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During the Summer of 1969, the National Office began to split as well. One group led by Klonsky, became known as RYM II. The other side, was led by Dohrn endorsed more aggressive tactics. At an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18th, 1969, the National Office attempted to convince unaffiliated delegates to not endorse Progressive Labor ideals. At the beginning of the convention, two position papers were passed out by the National Office leadership, one a revised statement of Klonksy's RYM manifesto, the other called "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows." During the Summer of 1969, the National Office began to split as well. One group led by Klonsky, became known as RYM II. The other side, was led by Dohrn endorsed more aggressive tactics. At an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18th, 1969, the National Office attempted to convince unaffiliated delegates to not endorse Progressive Labor ideals. At the beginning of the convention, two position papers were passed out by the National Office leadership, one a revised statement of Klonksy's RYM manifesto, the other called "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows."
The latter document outlined the position of the group that would become the Weathermen. It had been signed by 11 people - ], ], ], ], Jim Mellen, ], ], ], ], Gerry Long, and Steve Tappis. The latter document outlined the position of the group that would become the Weathermen. It had been signed by 11 people - ], ], ], ], Jim Mellen, ], ], ], ], Gerry Long, and Steve Tappis.


After the summer of 1969 fragmentation of Students for a Democratic Society, Weatherman's adherents explicitly claimed themselves the ''real leaders'' of SDS and retained control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any leaflet, label, or logo bearing the name "Students for a Democratic Society" or "SDS" was in fact the views and politics of Weatherman, and not of SDS as a whole. Weatherman contained the vast majority of former SDS National Committee members, including ], ] and ]. For this reason, the group, while small, was able to easily commandeer the mantle of SDS and all of its membership lists. For a brief time, affiliations with regional SDS ] were maintained from the National Office, but with Weatherman in charge the relationships did not last long, and local chapters soon disbanded. By February ], the group had decided to close the SDS National Office, concluding the major campus-based organization of the 1960s. After the summer of 1969 fragmentation of Students for a Democratic Society, Weatherman's adherents explicitly claimed themselves the ''real leaders'' of SDS and retained control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any leaflet, label, or logo bearing the name "Students for a Democratic Society" or "SDS" was in fact the views and politics of Weatherman, and not of SDS as a whole. Weatherman contained the vast majority of former SDS National Committee members, including ], ] and ]. For this reason, the group, while small, was able to easily commandeer the mantle of SDS and all of its membership lists. For a brief time, affiliations with regional SDS ] were maintained from the National Office, but with Weatherman in charge the relationships did not last long, and local chapters soon disbanded. By February ], the group had decided to close the SDS National Office, concluding the major campus-based organization of the 1960s.

Revision as of 10:04, 11 March 2008

For other uses, see Weatherman (disambiguation).
John Jacobs (center) and Terry Robbins (with sunglasses) at the Days of Rage, Chicago, October 1969.

Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization, was a violent U.S. Radical Left group consisting of splintered-off members and leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society which formed on the campus on the University of Michigan in the 1960s. They took their name from a line from the Bob Dylan song 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." The group referred to itself as a revolutionary organization of men and women whose purpose was to carry out a series of attacks that would achieve the revolutionary overthrow of the Government of the United States. Their attacks were mostly bombings of government buildings. The Weathermen imploded shortly after the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973 and the conquest of South Vietnam by the communist North in 1975, which saw the general decline of the New Left, of which Weatherman had been a part.

Early on, the Weathermen were part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement within the Students for a Democratic Society. When they split — first from the RYM's Maoists and then from SDS itself — they distinguished themselves from other self-proclaimed revolutionary groups by claiming that there was no time to build a vanguard party and that revolutionary war against the United States and the capitalist system should begin immediately. To that end, they carried out one of the first domestic terror campaigns in the United States, consisting of bombings, jailbreaks, and riots.

Background

The group initially emerged from the campus-based opposition to the Vietnam War and from the Civil Rights Movements of the late 1960s. During this time, United States military action in Southeast Asia, especially in Vietnam, escalated despite the growing significance of a worldwide movement against the war. In the U.S., the anti-war sentiment was particularly pronounced around the time of the 1968 U.S. presidential election.

