The Weathermen Slide 2 Who were the Weathermen? Weathermen, and
later the Weather Underground, was an American radical Left
organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS) composed for the most part of the national
office leadership of SDS and their supporters. Slide 3 Birth of
Weathermen Initially formed as a splinter group which believed that
peaceful protests were ineffective. Weathermen were widely
criticized for their use of violence as a means of social and
political change. Slide 4 Who were the Weathermen? Some accused the
group of terrorism Others accused it of giving all activists, both
militant and more mainstream, a bad name. Slide 5 1969 SDS
Convention At an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969, the
National Office attempted to convince unaffiliated delegates not to
endorse a takeover of SDS by Progressive Labor who had packed the
convention with their supporters. Slide 6 1969: A New Revolutionary
Party The most important task for us toward making the revolution,
and the work our collectives should engage in, is the creation of a
mass revolutionary movement, without which a clandestine
revolutionary party will be impossible. A revolutionary mass
movement is different from the traditional revisionist mass base of
"sympathizers." Rather it is akin to the Red Guard in China, based
on the full participation and involvement of masses of people in
the practice of making revolution; a movement with a full
willingness to participate in the violent and illegal struggle.
Progressive Labor faction: Maoists Slide 7 Weatherman Ideology The
thesis of Weatherman theory, as expounded in its founding document,
You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows, was
that "the main struggle going on in the world today is between U.S.
imperialism and the national liberation struggles against it" Slide
8 RYM = Revolutionary Youth Movement The role of the "Revolutionary
Youth Movement" is to build a centralized organization of
revolutionaries, a "Marxist- Leninist Party" supported by a mass
revolutionary movement to support international liberation
movements and "open another battlefield of the revolution. Slide 9
Weathermen Linked to Global Revolutionary Movements Paris Students
in 1968 Cultural Revolution in China Che Guevara Ho Chi Minh in
Vietnam Black Panthers in the US Slide 10 Which Side Are You On?
The Weathermen were outspoken advocates of the critical concepts
that later came to be known as white privilege and identity
politics. Slide 11 Bernardine Dohrn Bernardine Dohrn said, White
youth must choose sides now. They must either fight on the side of
the oppressed, or be on the side of the oppressor. Slide 12 Weather
Bureau The Weatherman created a central committee, the Weather
Bureau, which assigned its cadres to a series of collectives in
major cities. These cities included New York, Boston, Seattle,
Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Chicago, the home of the
SDS' head office. Slide 13 Haymarket Bombing [10/5/69] Shortly
before the Days of Rage demon- strations, the Weatherman planted a
bomb that blew up a statue in Chicago [Oct. 5 th, 1969] built to
commemorate police casualties incurred in the 1886 Haymarket Riot.
Slide 14 "Days of Rage" October 9, 1969 SDS Activist Recalls the
Days of Rage on NPR-7 SDS Activist Recalls the Days of Rage on
NPR-7 Slide 15 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, March 1970
Premature detonation of a bomb as it was being assembled by members
of the Weatherman (later rechristened the Weather Underground), in
the basement of a townhouse at 18 West 11th Street in New York
City's Greenwich Village. Slide 16 Weather Underground Formed After
the Greenwich Village incident [December, 1969], the group was now
well underground, and began to refer to themselves as the Weather
Underground Organization. Slide 17 Violence? YES! The direct action
techniques [Violence] were intended to show Americans the level of
violence in Vietnam. Slide 18 Declaration of a State of War, May
1970 In response to the death of Black Panther member Fred Hampton
in December, 1969 during a police raid, on May 21, 1970 the Weather
Underground issued a "Declaration of War against the United States
government. Slide 19 Federal Grand Jury Indicts 13 Weathermen
Leaders On July 23, 1970 a Detroit Grand Jury indicted 13
Weathermen members on conspiracy to bomb and kill. Ten of the
Thirteen already had outstanding Federal Warrants. Slide 20 Timothy
Leary prison break, September 1970 In September 1970, the group
took a $20,000 payment from a group called The Brotherhood of
Eternal Love to break LSD advocate Timothy Leary out of prison,
transporting him and his wife to Algeria. Leary joined Eldridge
Cleaver in Algeria. Slide 21 Pentagon Bombing, 1972 On May 19,
1972, Ho Chi Minhs birthday, The Weather Underground placed a bomb
in the womens bathroom in the Air Force wing of The Pentagon. Slide
22 1973: Cease-fire accord in Vietnam The Paris Peace Accords of
1973, intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the
Vietnam Conflict, ended direct U.S. military involvement and
temporarily stopped the fighting between north and south. Slide 23
Charges Dropped, 1973 In 1973 the government requested dropping
charges against most of the WUO members. The requests cited a
recent decision by the Supreme Court that barred electronic
surveillance without a court order. Slide 24 Prairie Fire 1974 With
the help from ultra-leftist (expelled from the Communist Party)
Clayton Van Lydegraf, the Weather Underground sought a more
Marxist-Leninist ideological approach to the post-Vietnam reality.
Slide 25 Dissolution 1977 - 1981 1977 Weathermen Mark Rudd and
Cathy Wilkerson emerge from years of hiding and surrender to the
police, receiving two years of probation and three years in prison,
respectively. Slide 26 Dissolution 1977 - 1981 1980 Bernardine
Dohrn and Bill Ayers resurface from the underground, pleading
guilty to bail- jumping charges from a 1969 anti-war protest. Dohrn
is fined $1,500 and given three years probation. Slide 27
Dissolution 1981: The unofficial end of the Weather Underground
occurs when Kathy Boudin resurfaces to participate in an armed
robbery in New York, which results in the shooting deaths of three
men. Boudin is sentenced in 1984 to 22 years in prison, and is
paroled in 2003. Slide 28 Weathermen Today Part of the leadership
of the Weather Underground, Dohrn was considered the organizations
figurehead. She spent the 1970s living underground and was on the
FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Today, Dohrn is an associate professor
and director at Northwestern University's Children and Justice
Center. Slide 29 Weathermen Today: Bill Ayers A central figure in
the Weathermen, Ayers lived underground for ten years, an
experience he wrote about in his memoir, Fugitive Days. Now married
to Dohrn, Ayers is currently a school reform activist and a
professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Slide 30 Weathermen Today: Mark Rudd Rudd was best known for his
role in the 1968 Columbia protests. As part of the Weather
Underground's leadership, he lived underground for several years
during the 1970s. He now teaches at a junior college in New
Mexico.
