Students for a Democratic Society, Western Washington University Chapter Records, 1965-2008

Students for a Democratic Society was a national activist student organization organized around chapters at colleges and universities. The goals of the organization included peace, eradication of poverty, labor equity, and civil rights. Students at Western Washington State College organized a chapter in 1969, and the chapter appears to have dissolved in 1970, following the collapse of the national organization. The national SDS organization reorganized in 2006, and students at Western Washington University organized a chapter that year that remained in existence until 2008.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, George Boyd Hartwell (1944-2017) graduated from Western Washington State College (now Western Washington University) in 1971, and went on to pursue a career in social work. During his undergraduate years, Hartwell was a founding member and chapter secretary of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Western Washington State College chapter. He was among a group of eight students arrested in November 1968 for distributing anti-draft literature to students at Sehome High School in Bellingham, Washington. The case of the “Sehome Eight” was taken to the Supreme Court of the State of Washington in 1971 as State v. Oyen.