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10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York City. -
The red rose which is part of DSA's logo has been a symbol of socialism since 1886 following the Haymarket Affair and resulting May Day marches. -
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In 1889 an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions designated May 1 as a day in support of workers, in commemoration of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago (1886). -
Workers boycotted the railroads to fight for safe conditions, normal schedules, and living wages. The strike and boycott disrupted rail traffic through the Midwest and lasted until about July 20th. -
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Founded by Michael Lerner and other former members of Students for a Democractic Society (SDS), NAM focused on building a grassroots “revolutionary democratic socialist-feminist” presence in local struggles around issues such as affordable housing, reproductive freedom and utility rate reform. NAM played an important role in the reproductive rights movement, while also helping the Left reconceptualize the relationship between race, gender and class. -
DSOC, founded by Michael Harrington in 1973 when a defeated anti-Vietnam War wing split from the remnants of the Debsian Socialist Party, grew in less than a decade from a small cadre of a few hundred to an organization of nearly 5,000. It had a significant network among trade union and left Democratic Party activists as well as a rapidly growing, predominantly campus-based Youth Section. -
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Dorothy ay Healey, a longtime leader of the Communist Party becomes a prominent member of NAM. She was one of the first union leaders to advocate for the rights of Chicanos and African Americans as factory and field workers. -
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DSOC put together a labor-left coalition to fight for a real commitment to full employment at the 1976 Democratic Convention. After the election of 1976, Democracy ’76 evolved into Democratic Agenda, which picked up active support from the leadership of such unions as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the United Auto Workers and the Machinists, as well as from feminists, activists in communities of color and left activists in and around the Democratic Party.
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The Democratic Agenda got 40% of the conference vote at the Democratic Party mid-term convention for resolutions rejecting the Carter administration’s abandonment of the fight for full employment and for efforts to curtail the power of Big Oil.
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!["Draft [Senator Ted] Kennedy" Movement Begins](https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.timetoast.com/public/uploads/photo/23375614/image/medium-d68bd3432da8a46e47e5874cfd6e710d.webp?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJB6ZCNNAN7BE7WDQ%2F20251206%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20251206T033815Z&X-Amz-Expires=604800&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=c54500f2d0ae72ea3ed402b3621966c1572df7cb3eee94d3547544e1f172bdd3)
In the spring of 1979, Machinists Union President (and DSOC Vice-Chair) William Winpisinger announced a “Draft [Senator Ted] Kennedy” movement. The coalition brought together by Democratic Agenda reached its fullest political expression in that campaign, although it was ultimately unsuccessful. -
DSOC put the accomplishments of European social democracy on display in Washington, D.C., at a 3,000-person conference on “Eurosocialism and America: An International Exchange” featuring Olof Palme, François Mitterrand, Michel Rocard, Michael Manley and Willy Brandt, among scores of others. The conference’s emphasis on the struggle for greater worker control over investment and production decisions convinced many in NAM that the distance between themselves and DSOC had dwindled. -
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Though shaped by distinct cultural and historical experiences, most members of both DSOC and NAM had come to the same political conclusions: an American socialist movement must be committed to democracy as an end in itself and work as an open, independent socialist organization in anti-corporate, racial justice and feminist coalitions with non-socialist progressives. -
The Socialist International is the worldwide organization of social democratic, socialist and labour parties. It currently brings together 132 political parties and organizations from all continents. The majority of delegates at the 2017 DSA National Convention voted to leave due to its alleged support for neoliberal economic policies.
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In commemoration of the publication's 25th anniversary, a DSA-inspired coalition, Justice for All, held rallies, teach-ins and press conferences in more than 100 cities across the nation. Protesting cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and federal aid to housing, the events also reminded the public of many of the successes such as Head Start, Medicaid, public health centers and a radical decrease in poverty among the elderly because of the expansion of Social Security. -
DSA’s presence among progressive trade unionists and the movements for a democratic U.S. foreign policy allowed us to play an initiating role in the large labor-led, anti-apartheid/anti-intervention marches held in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco in 1987. By linking these struggles with the fight for democratic trade union rights at home and abroad, DSA contributed to the growth in awareness on the Left of the importance of international labor solidarity. -
Many of DSA’s policy goals—progressive taxation, cuts to wasteful “defense” spending and the need for universal social provision of quality health care, child care, education and housing—found a more powerful expression in this primary campaign, the first truly multiracial, (implicitly) social democratic one in U.S. history. -
The collapse of communism in 1989 proved less of an immediate boon to democratic socialists than many had hoped. Those who had suffered in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union did not embrace socialism with a human face, but rushed headlong into the embrace of a mythic, free market capitalism and the failures of capitalist reforms did not revitalize the Left so much as increase support for xenophobic nationalism. -
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The Clinton administration’s commitment to balanced-budget austerity, plus its support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and for the gutting of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) foreshadowed the move of center-left governments to what British Prime Minister Tony Blair would term “third way” social democracy (a neoliberal program of economic deregulation, decrease in taxes on the rich and corporations, decimation of union power and defunding of public goods).