The origins of the Weatherman can be traced to the collapse and fragmentation of the Students for a Democratic Society. The most significant split came between the mainstream leadership of SDS, or "National Office" and the Progressive Labor Party. The internal struggle with Progressive Labor pushed SDS as a whole further to the left. National Office leaders began announcing their emerging perspectives, such as Bernardine Dohrn and Mike Klonsky. Klonksy's published a document called "Toward a Revolutionary Youth Movement" which created the idea of a Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM). RYM promoted the philosophy that young workers possessed the potential to be a revolutionary force to overthrow capitalism, if not by themselves then by transmitting radical ideas to the working class. Eventually adopted as official SDS doctrine, Klonsky's document reflected the growing leftist philosophy of the National Office.

During the Summer of 1969, the National Office began to split as well. One group led by Klonsky, became known as RYM II. The other side, was led by Dohrn endorsed more aggressive tactics. At an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18th, 1969, the National Office attempted to convince unaffiliated delegates to not endorse Progressive Labor ideals. At the beginning of the convention, two position papers were passed out by the National Office leadership, one a revised statement of Klonksy's RYM manifesto, the other called "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows." The latter document outlined the position of the group that would become the Weathermen. It had been signed by 11 people - Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn, John Jacobs, Bill Ayers, Jim Mellen, Terry Robbins, Howie Machtinger, Karen Ashley, Jeff Jones, Gerry Long, and Steve Tappis.

After the summer of 1969 fragmentation of Students for a Democratic Society, Weatherman's adherents explicitly claimed themselves the real leaders of SDS and retained control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any leaflet, label, or logo bearing the name "Students for a Democratic Society" or "SDS" was in fact the views and politics of Weatherman, and not of SDS as a whole. Weatherman contained the vast majority of former SDS National Committee members, including Mark Rudd, David Gilbert and Bernadine Dohrn. For this reason, the group, while small, was able to easily commandeer the mantle of SDS and all of its membership lists. For a brief time, affiliations with regional SDS cadre were maintained from the National Office, but with Weatherman in charge the relationships did not last long, and local chapters soon disbanded. By February 1970, the group had decided to close the SDS National Office, concluding the major campus-based organization of the 1960s.

The name Weatherman was derived from the Bob Dylan song “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, which featured the lyrics “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” The lyrics had been quoted at the bottom of an influential essay in the SDS newspaper, New Left Notes. Using this title the Weathermen meant, partially, to appeal to the segment of American youth inspired to action for social justice by Dylan’s songs. It appears also that the “Weatherman” moniker used by the group may have been meant as a rebuke against the Progressive Labor Party, whose Worker Student Alliance SDS faction had succeeded in recruiting many former SDSers to its ranks, and had allegedly co-opted the 1969 convention.

The Weatherman group had long held that militancy was becoming more important than nonviolent forms of anti-war action, and that university-campus-based demonstrations needed to be punctuated with more dramatic actions, which had the potential to interfere with the U.S. military and internal security apparatus. The belief was that these types of urban guerrilla actions would act as a catalyst for the coming revolution. Many international events indeed seemed to support the Weathermen’s overall assertion that worldwide revolution was imminent, such as the tumultuous Cultural Revolution in China; the 1968 student revolts in France, Mexico City and elsewhere; the Prague Spring; the emergence of the Tupamaros organization in Uruguay; the emergence of the Guinea-Bissauan Revolution and similar Marxist-led independence movements throughout Africa; and within the United States, the prominence of the Black Panther Party together with a series of “ghetto rebellions” throughout poor black neighborhoods across the country.

The Weathermen were outspoken advocates of the analytical concepts that later came to be known as “white privilege” and identity politics. As the unrest in poor black neighborhoods intensified in the early 1970s, 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.”

“Days of Rage”

Haymarket Square police memorial (1889 photo)

One of the first things the Weathermen did upon splitting from SDS was to announce that they would hold the "Days of Rage" that fall. The event was advertised with the slogan "Bring the war home!" Hoping to cause chaos on a level able to "wake" the American public out of what the group saw as the public's complacency toward the "slaughter" of the Vietnamese people, the Weathermen wanted the event to be the largest-scale protest the decade had seen. The Weathermen believed the ‘Days of Rage’ riot was a measurement of commitment towards the New Left. They were with the Weathermen in the struggle or not. Although the October 8, 1969 rally in Chicago had failed to draw as many participants as they had anticipated (originally expecting 10,000), the estimated two to three hundred who did attend shocked police by leading a riot through the Gold Coast neighborhood, smashing windows of a bank and then those of many cars. The Weathermen wanted to bring their fight to the 'rich enemies'. They also blew up a statue dedicated to police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot {right}. That night, six people were shot and seventy were arrested.

