<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikisource has original text related to this article: Port Huron Statement </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikisource has original text related to this article: Port Huron Statement </Td> </Tr> <P> The 25,700 - word statement "articulated the fundamental problems of American society and laid out a radical vision for a better future". It issued a nonideological call for participatory democracy, "both as a means and an end", based on non-violent civil disobedience and the idea that individual citizens could help make "those social decisions determining the quality and direction" of their lives . Also known as the "Agenda for a Generation", it "brought the term' participatory democracy' into the common parlance". </P> <P> It has been described as "a seminal moment in the development of the New Left" and a "classic statement of (its) principles", but it also revealed the 1960s' tension between communitarianism and individualism . In particular, the statement viewed race ("symbolized by the Southern struggle against racial bigotry") and Cold War--induced alienation ("symbolized by the presence of the Bomb") as the two main problems of modern society . </P>

Students for a democratic society (sds) and the port huron statement