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In the late 1990s many YDS and DSA chapters participated actively in the “global justice” movement to build transnational solidarity, as well as institutions, that would democratize the benefits of a global economy. -
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DSA actively participated in the anti-Iraq and Afghanistan war movement, with Young Democratic Socialists playing a significant role within it. But once ground troops (recruited for a volunteer army in a class- and racially-biased manner) were committed to Afghanistan and Iraq, the movement found it hard to convince the public that you cannot fight decentralized terrorist threats by massive military means.
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DSA helped build the “single-payer” or “Medicare for All” movement as an alternative to the Clintons’ failed plan to expand coverage by the private insurance system. The high moment of our campaign was a multi-city tour by Canadian health care providers, trade unionists and health care advocates who explained the Canadian system to U.S. audiences. -
DSA actively participated in the anti-Iraq and Afghanistan war movement, with Young Democratic Socialists playing a significant role within it. But once ground troops (recruited for a volunteer army in a class- and racially-biased manner) were committed to Afghanistan and Iraq, the movement found it hard to convince the public that you cannot fight decentralized terrorist threats by massive military means.
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The bipartisan elite consensus around budgetary austerity crashed and burned with the Great Recession of 2008, a direct product of the neoliberal model of growth through financial and real estate speculation. The rise of unemployment/precarious employment for young people across the globe, have given rise to the growth of new left and socialist formations (see Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, the Mélenchon presidential candidacy in France, and the revival of British Labour under Corbyn).
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The Occupy Movement of fall 2011 resulted, in part, from the failure of the administration’s recovery program to redress the rampant growth in inequality and the bleak employment prospects for even college-educated youth. Many DSA and YDS chapters joined Occupy from Day One. In a few major cities, the predominant “horizontalist” and “anti-statist” youthful leadership of the encampments meant DSAers had to operate with considerable skill to appeal to the newly politicized participants. -
The agenda called for creating a truly progressive tax system so as to redistribute from the 1% to the 99%, expanding universal social welfare programs and engaging in large-scale public investment in alternative energy and mass transit. But the Bush II era saw the left and DSA playing defense to prevent attacks on existing universal social welfare programs. Bipartisan elites dominated the mainstream media with obsessive calls for “fiscal discipline” and public spending cuts. -
DSA took the position that for maximum exposure and effectiveness, Sanders should not only run, but should run in the Democratic primaries—and that advice proved to be spot-on. We started out with a coordinated “We Need Bernie” campaign that had DSA urging Bernie to run, and then shifted to “People’s Revolution 101” DSA-sponsored teach-ins that introduced Bernie activists to basic democratic socialist principles. -
DSA grew healthily through the Sanders campaign, going from 6,500 members in fall 2014 to 8,500 by election day 2016.
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DSA veterans and national staff were shocked to see that on the day after Trump’s victory one thousand people joined DSA (in our best past year maybe 1,200 new members joined over 12 months). From November 9, 2016, to July 1, 2017, over 13,000 people, mostly between the ages of 18 and 35, joined DSA.
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This makes the DSA the largest socialist organization in the United States since the Communist Party before its implosion in 1956 after the Khrushchev revelations about Stalin. Most young people joining the organization want to be active, and our new chapters across the country have already incorporated thousands of members into activist projects.
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The Green New Deal is a jobs and justice-centered plan to decarbonize the U.S. economy within ten years. It is one of the only plans put forward which is actually in line with scientific consensus and the United Nations’ IPCC Report. The Green New Deal also focuses on creating the maximum amount of prosperity for working people and marginalized communities in the process. -
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DSA and the United Electrical Workers founded the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) to provide training and resources to non-union workers. -
YDSA began the Rank-and-File Pipeline Project to place young organizers in strategic industries. -
São Paulo Forum (FSP), also known as the Foro de São Paulo, is a conference of left-wing political parties and organizations from the Americas, primarily Latin America and the Caribbean. DSA became an Associate Member organization in 2023. -
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Progressive International (PI) is an international political organization that unites and mobilizes progressive left-wing activists and groups. DSA became an official member in October 2023.