The Democratic Socialist Federation was founded by members of the Social Democratic Federation who had opposed the latter's 1956 reunification with the Socialist Party of America in 1956. The Federation merged with the Socialist Party in March 1972. In December of that year, the Socialist Party–Social Democratic Federation voted to change its name to

Social Democrats, USA Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) is a small political association of social democrats founded in 1972. The Socialist Party of America (SPA) had stopped running independent presidential candidates and consequently the term "party" in the SPA's na ...

Convention of December 1972

In its 1972 Convention, the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

had two Co-Chairmen,

Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...

and Charles S. Zimmerman (of the

International Ladies Garment Workers' Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membe ...

,Gerald Sorin, ''The Prophetic Minority: American Jewish Immigrant Radicals, 1880-1920.'' Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985; pg. 155. ILGWU) and a First National Vice Chairman, James S. Glaser, who were re-elected by

acclamation An acclamation is a form of election that does not use a ballot. It derives from the ancient Roman word ''acclamatio'', a kind of ritual greeting and expression of approval towards imperial officials in certain social contexts. Voting Voice vot ...

. The Party changed its name to "

" by a vote of 73 to 34. * ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' reported on the 1972 Convention on other days, e.g., * * Changing the name of the Socialist Party to "Social Democrats USA" was intended to be "realistic." ''

'' observed that the Socialist Party had last sponsored a candidate for President in

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, ar ...

, who received only 2,121 votes, which were cast in only six states. Because the Socialist Party no longer sponsored candidates in Presidential elections, continued use of the name "Party" was "misleading" and hindered the recruiting of activists who participated in the Democratic Party, according to the majority report. The name "Socialist" was replaced by "

Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

" because many American associated the word "

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

" with

Soviet communism The ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Bolshevist Marxism–Leninism, an ideology of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Un ...

. Moreover, the organization sought to distinguish itself from two small Marxist parties.

Convention of December 1972

References

Further reading