Submersion

In 1970, following the police raid that resulted in the death of Black Panther Fred Hampton, the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United States government, using for the first time its new name, the "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO), adopting fake identities, and pursuing covert activities only. These initially included preparations for a bombing of a U.S. military non-commissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey in what Brian Flanagan said had been intended to be "the most horrific hit the United States government had ever suffered on its territory".

Greenwich Village explosion

On March 6, 1970, during preparations for the Fort Dix bombing, there was an explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house. WUO members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins died in the explosion. Cathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin escaped unharmed, Wilkerson running naked from the apartment and encountering the wife of neighbor Melvyn Gussow, a theatre and movie critic. It was an accident of history that the site of the Village explosion was the former residence of Merrill Lynch brokerage firm founder Charles Merrill and his son, the poet James Merrill. The younger Merrill subsequently recorded the event in his poem 18 West 11th Street, the title being the address of the house. An FBI report based on an interview with Melvyn Gussow on the incident later claimed that the group had possessed sufficient amounts of explosive to "level ... both sides of the street".

There was talk of infiltration by COINTELPRO that later turned out to be both imagined and real. The vast majority of other Radical Left groups that had not explicitly distanced themselves from the group at the beginning largely did so at the point of the Village explosion accident. Despite their marginalization, the Weather Underground pushed on, releasing a number of manifestos and declarations while carrying on a series of bombings, which from then on were committed free of human casualties. The bombing actions attacked the U.S. Capitol, The Pentagon, police and prison buildings, and later the rebuilt Haymarket statue, among other targets. To avoid any loss of life as a result of these bombings, a WU member would issue warnings to evacuate the building ahead of time via phone.

After the Greenwich Village incident, the Weathermen officially went underground. WUO shrank considerably, becoming even fewer than they had been when first formed. In late April 1970, members of the Weathermen met in California to discuss what happened in New York and the future of the organization. The group decided against kidnapping and assassinations. They wanted to convince the American public that the United States was truly responsible for the calamity in Vietnam. The bombings would occur with prior notice and hope to avoid causing any death or injury. On 21 May 1970, a communiqué from the Weather Underground was issued promising to attack a symbol of an American institution within two weeks. The communiqué included taunts towards the FBI, daring them to try and find the group, whose members were spread throughout the United States. Many leftist organizations showed curiosity in the communiqué, and waiting to see if the act would in fact occur. However, two weeks would pass without any occurrence. Then on 9 June 1970, their first publicly acknowledged bombing occurred at a New York police station. The FBI placed the Weather Underground organization on the ten most wanted list by the end of 1970. On 19 May 1972, Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, The Weather Underground placed a bomb in the women’s bathroom in the air force wing of the Pentagon. The damage caused flooding that devastated vital classified information on computer tapes. Leftist groups worldwide applauded the bombing, illustrated by German youth protesting American military systems in Frankfurt. The Weather Underground’s ideology changed direction in the early 1970’s. With help from ex-Progressive Labor member, Clayton Van Lydegraf, The Weather Underground sought a more Marxist-Leninist approach. The leading members of the Weather Underground collaborated ideas and published their manifesto: "Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism." By summer 1974, five thousand copies surfaced in coffee houses and bookstores across America. Leftist newspapers praised the manifesto. Abbie Hoffman publicly praised Prairie Fire and believed every American should be given a copy. The manifesto’s influence initiated the formation of the 'Prairie Fire Organizing Committee' in several American cities. Hundreds of above ground activists helped progress the new political vision of the Weather Underground.

FBI Office Break-In

In April 1971, The "Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI" broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. The group stole files with several hundred pages, ninety-eight percent of the files targeted left wing individuals and groups. By the end of April, the FBI offices were to terminate all files dealing with leftist groups. The files were a part of an FBI program called COINTELPRO. However, after COINTELPRO was dissolved in 1971 by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI continued their counterintelligence on groups like the Weather Underground. In 1973, the FBI established the ‘Special Target Information Development’ program, where agents were sent undercover to penetrate the Weather Underground. Due to the illegal tactics of FBI agents involved with the program, government attorneys requested all weapons and bomb related charges be dropped against the Weather Underground. The Weather Underground was no longer a fugitive organization and could turn themselves in with minimal charges against them.

