Small organizations associated with the Socialist Party of America have served as schools for the leadership of social-movement organizations, including the civil rights movement and the sixties radicalism. These organizations are now chiefly remembered because of their members' leadership of large organizations that directly influenced the United States and international politics.Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: The Free Press, 1994)* Maurice Isserman. If I Had a Hammer... The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left (Basic Books, 1987). . America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, Maurice Isserman, and Michael Kazin, third ed. (2000; Oxford University Press, 2007). . After 1960, the party also functioned as an educational organization and a caucus of policy advocates on the left wing of the Democratic Party.: Similarly, Social Democrats, USA (one of three successor organizations to the Socialist Party) was known mainly because of the activities of its members, many of whom publicly identified themselves as members of SDUSA. Members of SDUSA have served as officers for governmental, private and not-for-profit organizations. A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Norman Hill were leaders of the civil rights movement. Tom Kahn, Sandra Feldman and Rachelle Horowitz were officers of labor unions. Carl Gershman and Penn Kemble served in governmental and non-governmental organizations, particularly in foreign policy. Philosopher Sidney Hook was a public intellectual. Writing after the death of Tom Kahn, Ben Wattenberg commented that SDUSA as an "umbrella organization" associated with other letterhead organizations, saying the following: [SDUSA members seemed to be] ingeniously trying to bury the Soviet Union in a blizzard of letterheads. It seemed that each of Tom's colleagues—Penn Kemble, Carl Gershman, Josh Muravchik and many more—ran a little organization, each with the same interlocking directorate listed on the stationery. Funny thing: The Letterhead Lieutenants did indeed churn up a blizzard, and the Soviet Union is no more. ...

They talked and wrote endlessly, mostly about communism and democracy, despising the former, adoring the latter. It is easy today to say "anti-communist" and "pro-democracy" in the same breath. But that is because American foreign policy eventually became just such a mixture, thanks in part to the Young People's Socialist League, with Tom Kahn as provocateur-at-large.

A. Philip Randolph

The long-time leader and intellectual architect of the civil rights movement, A. Philip Randolph was also a visible member of the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas and remained with the faction that renamed itself as the SDUSA. Along with ILGWU President David Dubinsky, Randolph was honored at the 1976 SDUSA convention.

A. Philip Randolph came to national attention as the leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph proposed a march on Washington, D.C. to protest racial discrimination in the United States armed forces. Meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Oval Office, Randolph respectfully, politely, but firmly told President Roosevelt that blacks would march in the capital unless desegregation would occur. The planned march was canceled after President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 (the Fair Employment Act), which banned discrimination in defense industries and federal agencies.

In 1942, an estimated 18,000 blacks gathered at Madison Square Garden to hear Randolph kick off a campaign against discrimination in the military, in war industries, in government agencies and in labor unions. Following the act, during the Philadelphia Transit Strike of 1944 the government backed African American workers' striking to gain positions formerly limited to white employees.

In 1947, Randolph, along with colleague Grant Reynolds, renewed efforts to end discrimination in the armed services, forming the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman abolished racial segregation in the armed forces through Executive Order 9981. Randolph was the nominal leader of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was organized by Bayard Rustin and his younger associates. At this march, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his well-known "I Have a Dream" speech. Soon afterwards, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by the 88th Congress and signed into law by President Johnson.

Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin was National Chairman of SDUSA and also was President of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.Rustin's selected writings have been republished as Time on two crosses: the collected writings of Bayard Rustin (San Francisco: Cleis Press, 2003). Rustin's writings had appeared in an earlier collection> Down the line; the collected writings of Bayard Rustin Chicago Quadrangle Books 1971

Rustin had had a long association with A. Philip Randolph and with pacifist movements. In 1956, Rustin advised Martin Luther King Jr. who was organizing the Montgomery bus boycott. According to Rustin: "I think it's fair to say that Dr. King's view of non-violent tactics was almost non-existent when the boycott began. In other words, Dr. King was permitting himself and his children and his home to be protected by guns". Rustin convinced King to abandon the armed protection.Bayard Rustin – Who Is This Man , State of the Reunion, radio show, aired February 2011 on NPR, 1:40–2:10, accessed March 16, 2011.Rustin wrote the following reports: The revolution in the South" Cambridge, Mass. : Peace Education Section, American Friends Service Committee, 1950s Report on Montgomery, Alabama New York: War Resisters League, 1956 A report and action suggestions on non-violence in the South New York: War Resisters League, 1957 The following year, Rustin and King began organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Rustin and Randolph organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. On September 6, 1963, Rustin and Randolph appeared on the cover of Life magazine as "the leaders" of the March.Life Magazine , September 6, 1963.

From protest to politics After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, Rustin advocated closer ties between the civil rights movement and the Democratic Party and its base among the working class.

With the assistance of Tom Kahn, Rustin wrote the 1965 article "From protest to politics", which analyzed the changing economy and its implications for black Americans. This article stated that the rise of automation would reduce the demand for low-skill high-paying jobs, which would jeopardize the position of the urban black working class, particularly in the Northern United States. To pursue its economic agenda, the black community needed to shift political strategy, strengthening its political alliance with mostly white unions and other organizations (churches, synagogs and the like). As its agenda shifted from civil rights to economic justice, the black community's tactics needed to shift from protest to politics, wrote Rustin.Rustin wrote the following reports: Civil rights: the true frontier New York, N.Y.: Donald Press, 1963 From protest to politics: the future of the civil rights movement New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1965 The labor-Negro coalition, a new beginning [Washington? D.C. : American Federationist?, 1968 Conflict or coalition?: the civil rights struggle and the trade union movement today New York, A. Philip Randolph Institute, 1969. A particular danger facing the Negro community was the chimera of identity politics, particularly the rise of "Black Power", for which Rustin expressed contempt: Wearing my hair Afro style, calling myself an Afro-American, and eating all the chitterlings I can find are not going to affect Congress.

Rustin wrote that "Black Power" repeated the moral errors of previous black nationalists while alienating the white allies needed by the black community.Rustin wrote the following reports: The Watts "Manifesto" & the McCone report. New York, League for Industrial Democracy 1966 Separatism or integration, which way for America?: a dialogue (with Robert Browne) New York, A. Philip Randolph Educational Fund, 1968 Black studies: myths & realities (contributor) New York, A. Philip Randolph Educational Fund, 1969 Three essays New York, A. Philip Randolph Institute, 1969 A word to black students New York, A. Philip Randolph Institute, 1970 The failure of black separatism New York, A. Philip Randolph Institute, 1970

Influence on William Julius Wilson