of the individual and the right of every American to full citizenship" (1). Concern over political and other forms of discrimination and injustice pervade the literature. For example, the Statement of Purpose of the Mattachine Society (1951) emphasized its long-term goal "to erase from our law books the discriminatory and oppressive legislation presently directed against the homosexual minority" (40). The Port Huron Statement of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (August 1962) called for "the establishment of a democracy of individual participation, governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; [and] that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation" (67). The National Organization for Women (NOW) stated as its objectives "true equality for all women in America, and . . . a fully equal partnership of the sexes" (107).
Throughout the period 1950-1975 the primary focus of these movements was the achievement of improvements in the rights and status of the particular group they represented rather than a revolutionary change in society as a whole. However, as America's role in the Vietnam War escalated in the mid-1960s, "civil rights, anti-nuclear and student movements coalesced into a larger antiwar movement" (17). That unity gradually diminished and the influence of New Left movements as a whole lessened after that war ended in 1975.
The New Left as well as the Old (pre-1950) Left viewed the dominant forces in American society as oppressive and repressive of the rights and interests of minority groups and ordinary people as a whole. Because of the nature of the struggles in the 1930s and earlier periods, the Old Left was largely concerned with job discrimination and other economic and social issues. Left wing Marxists (Socialists and Communists) opposed capitalist preparations fo...