Timothy Leary

The group also took a $25,000 payment from a psychedelics distribution organization called The Brotherhood of Eternal Love to break LSD advocate Timothy Leary out of prison, transporting him to Algeria. Leary joined Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria; his initial press release contains revolutionary rhetoric sympathetic to the Weather Underground's cause. When Leary was eventually captured by the FBI, it is alleged he offered to serve as an informant to capture the Weather Underground members to reduce his prison sentence. Others, such as Robert Anton Wilson, claim he was just feeding false information to the authorities in an attempt to reduce his sentence. Ultimately no one was charged, and Leary served a few more years in prison.

The Weather Underground members remained largely successful at avoiding police and intelligence agencies. Finally, most turned themselves in at the end of the 1970s or early 1980s.

Dissolution and aftermath

Despite the change in their status the Weather Underground remained underground. However, by 1976 the organization was disintegrating. The Weather Underground held a conference in Chicago called Hard Times. The idea was to create an umbrella organization for all radical groups. However, the event turned sour when Hispanic and Black groups accused the Weather Underground and the Prairie Fire Committee of limiting their roles in racial issues. The conference enhanced a division within the Weather Underground. The Weather Underground faced accusations of abandonment of the revolution by reversing their original ideology. East coast members favored a commitment to violence and challenged commitments of old leaders, Bernadine Dohrn, Billy Ayers and Jeff Jones. By the end of 1976, the Weather Underground would collapse. Within two years, many members turned themselves in after taking advantage of President Jimmy Carter’s amnesty for draft dodgers. One of the original leaders Mark Rudd, turned himself in to authorities on Jan. 20, 1978. Rudd was fined $4,000 and received two years probation. Bernadine Dohrn and Billy Ayers turned themselves in on Dec. 3, 1980, in New York, with substantial media coverage. Charges were dropped for Ayers and Dohrn received three years probation and a $15,000 fine. Certain members remained underground and joined other radical groups. David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin joined the ‘Black Liberation Army’. On Oct. 20, 1981, in Nyack New York, the group attempted to rob a Brinks armored truck containing more than $1 million. The robbery turned violent, resulting in the murder of two police officers. David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin were found guilty and sentenced to lengthly terms in prison, considered the “last gasps” of the Weather Underground.

After the group began dissolving in 1977, many members moved on to other radical groups and were subsequently arrested and held for long periods. Very few served prison sentences for their time in the Weather Underground; the infiltration tactics used against them by COINTELPRO made much of the evidence gathered against them deemed illegally obtained and inadmissible in court.

Widely-known members of the Weather Underground include Kathy Boudin, Mark Rudd, Terry Robbins, Ted Gold, Naomi Jaffe, Cathy Wilkerson, Jeff Jones, David Gilbert, Susan Stern, Bob Tomashevsky, Sam Karp, Russell Neufeld, Joe Kelly, Laura Whitehorn and the still-married couple Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. Most former Weathermen have successfully re-integrated into mainstream society, without necessarily repudiating their original intent. For example, Bill Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said in a September 11, 2001 New York Times profile that he does not "regret setting bombs. I believe we didn't do enough." Dohrn and Boudin also still hold to their original beliefs. Members like Brian Flanagan have expressed regret. Still others, such as Mark Rudd, believe the group's original motivation, particularly its position regarding supporting communism, was justified, but its resultant actions were clearly wrong.

The WU insisted that Emile de Antonio shoot the documentary Underground in 1976. However, a much more extensive, widespread, and critically-acclaimed documentary emerged in 2002 with the Oscar-nominated The Weather Underground by filmmakers Bill Siegel and Sam Green. A little seen film called Ice had several WU members in a somewhat fictionalized revolutionary setting.

A non-violent faction of the Weather Underground continues today. The Prairie Fire Organizing Committee is committed to the opposition of classism and imperialism, and demands the right to liberation and justice worldwide.

