[2] Described variously at the time as "Ann Arbor's resident radical" and "reticent visionary",[3][unreliable source] Haber organized a human rights conference in April of that year which "marked the debut of SDS"[4] and invited four organizers of the 1960 NAACP sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina.

He worked unsuccessfully to bring concert singer and blacklisted political activist Paul Robeson to University of Michigan campus, protested the firing of three U-M professors for their refusal to sign a loyalty oath, and picketed Ann Arbor Woolworth’s and Kresge’s stores for refusing to serve African Americans in the Jim Crow south.

There he witnessed a dramatic intervention by Sandra Cason (Casey Hayden) urging support for the fledgling Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

[13] While collaborating with Haber, Hayden was the principal author of the Port Huron Statement,[14] refined and adopted at the first Students for Democratic Society (SDS) convention in June 1962.

[citation needed] He helped found the Berkeley, California Long Haul Infoshop, an anarchist resource center and community space.