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Series XIV: Archived Websites

Extent

60 websites in 60 archived websites.

Scope and Content Note

This series contains the main website, blogs, and subdomains of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), dating back to 2008. http://www.dsausa.org/ contains information on their campaigns and programs, which include student debt alleviation, immigrant rights, environmentalism, Medicare for all, and the protection of social programs, as well as meeting minutes, chapter information, convention materials, fundraising, their scholarship fund, online store, endorsements, videos, and event listings.

The main DSA website provides links to many of their projects and campaigns, including the Young Democratic Socialists of America, the National Electoral Committee, the Labor Commission, the Anti-War Think Tank, Ecosocialist working group, the International Committee, the DSA Fund, and the Tech Committee. Specific campaign websites were also captured, including Medicare for All, Close the Camps national action (protesting the detention and mistreatment of migrants and refugees, the separation of migrant families, mass deportation, and raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement), Democratic Socialists campaign for Bernie Sanders, Trans Right and Bodily Autonomy campaign, and a Protect Abortion rights campaign that was launched after the United State Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and limited the right to abortion nationwide. In 2024, the DSA launched a website detailing the organization's goals for the 2024 United States election.

The series also contains online publications created by the DSA, including Socialist Forum, which intends to facilitate debate and discussion among socialist thinkers and DSA members about ongoing political issues and to develop materials that can be incorporated into future political educational materials; Talking Union blog from the DSA Labor network; Democratic Left, their digital magazine (as well as New American Movement and Moving On, published by NAM); and "Why Socialists Should Become Teachers" digital pamphlet. The online magazine of the Young Democratic Socialists was known as The Activist, which was captured from 2009-2014.

Arrangement

The series is arranged chronologically.

Accruals

New site crawls are accrued semiannually. In 2020-2021, https://workerorganizing.org/, http://www.dsausa.org/, https://y.dsausa.org/, https://democraticleft.dsausa.org/ were accrued monthly.

Appraisal

Crawl was limited to domains and subdomains of dsausa.org and docs.google.com/document/ in order to remain within the collection scope and data constraints. Robots.txt (a piece of code designed to limit crawler activity within a website) was ignored.

Audio for the podcasts have been captured, but might not render in the archived copy. Future changes to the Wayback Machine may allow the files to be played.

Processing Information

Google documents linked out from the DSA websites were crawled but digital objects were not created in ArchivesSpace.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Due to technical or privacy issues, archived websites may not be exact copies of the original website at the time of the web crawl. Certain file types will not be captured dependent on how they are embedded in the site. Other parts of websites that the crawler has difficulty capturing includes Javascript, streaming content, database-driven content, and highly interactive content. Full-Text searches of archived websites are available at https://archive-it.org/organizations/567.

Democratic Socialists of America

Young Democratic Socialists of America

Scope and Contents

The website includes chapter information, membership drive materials, how-to guides, caucus organizing, and information on current campaigns.

Constellation's website, a caucus of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, contains YDSA's principles of expansion, internationalism, party unification, diversity, building labor struggle in campuses, and integration of DSA. It also includes a leadership section, articles written by Constellation members, and an application form to join the caucus.

Historical Note

Young Democratic Socialists of America is the youth and student section of the Democratic Socialists of America. Constellation is a caucus of YDSA focused on mass organization.

International Committee

Scope and Contents

The website contains quarterly reports, political education resources, statements, and videos from panels and other events with international organizers and political activists.

Historical Note

The Democratic Socialists of America International Committee works to establish relationships and provide solidarity with socialist and working class organizations internationally. The majority of their work is focused on anti-imperialism and anti-militarism globally, specifically in Cuba, Venezuela, Ukraine, China, Okinawa, Korea, Brazil, Yemen, and United States military bases.

The Democratic Socialists of America Fund

Scope and Contents

The related websites host information about the organization's board and history, fundraising materials, as well as educational resources. Additionally, the YouTube channel for the fund contains websites from their educational video series, "How We Win," "We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism--American Style," and "The Big Scary 'S' Word."

Historical Note

The Socialist Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization associated with the Democratic Socialists of America that prioritizes "political education and engagement" in order to increase public awareness of American socialism.

Green New Deal Campaign Commission

Scope and Contents

The website highlights their projects, which include Power for Texas, the PRO Act Campaign, the Green New Deal for Public Schools, and the Green New Deal Slate.

Historical Note

The Ecosocialists Working Group, later the Green New Deal Campaign Commission, of the Democratic Socialists of America seek to help chapters build local power for climate and environmental justice with the backing of a national network; advance an ecosocialist perspective in environmental justice movements, the DSA and greater left; promote understanding of climate science as well as the intersections of capitalism, imperialism, systemic oppression and climate crisis; and build a socialist movement that reflects the needs of the people and planet as an interdependent ecosystem. The working group led the Power for Texas campaign, which was established in response to the Texas power grid failure in February 2021. Other campaigns include the PRO Act (Protect the Right to Organize) campaign, which advocated for the end the "right to work" laws, legalized secondary strikes, and promoted green jobs. The Green New Deal for Public Schools called for the passing of the Green New Deal or Public Schools Act, which includes funding toward green facilities, educators and support staff, comunity engagement, and accessibility. The Green New Deal Slate endorsed local candidates running on the Green New Deal platform. Members of the slate, Hugo Soto-Martinez in California, Elisabeth Epps in Colorado, Rachel Ventura in Illinois, and Sarahana Shrestha in New York were elected in the November 2022 general elections.

