revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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Within the white left, The League for Industrial Democracy (LID), planneed
to form a student branch called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) .
SDS was to hold a conference on the new left at the National Student Associ
ation (NSA) conference in Madison, Wisconsin . SNCC was also represented at
the NSA conference .
During the conference, news of Williams'
flight into exile reached
movement circles . Discussions among black SNCC and CORE workers and independent
black radicals took place as to what significance the events in
Monroe, North Carolina, had for the movement .
Black cadres inside of SDS
met and discussed developing a black radical movement that would create conditions
to make it favorable to bring Williams back into the country . This
was a small meeting of about four people . Donald Freeman, a black student
at Case Western Reserve College in Cleveland, Ohio, said he would correspond
with everyone and would decide when to meet again .
One of those present
at the meeting was a student at Central State College in Wilberforce,
Ohio .
During the fall
of 1961, an off-campus chapter of SDS called Challenge
was formed at Central State . Challenge was a black radical formation having
no basic ideology .
Its membership was composed of students who had
been expelled from southern schools for sit-in demonstrations ;
students who
had taken freedom rides and students from the north, and some had been members
of the national of Islam and African nationalist organizations .
Challenge's
main emphasis was
struggling for more student rights on campus and
bringing a black political awareness to the student body . In a year-'long
battle with the Central
State's administration over student rights, members
of Challenge became more radicalized . Challenge members attended student
conferences in the south and participate in demonstrations in the north .