Young Democratic Socialists

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Young Democratic Socialists


Chairperson	David Duhalde
Chairman	David Duhalde


Mother party	Democratic Socialists of America
International affiliation	International Union of Socialist Youth, IUSY

Website	ydsusa.org

Young Democratic Socialists (YDS) is a democratic socialist youth organization in the United States. It is the youth section of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose political outlook it shares, and the American affiliate of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY). As such, YDS is regularly invited to international conferences by their sister organizations.

Formerly known as the Democratic Socialists of America Youth Section, the organization played a significant role in the 1980s in the movements against apartheid in South Africa and U.S. intervention in Central America. It helped introduce many student activists to trade union struggles, with many of the organization's alums going on to become labor organizers and union staff members. In the late 1990s YDS chapters, most notably the ones at Ithaca College and Arizona State University, became heavily involved in the national movement against the prison-industrial complex. Chapters tried to force colleges to cancel their contracts with food service provider Sodexho Marriott because its parent company, Sodexho Alliance, owned stock in Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison company.

The group's most visible current national activities are its participation in the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC), the national immigrants rights project, and organizing various national conferences, usually held in New York City. YDS had a contingent march in the NYSPC section of the United for Peace and Justice march against the Iraq war in Washington, DC on January 27, 2007. ^[1]

From February 16th to 18th, 2007, YDS held its largest youth conference in several years at Bayard Rustin High School in New York City. Called "Justice Beyond Borders: Democracy and Socialism in the 21st Century," the conference featured key-note speeches by Professor Noam Chomsky, journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich, The Nation correspondent Christian Parenti, author and journalist Liza Featherstone, Columbia University Professor Gayatri Spivak, and Temple University Political Science Chair Professor Joseph Schwartz.^[2]

The group is currently headed by national organizer David Duhalde, and is run by a coordinating committee consisting of two co-chairs, an International Secretary, anti-Racism Coordinator, Feminist Issues Coordinator, and several at-large members. The group has a number of current chapters and organizing committees across the country. The strongest are University of Virginia-Wise, Michigan State University, Wichita State University in Kansas, the College of Wooster in Ohio, the University of Central Arkansas United Leftist Front, Bowdoin College Democratic Left, Stuyvesant High School in New York City, the New York City Metro Chapter, and New Meadows High School in Las Vegas. YDS also has organizing committees and chapters at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, MIT, and Edison High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Previous well-known chapters have included those at Ithaca College, Arizona State University, University of Chicago, James Madison University, the University of Central Oklahoma, and Bryn Mawr College. YDS also has numerous members at campuses without chapters, who usually work through other progressive groups on campus to articulate an active democratic socialist presence.