Religious Socialism

Scope and Contents

The site manages regular blogs and podcasts.

Historical Note

The Democratic Socialists of America's Religion and Socialism Commission, founded by John Court, seeks to build coalitions between progressive people of different faiths and advance conversations that bridge theology and socialist politics.

National Electoral Committee

Scope and Contents

The website contains endorsements, training and support, and endorsement applications.

Historical Note

The National Electoral Committee is the DSA national body empowered to execute the National Political Committee's political strategy by assisting locals and recommending national endorsements. The NEC includes a national electoral training team and compliance, chapter outreach, endorsement, and training subcommittees.

Labor Commission

Scope and Contents

The website contains an organizing guide, organizer training, example workplace campaign petitions and flyers, organizer request form, and a blog. Other projects include the Rank-and-File Strategy, an organizing strategy to bring socialists and organized workers together to build class power, and the Restaurant Organizing Project (ROP).

Historical Note

The Democratic Socialist Labor Commission is a body of DSA members who are involved in labor unions and labor advocacy movements. The website contains education and training materials for new labor branches and information about the Commission's subcommittees. Subcommittees include the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), which is a project of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), organized to build a distributed, grassroots organizing program to support workers organizing at the workplace.

Medicare for All Committee

Scope and Contents

The Medicare for All website features basic information about the policy proposal, volunteer resources, information about a DSA House pressure campaign, dates for a speaking tour, and a blog that features editorial content about universal healthcare and spotlights DSA chapters' actions related to Medicare for All.

Historical Note

Democratic Socialists (DSA) for Medicare for All is a policy proposal supported by the Democratic Socialists of America expanding medicare to provide universal federal assistance with costs of medical care for all citizens and abolishing private health insurance.

Anti-War Think-Tank

Scope and Contents

The Think-Tank's website features official statements and less formal discussion on such developments as United States' support for Saudi American military presence in Yemen, response to publicized National Security Agency/Department of Defense documents, the civil war in Syria, and other foreign policy developments. The site also solicits submissions from DSA members.

Historical Note

The Democratic Socialists of America's Anti-War think-tank, established in 2018 and authorized by the DSA National Committee, joined veterans, journalists, and activists to provide socialist commentary on American foreign policy and foreign affairs. The organization sought principled opposition to American Imperialism as crucial to the establishment of socialism in the United States.

National Tech Committee

Scope and Contents

The DSA-NTC site features a contact page, forms for volunteers to sign up or request help with technical issues, and a link to an opt-in site.

Historical Note

The Democratic Socialists of America National Tech Committee is a collection of volunteer tech-workers supporting the technology needs of local chapters and the DSA National Committee.

Bread and Roses Caucus, October 2019-ongoing

Scope and Contents

The website includes the caucus' platform and action items, and their publication, "The Call." The publication's website contains writing about democratic socialist organizing and administration. The site is also home to a podcast: "The Call Radio."

Historical Note

The Bread & Roses caucus is a national caucus of Marxist organizers in the Democratic Socialists of America committed to helping build an effective DSA rooted in the multiracial working class.

National Political Education Committee

Scope and Contents

The website contains curricula created nationally and by local chapters. Class is a podcast of the National Political Education Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America. The podcast is hosted by Daphna Thier and Elton LK.

Historical Note

National Political Education Committee was established in 2019 in response to a resolution passed by the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America. NPEC aimed to help DSA chapters develop the lesson plans, curriculum, and the facilitation skills needed to implement a long-term political education program locally.

BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group

Scope and Contents

The website contains events and actions, a resource library, an FAQ, a national boycott campaign, and statements regarding their call for Jamaal Bowman's expulsion from the DSA, and other statements surrounding Israeli annexation of Palestine.

Historical Note

The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) and Palestine Solidarity Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America was established in 2019. The working group called for an end to Israel's continued occupation and colonization of historic Palestine; equal rights for Palestinians; and the right of millions of Palestinian refugees to finally return to their home after decades of forced exile.

National Conventions

Disability Working Group

Scope and Contents

The linktree webpage provides links to the working group's points of unity, bylaws, code of conduct, national convention resolutions, and other external links on disability justice. DSA Organizing for Pandemic Justice is a resolution proposed by the DSA Disability Working Group at the 2023 National Convention of the Democratic Socialists of America. The website contains the full text of the resolution, chapter safety protocol, a convention COVID-19 safety guide, educational materials, cost analysis, and a timeline of the status of the proposal.

Historical Note

The Disability Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America, initially established at the 2017 National Convention, was formed to work toward "inclusion of disabled people in all aspects of DSA and all settings where DSA participates." In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the working group advocated for events, including the National Convention, to be held in a hybrid virtual and in-person format.

Mutual Aid Working Group

Scope and Contents

The website contains information on their projects, the Brake Light Clinics and disaster relief.

Historical Note

The Mutual Aid Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America work to provide support to local chapters and provide training on mutual aid.

Housing Justice Commission

Scope and Contents

The website contains information on their Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) program, the aim of which is to train tenant organizers and assist in the creation of tenant unions.

Historical Note

The Housing Justice Commission (HJC) of the Democratic Socialists of America coordinate national and regional campaigns for tenants' rights and support local chapters in the creation and expansion of tenant organizing programs and tenants unions.

Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Campaign Commission

Scope and Contents

The website contains links to a Trans Sanctuary City Toolkit document, a campaign for Trans Day of Visibility on March 31, and a form to register to Trans Rights & Bodily Autonomy's campaign commission.

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012