Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is an American conservative youth educational activism organization that was founded in 1960 as a coalition between traditional conservatives and libertarians on U.S. college campuses. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the chapter affiliate of Young America's Foundation. The purposes of YAF are to advocate public policies consistent with the Sharon Statement, which was adopted by young conservatives at a meeting at the home of William F. Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut on September 11, 1960.
While the 1960s were its most successful years in terms of numbers and influence, YAF has experienced a resurgence in campus mobilization during the 2020s, becoming active as a national organization with chapters on college and high school campuses throughout the United States. YAF's official publication is The New Guard.Schneider, 1999
History
Early years Historians have documented the volatility inside YAF during its early years as a coalition of conservatives and libertarians. Kenneth Heineman writes, "YAF itself suffered internal strife. In 1969 the organization split into competing, irreconcilable factions."Kenneth J. Heineman, Put your bodies upon the wheels: student revolt in the 1960s (2001) p. 160. Gregory L. Schneider states, "In the mid-1970s YAF suffered from weak leadership based on factions and personalities rather than ability".Gregory L. Schneider, Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (1999) p. 162. Jerome Tuccile writes, "The second faction of rebels consisted of radical libertarians or anarchists, most of them belonging to Karl Hess's son Karl Hess IV's Anarcho-libertarian Alliance. This contingent was more interested in splitting off from YAF entirely."Jerome Tuccille, Radical libertarianism: a right wing alternative (1970) p. 104 Rebecca E. Klatch writes, "When one young libertarian burned his draft card on the convention floor, the crowd turned into an angry mob and, ultimately, purged all libertarians from YAF. One libertarian faction stormed out of the meeting."Rebecca E. Klatch, A generation divided: the new left, the new right, and the 1960s (1999) p. 9 Lauren Lassabe Shepherd describes YAF members as "United by anticommunism, Christian moralism, and disdain for bureaucracy and planned economies".
National conservative activism, 1960-1965 In September 1960, about 90 young people met at the childhood home of William F. Buckley Jr. in Sharon, Connecticut. They gathered to lay the groundwork for a new national conservative youth organization. It is here that Young Americans for Freedom was born and their statement of principles, the Sharon Statement, was drafted. The New Guard magazine made its debut as the official magazine of YAF in 1961. In the first four years of its existence, YAF grew rapidly on college campuses.
Ronald Reagan joined the YAF National Advisory Board in 1962 and for 42 years served as its Honorary Chairman.
In the 1960s, the Republican Party was divided between its conservative wing, led by Barry Goldwater, and its more liberal wing, led by Nelson Rockefeller. YAF members fell squarely on Goldwater's side and spearheaded the campaign of Barry Goldwater for president.
On March 7, 1962, a YAF-sponsored conservative rally filled Madison Square Garden in New York City, drawing 18,000 people. In attendance was Barry Goldwater. The event has been described as "the birthday of the conservative movement."
The second national YAF convention was held in 1963 at the Gault Hotel in Florida. With over 450 voting delegates in attendance. Hotel management at the Gault Hotel refused accommodations to Don Parker, an African-American delegate from Brooklyn. As word of this spread around the YAFers in attendance, a number of delegates and numerous others began gathering in the lobby of the hotel demanding that either the Gault Hotel allow all the black YAFers to stay and the hotel change its segregation policy or YAF would move the convention to another site. However, Black membership has always been exceptional in YAF and many of the organization's national board members have been outspoken segregationists, including Strom Thurmond, William Colmer, and L. Mendel Rivers.Shepherd, Lauren Lassabe. (2023). Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. University of North Carolina Press. p. 106.
By 1964, YAF was a major force in the campaign to nominate Goldwater, and then after his nomination, to elect him president. Goldwater's run for the White House catalyzed YAF more than any other event in its history. Lee Edwards, former New Guard editor, said "Barry Goldwater made YAF, but YAF also made Barry Goldwater." Goldwater's massive defeat in the presidential election of 1964 demoralized many YAF members.
In YAF's campaign to "STOP RED TRADE", IBM, Mack Truck, and Firestone Tire and Rubber were targeted for engaging in high visibility trade with the Soviet Bloc. As part of a wave of America First boycotts, YAF claimed that it stopped Firestone's attempt to build a synthetic rubber plant in communist Romania through letter-writing campaigns, boycotts, and demonstrations. YAF also claimed their plan to distribute 500,000 flyers at the Indianapolis 500 was key to the decision by Firestone executives to cancel their Romanian plans in April 1965.Shepherd, Lauren Lassabe. April 16, 2021. "Conservatives have long embraced ‘cancel culture'." Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/16/conservatives-have-long-embraced-cancel-culture/Shepherd, Lauren Lassabe. (2023). Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. University of North Carolina Press. See pp. 163-166.
