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New American Movement

The New American Movement (NAM) was an American New Left multi-tendency socialist and feminist political organization established in 1971.

Predecessor

1971

1983

The NAM continued an independent existence until 1983, when it merged with Michael Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to establish the Democratic Socialists of America.

Organizational history[edit]

Establishment[edit]

The NAM was established at a conference held in Davenport, Iowa in December 1971 by radical political activists seeking to create a successor organization to Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[1] SDS, the leading organization of the New Left movement in the United States, had recently disintegrated into warring political sects and the need was perceived for a broad-based new organization free of sectarian rancor.


The founding activists behind the NAM were vigorous opponents of the war in Vietnam who sought a new organization to serve as a forum for discussing where and how to redirect their activities. The call to convene was issued by Michael Lerner. Lerner became distant from the organization shortly after it was founded and went on to start the magazine Tikkun.


In its early years, the NAM shared much of the political framework of the New Communist Movement, but rejected the strategy of building a "vanguard party", a position prominent NAM members defended in a debate in the pages of The Guardian. The organization was built around local groups called "chapters" which emphasized Marxist study, discussion of contemporary issues, support of local labor actions and work in the community to raise awareness.


The national headquarters of NAM were located in Chicago.

Hannah Frisch, et al., Chicago: New American Movement, 1979.

Working Papers on Gay-Lesbian Liberation and Socialism.

Glenn Scott (ed.), Chicago, Illinois: New American Movement Anti-Racism Commission, Summer 1980.

Anti-Racism Bulletin,

Glenn Scott, Chicago, Illinois: New American Movement, October 1977.

Undocumented Workers: Are They the Problem?

Stanley Aronowitz, The Death and Rebirth of American Radicalism. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Victor Cohen (ed.) Works and Days, Vol. 28, Nos. 1 and 2, whole number 55/56 (Spring/Fall 2010).

"The New American Movement: An Oral History,"

Victor Cohen, Minnesota Review, No. 69 (Fall/Winter 2007).

"The New American Movement and the Los Angeles Socialist Community School,"

Arnold James Oliver, Jr., American Socialist Strategy in Transition: The New American Movement and Electoral Politics, 1972-1982. PhD dissertation. University of Colorado at Boulder, 1983.

Ronald Radosh, Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001.

at Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University Special Collections

New American Movement Records