In August 1966, delegates from across the United States attended the annual Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Convention in Clear Lake, Iowa. Located in north-central Iowa and held at a Methodist camp, the organization set about debating its future.

SDS was at a crossroads in 1966. It had evolved into the largest radical student organization in the United States and was going through a major membership and political transformation, according to SDS historian Kirkpatrick Sale.

For attendees, the Clear Lake convention, which featured 350 delegates from 140 chapters, was symbolic. Leadership was now transferred from the organization’s original members to the newer ones; from those born in the left-wing traditions of the coasts to middle-American activists. It was the ascendance of “prairie power.”