In September 1965, the YAF announced plans to hold a memorial honoring three Russian Nazi collaborators from the Russian Liberation Army, who'd committed suicide on June 29, 1945, to avoid repatriation to the Soviet Union. The memorial was cancelled after protests by Ralph Plofsky, the commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America.
YAF faced opposition from groups like the American Nazi Party because of the presence of Jews in the organization and its close relationship with Marvin Liebman. However, YAF did honor Senator from South Carolina Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, with its Freedom Award in 1962.Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History Volume 2, Norton Seagull Edition 2006, p. 890. Several YAF members campaigned for segregationist George Wallace for president in 1968, forming an auxiliary Youth for Wallace movement, which later became the National Youth Alliance and the American Nazi Party.Shepherd, Lauren Lassabe. (2023). Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. University of North Carolina Press. See pp. 111-115. An unsubstantiated claim has been made that a YAF member was involved with the 'Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas' ad placed in the Dallas Morning News (coincidentally on the morning of JFK's assassination), which accused him of ignoring the Constitution. see also :File:Welcome mr kennedy to dallas small.jpg
Reaction to radical activism, 1965-1971 Liberalism and radicalism dominated campuses from the mid-1960s until the early 1970s, primarily as a result of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. Though outnumbered, YAF went on the offensive against radical left-wing organizations by challenging and rebutting civil rights groups like the Afro-American Society and W.E.B. DuBois clubs, as well as antiwar groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and New MOBE in support of a U.S. victory in Vietnam.Shepherd, Lauren Lassabe. (2023). Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. University of North Carolina Press.
YAF members tended to hold similar opinions to their older compatriots within the conservative movement, including members of their advisory board such as Strom Thurmond, John Tower, L. Mendel Rivers, and William Colmer. YAF began and continued a number of projects to support Vietnam veterans and their causes. "Project Appreciation" gave YAFers the opportunity to write, visit, and provide needed supplies to hospitalized veterans. YAF worked on various POW/MIA issues. In a protest in Santa Monica in 1979, the YAF focused protests and a personal attack on Jane Fonda by hanging an effigy of her outside her house due to her opposition to the Vietnam War. YAF often made protests appearances at Fonda events, getting in physical altercations with her security guards and mocking her peace activism and acting career by holding up banners that read, "Barbarella bombed, why can't Nixon?" and "Shoot Fonda, not film!"Shepherd, Lauren Lassabe. (2023). Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. University of North Carolina Press. See pp. 69-70.
A faction of YAF philosophically extended the group's traditional support of limited government in economic issues to social issues and a foreign policy of non-interventionism. This group came to be known as libertarians. A more serious and lasting challenge for YAF came from this group, those who believed in limited or even no government – radical libertarians and anarchists.Wayne Thorburn (2010). A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement. Jameson Books Inc., p. 250. YAF's Libertarian and Anarchist Caucuses were purged at the YAF's 1969 national convention in St. Louis, and members of this faction were among the founding members of the Libertarian Party in 1971.Shepherd, Lauren Lassabe. (2023). Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. University of North Carolina Press. See pp. 136-151.
Advocacy politics, 1971-1985 In the 1970s, rather than merely staging campus demonstrations, YAF focused on influencing national politics by lobbying and occasionally staging and publicizing small demonstrations. YAF went on the offensive when President Nixon enacted wage controls, price controls, abandoned the gold standard, and opened relations with the communist People's Republic of China, ceasing relations with Taiwan. YAF felt he was abandoning conservative principles so YAF publicly denounced the administration for these moves, becoming the first conservative organization to do so.
In 1974, YAF, along with the American Conservative Union, sponsored a modest and ambitious gathering called the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). CPAC has become the largest annual gathering of conservatives and is still held annually in the Washington, D.C. area.
On college campuses, YAF was more conservative and less partisan than the College Republicans. Members were willing to oppose liberal candidates and support conservative candidates regardless of party affiliation. During many local and national races throughout this era, YAF members were divided about whether to support a moderately conservative electable candidate or to support a staunchly conservative long-shot candidate.
YAF supported Reagan's almost-successful bid to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1976 and his victorious race for the presidency in 1980. YAFers around the nation mobilized in support of Reagan's agenda.
Many YAFers received appointments to the Reagan Administration. Reagan Administration officials and prospective appointees who were targeted by the radical left were strongly defended by YAF. YAFers rallied to the support of Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan, Interior Secretary James Watt, Circuit Court Judge Dan Manion, Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, and NSC staff member Lt. Colonel Oliver North.