice, and poverty.

New Lefists gained national attention in 1964 when administrators at the Unversity of California at Berkeley banned on-campus recruiting of civil rights workers and fund-raising for the movement. The ban ingited the FSM(Free Speech Movement), which staged protests including a massive sit-in and arrest of some 800 people. The FSM became the model for campus protest, however the the issue of free speech soon paled before a much more pressing matter of stundent concern: the Vietnam War.

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods