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Americans for Democratic Action

{{short description|Political organization}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2021}}

{{Infobox Organization

|name = Americans for Democratic Action

|image_border =

|size =

|caption = ADA logo

|membership = 65,000 members

|leader_title=President

|leader_name=Art Haywood

|headquarters = Washington, D.C., United States

|formation = {{start date and age|1947|1|3}}

|website = {{URL|http://www.adaction.org}}

}}

Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is a liberal American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA views itself as supporting social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research, and supporting progressive candidates.

History

=Formation=

The ADA grew out of a predecessor group, the Union for Democratic Action (UDA). The UDA was formed by former members of the Socialist Party of America and the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies as well as labor union leaders, liberal politicians, theologians, and others who were opposed to the pacifism adopted by most left-wing political organizations in the late 1930s and early 1940s.Zuckerman, The Wine of Violence: An Anthology on Anti-Semitism, 1947, p. 220; Parmet, The Master of Seventh Avenue: David Dubinsky and the American Labor Movement, 2005, p. 214, {{ISBN|0-8147-6711-7}}; Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968, 1998, p. 49, {{ISBN|0-8014-8538-X}}; Brown, Niebuhr and His Age: Reinhold Niebuhr's Prophetic Role and Legacy, 2002, p. 102, {{ISBN|1563383756}}; Ceplair, "The Film Industry's Battle Against Left-Wing Influences, From the Russian Revolution to the Blacklist", Film History, 2008, 400–401; Libros, Hard Core Liberals: A Sociological Analysis of the Philadelphia Americans for Democratic Action, 1975, p. 13, {{ISBN|0870731483}}.Brock, Americans for Democratic Action: Its Role in National Politics, 1962, p. 49. It supported an interventionist, internationalist foreign policy and a pro-union, liberal domestic policy. It was also strongly anti-communist.Powers, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism, 1998, pp. 200–201, {{ISBN|0-300-07470-0}}. It undertook a major effort to support left-wing Democratic members of Congress in 1946, but this effort was an overwhelming failure.Davis, The Civil Rights Movement, 2000, p. 27, {{ISBN|0-631-22043-7}}.Halpern, UAW Politics in the Cold War Era, 1988, pp. 138–139, {{ISBN|0887066712}}.

James Isaac Loeb – later an ambassador and diplomat in the John F. Kennedy administration – the UDA's executive director, advocated disbanding the UDA and forming a new, more broadly based, mass-membership organization.Beinart, The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, 2007, p. 4, {{ISBN|9780522853834}}.Libros, Hard Core Liberals: A Sociological Analysis of the Philadelphia Americans for Democratic Action, 1975, p. 22, {{ISBN|0870731483}}. The ADA was formed on January 3, 1947, and the UDA shuttered.Hamby, "The Liberals, Truman, and the FDR as Symbol and Myth", The Journal of American History, March 1970; Heale, American Anticommunism: Combating the Enemy Within, 1830-1970, 1990, p. 140, {{ISBN|0-8018-4050-3}}

{{cite web

| title = Teachings of Eleanor Roosevelt: Americans for Democratic Action

| publisher = Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

| url = https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/ada.cfm

| access-date = July 19, 2017}}

Among ADA's founding members were leading anti-communist liberals from academic, political, and labor circles, including theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, union leader Walter Reuther, civil rights lawyer Joseph Rauh, and Hubert Humphrey. Its founders hoped to solidify a progressive, pragmatic, noncommunist "vital center" in mainstream politics, embodying Schlesinger's concept formulated in his 1949 book The Vital Center.Mark L. Kleinman, "Americans for Democratic Action", in The Oxford Companion to United States History, ed. Paul S. Boyer (Oxford/NY: Oxford UP, 2001), 34.

=Action=

On April 3, 1948, ADA declared its decision to support a Democratic Party ticket of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Supreme Court Judge William O. Douglas over incumbent U.S. President Harry S. Truman. Truman lacked popular support, and the ADA succeeded in pushing Truman leftward on issues such as civil rights. It also led a full-scale attack on Progressive Party candidate and former US vice president Henry A. Wallace because of his opposition to the Marshall Plan and support for a more conciliatory relationship with the Soviet Union. The ADA portrayed Wallace and his supporters as dupes of the Communist Party. Adolf A. Berle Jr. and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. believed that Eisenhower would accept the nomination.

{{cite news

| title = Democrats Urged to Run Eisenhower

| work = The New York Times

| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1948/04/04/archives/democrats-urged-to-run-eisenhower-americans-for-democratic-action.html

| page = 45

| date = April 4, 1948

| access-date = December 28, 2018}} He did not.

ADA supported Truman after his victory in the 1948 election.