Chronology of events

  • June 1969 – The "Action Faction" of the SDS releases a detailed statement of their political ideology in the official SDS newspaper New Left Notes. This essay concludes with the quotation "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows," which gives rise to its adherents being called "Weathermen." The quote came from the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues".
  • 18-22 June, 1969 – The SDS National Convention, held in Chicago, Illinois, sees the organization collapse as a student group and the Weathermen seizing control of the SDS National Office. Henceforth any activity run from the SDS National Office is Weatherman controlled.
  • 4 September 1969 – Weather women members from various parts of the country converge on South Hills High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they run through the school shouting anti-war slogans and distributing literature promoting the “National Action.” The term "Pittsburgh 26" refers to the 26 women arrested in connection with this incident.
  • 24 September 1969 – A group of Weatherman members become involved in a confrontation with Chicago Police when they refuse to clear a street during a demonstration supporting the "National Action," and protesting the commencement of an Anti-riot Act trial against eight individuals charged with initiating the riots in connection with the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
  • 7 October 1969 – The Haymarket Police Statue is bombed in Chicago, Illinois apparently as a "kickoff" for the "Days of Rage" riots in the city October 8-11, 1969. No suspects are developed in this matter. The Weathermen later claim credit for the bombing in their book, "Prairie Fire."
  • 8 October-11, 1969 – The "Days of Rage" riots occur in Chicago in which 287 Weatherman members from throughout the country were arrested and a large amount of property damage was done. Some of the current underground WUO members became fugitives when they failed to appear for trial in connection with their arrests during these four days.
  • November-December, 1969 – The first contingent of the Venceremos Brigade (VB) departs for Cuba to harvest sugar cane. A small number of Weatherman members participate in this trip.
  • 27 December-31, 1969 – The Weathermen hold a "War Council" meeting in Flint, Michigan, where they finalize their plans to submerge into an underground status from which they plan to commit strategic acts of sabotage against the government. Thereafter they are called the "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO).
  • February, 1970 – The WUO closes the SDS National Office in Chicago, concluding the major campus-based organization of the 1960s. The first contingent of the VB returns from Cuba and the second contingent departs. By mid-February the bulk of the leading WUO members submerge into an underground status.
  • 16 February 1970 – A bomb is detonated at the Golden Gate Park branch of the San Francisco Police Department, killing one officer and injuring a number of other policemen. No organization claims credit for either bombing.
  • March, 1970 – Several underground WUO members become federal fugitives when they unlawfully flee to avoid prosecution; warrants are issued in connection with their failure to appear for trial in Chicago.
  • 6 March 1970 – 34 sticks of dynamite are discovered in the 13th Police District of the Detroit, Michigan police bombing. During February and early March, 1970, members of the WUO, led by Bill Ayers, are reported to be in Detroit, during that period, for the purpose of bombing a police facility.
  • 6 March 1970 – Another group blows themselves up when their "bomb factory" located in New York's Greenwich Village accidentally explodes. WUO members Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins die in this accident. The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The bomb was packed with nails to inflict maximum casualties upon detonation.
  • 30 March 1970 – Chicago Police discover a WUO "bomb factory" on Chicago’s north side. A subsequent discovery of a WUO "weapons cache" in a south side Chicago apartment several days later ends WUO activity in the city.
  • 2 April 1970 – A federal grand jury in Chicago returns a number of indictments charging WUO members with violation of federal anti-riot laws. Also, a number of additional federal warrants charging "unlawful flight to avoid prosecution" are returned in Chicago based on the failure of WUO members to appear for trial in local cases. (The Anti-riot Law charges were later dropped in January, 1974.)
  • 6 June 1970 – The WUO sends a letter claiming credit for bombing of the San Francisco Hall of Justice; however, no explosion actually took place. Months later, workmen in this building located an unexploded device which had apparently been dormant for some time.
  • 9 June 1970 - The New York City Police headquarters is bombed by Jane Alpert and others in response to what Weathermen call "police repression."
  • 23 July 1970 – A federal grand jury in Detroit, Michigan, returns indictments against a number of underground WUO members and former WUO members charging violations of various explosives and firearms laws. (These indictments were later dropped in October, 1973.)
  • 1 March, 1971 - The US Capitol is bombed to protest the invasion of Laos. Nixon denounces the bombing as a "shocking act of violence that will outrage all Americans."
  • 18 May, 1973 - The bombing of the 103rd Police Precinct in New York in response to the killing of 10-year-old black youth Clifford Glover by police.
  • 19 September 1973 – A WUO member is arrested by the FBI in New York. Released on bond, this member again submerges into the underground.
  • 28 September 1973 - The ITT headquarters in New York and Rome, Italy are bombed in response to ITT's alleged role in the Chilean coup earlier that month.
  • July, 1974 – The WUO releases its book Prairie Fire in which they indicate the need for a unified Communist Party. They encourage the creation of study groups to discuss their ideology, but continue to stress the need for violent acts. The book also admits WUO responsibility of several actions from previous years. The Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC) arises from the teachings in this book and is organized by many former WUO members.
  • 29 January, 1975 - Bombing of the State Department in response to escalation in Vietnam. (AP. "State Department Rattled by Blast," The Daily Times-News, January 29 1975, p.1)
  • March, 1975 – The WUO releases its first edition of a new magazine entitled Osawatomie.
  • 16 June 1975 - Weathermen bomb a Banco de Ponce (a Puerto Rican bank) in New York in solidarity with striking Puerto Rican cement workers.
  • 11 July-13, 1975 – The PFOC holds its first national convention during which time they go through the formality of creating a new organization.
  • September, 1975 – Bombing of the Kennecott Corporation in retribution for Kennecott's alleged involvement in the Chilean coup two years prior.

