Leading members of Social Democrats, USA
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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.[1][2] After 1960, the party also functioned "as an educational organization" and "a caucus of policy advocates on the left wing of the Democratic Party".[3]
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 those "Yipsels" (Young People's Socialist League), with Tom Kahn as provocateur-at-large.[4]