Although anti-communist, unlike other contemporary liberal groups like the Progressive Citizens of America (PCA), which supported cooperation with the Soviet Union, the ADA was still subject to significant McCarthyist scrutiny. The plight of the ADA during that period prompted Eleanor Roosevelt to accept a position as honorary chair of the organization in 1953, and in doing so, put Senator McCarthy in a position in which he would have had to "call her a communist as well" to continue his inquiries into the activities of the group. Because of her actions, many ADA leaders credited her with saving the organization.{{cite web |title=Americans for Democratic Action |publisher=George Washington University |url=http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/ada.cfm |access-date=April 29, 2015}}

In the early 1960s, ADA's influence peaked when a number of its key members (e.g. James Loeb, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.) were picked to join the administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

{{cite encyclopedia

| title = Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)

| encyclopedia = Encyclopedia Britannica

| url = https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Americans_for_Democratic_Action&action=edit

| date = July 20, 1998

| access-date = July 19, 2017}} While active in liberal causes ranging from civil rights to Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society reforms, by the mid-1960s the ADA's influence was on the wane. It was badly split over the Vietnam War: initially supporting Johnson's war policy, the ADA had come to oppose the war by early 1968. It endorsed founder Hubert Humphrey's presidential candidacy that year, but with "barely concealed ambivalence". After Richard Nixon's victory, the ADA was pushed to the political margins, overshadowed by more centrist groups like the Trilateral Commission and Coalition for a Democratic Majority.

Leadership

=Founders=

Prominent founding members included:

{{cite web

| title = Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)

| website = World History

| url = http://www.worldhistory.biz/modern-history/79901-americans-for-democratic-action-ada.html

| access-date = July 19, 2017}}

{{cite news

| first = Ernest

| last = Lindley

| title = Rejecting The Reds: Regrouping of Progressives

| newspaper = The Washington Post

| page = 5

| date = January 6, 1947

}}

{{cite book

| first = Arthur M.

| last = Schlesinger Jr.

| author-link = Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

| title = A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950

| publisher = Houghton Mifflin

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=LLyNX6hMDCIC

| page = 457

| date = 2002

| isbn = 978-0618219254

| access-date = October 17, 2018

}}

{{cite web

| title = ADA History

| publisher = Americans for Democratic Action

| url = http://www.adaction.org/pages/about/ada-history.php

| access-date = July 19, 2017}}

{{cite book

| first = Penny M.

| last = Von Eschen | author-link = Penny Von Eschen

| title = Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957

| publisher = Cornell University Press

| url = https://archive.org/details/raceagainstempir00vone

| url-access = registration

| date = 1997

| isbn = 978-0801482922

| access-date = October 17, 2018

}}

{{cite book

| first = Daniel S.

| last = Lucks

| title = Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War

| publisher = University Press of Kentucky

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6oaAwAAQBAJ

| date = March 19, 2014

| isbn = 9780813145099

| access-date = October 17, 2018

}}

In April 1948 at New York state convention, ADA elected the following new officers: Jonathan Bingham of Scarborough as chairman with vice chairmen Dr. William Lehman of Syracuse, Benjamin McLaurin of New York City, Howard Linsay of New York City, Jack Rubenstein (Textile Workers Union, CIO), and Charles Zimmerman (International Ladies' Garment Workers Union).

=Chairs and presidents=

Since 1947, ADA's leaders have been:

Voting records

ADA ranks legislators, identifies key policy issues, and tracks how members of Congress vote on these issues. The annual ADA Voting Record gives each member a Liberal Quotient (LQ) rating from 0, meaning complete disagreement with ADA policies, to 100, meaning complete agreement with ADA policies. A score of 0 is considered conservative and a score 100 is considered liberal. The LQ is obtained by evaluating an elected official's votes on 20 key foreign and domestic social and economic issues chosen by the ADA's Legislative Committee. Each vote given a score of either 5 or 0 points, depending on whether the individual voted with or against the ADA's position, respectively. Absent voters are also given a score of 0 for the vote.{{cite web |title=Voting Records |publisher=Americans for Democratic Action |url=http://www.adaction.org/pages/publications/voting-records.php|access-date=April 29, 2015}}

See also

References

{{reflist}}

External links

  • {{Official website|http://www.adaction.org/}}
  • [https://search.library.wisc.edu/search/catalog?q=4575-arcatdb Americans for Democratic Action records, 1932–1999]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Americans for Democratic Action}}

Category:Anti-communist organizations in the United States

Category:Organizations established in 1947

Category:Political advocacy groups in the United States

Category:Liberalism in the United States

Category:1947 establishments in the United States

Category:Walter Reuther