Lancaster Students for a Democratic Society began in February of 2007 and has quickly grown to be a political force in conservative Lancaster County, PA. It is one of the few SDS chapters primarily made up of high school students. The chapter has focused most of its attention on ending the current occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in September affilliated with the War Resisters League. We also work on environmental and labor issues.
Lancaster SDS has about 50 members, mostly drawn from eight of the county’s 16 high schools. Many of our members have been attending the same church for years, and others have been active in the Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice.
A major concern of ours is not just to be an independent leftist collective, but also to work within the network of peace churches, student groups, and other social action organizations that already exist in Lancaster. Our SDS chapter hopes to help this network expand as students become more enthusiastic about being part of a broader movement for social change. Lancaster SDS is grounded in a political ideology that is necessarily strategic. We strive to look at our organization from the outside, to visualize and be aware of how we appear to those who are not part of it. We are not afraid to work with religious groups and older people in our community, realizing that it is not only important, but necessary to plug in to and support existing projects so that everyone’s work can be more effective.
Our concrete work is centered on ending the war. The chapter has been organizing students to take action the third Friday of each month as part of the Iraq Moratorium, through the antiwar vigils and community forums. And when George W. Bush visited Lancaster in October, we co-organized an antiwar protest of 400 people, including 150 students, with only five days notice.
Additionally, members of Lancaster SDS are working to get truth-in-recruitment tabling into as many local high schools as possible, and recently organized an interactive training and informational day with the local Quaker meeting. In the future, we will continue working to end the war, to combat global warming, and most importantly to build an inclusive and massive movement in Lancaster committed to building an better and more just world.
— Becca Rast and Nick Martin
Becca Rast is a senior at J.P. McCaskey High School. Nick Martin is a recent graduate of Penn Manor High School.