The Brinks robbery of 1981 was an armed robbery in which Kathy Boudin and several members of the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army stole over $1 million from a Brinks armored car at the Nanuet Mall, near Nyack, New York on October 20, 1981. The robbers were stopped by police later that day and engaged them in a shootout.


Members

Weatherman organization in pop culture

  • Great Neck, by Jay Cantor is a fictional account of a group of Long Island teenagers coming of age during the radical sixties. One of them, Beth Jacobs, joins first the SDS and later the Weatherman in an attempt to make justice for the Holocaust.
  • The Darling, by Russell Banks (2004) is a novel telling the life story of Hannah Musgrave—alias Dawn Carrington—a member of the Weather Underground, escaping from the U.S. to Liberia.
  • Marge Piercy's novel Vida (1980) is about a radical woman affiliated with a violent antiwar group, who goes into hiding. In physical description and certain biographical details, Vida closely resembles Bernadine Dohrn.
  • Diana (Parts 1 and 2) sung by Grace Slick and Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane on their 'solo disc' Sunfighter, released Jan 1971 on the band's own Grunt label, contains the sympathetic response of many contemporary youth at the death of "Weatherwoman Diana" Oughton in the Greenwich Village Explosion.
  • Take the Power Back performed by Rage Against the Machine and written by Zach de la Rocha contains the lyrics "gotta get it together then / like the motherfuckin' Weathermen."
  • American Pastoral by Philip Roth. The daughter of the central character is perhaps a member of the organisation, and the novel incorporates a quote from John Jacobs at the "war council" in Flint. The group is also mentioned in The Dying Animal.
  • Geek Mafia by author Rick Dakan includes a character that was once a member of the organization.
  • Fugitive Days by Bill Ayers. A memoir of Weatherman Bill Ayers published in 2001.
  • 3rd Degree by James Patterson. They are believed to be the culprits in the thriller.
  • Stormwatch, a comic published by Wildstorm, features 'The Weatherman' who lead the superpowered activist group who share the name of the comic.
  • "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Show Which Way the Wind Blows," the document that describes their interpretation of the Imperialism Doctrine gets its name from the Bob Dylan song Subterranean Homesick Blues.
  • "High Priestess" by David Skibbins. Protagonist Warren Ritter was a member of the organization.
  • Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl refers to a revolutionary activist group called The Nightwatchmen which provides the background for a major subplot of the novel. This group appears to be modeled on the Weathermen as well as various other activist groups.


See also

Further reading

  • SDS: The Last Hurrah (DOCUMENT 4 of 5) chronicles the last tumultuous days of the original Students for a Democratic Society and the rise of the Revolutionary Youth Movement and the Worker Student Alliance as the two principal SDS factions. Document 5 of 5 is the program of the section of the RYM that would later adopt the name "Weatherman".
  • Alan Adelson's, "SDS" remains the best history of the organization.
  • Harold Jacobs, editor (1970). Weatherman. Ramparts Press.
  • Osawatomie. Water Buffalo Print Collective. Journal of the Weather Underground Organization. Seattle. 1975. Osawatomie Issue #2 available on line. Retrieved July 27, 2005.
  • Dan Berger (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. Oakland: AK Press.
  • Jeremy Varon (2004). Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24119-3
  • Ron Jacobs (1997). The way the wind blew: a history of the Weather Underground. London & New York: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-167-8
  • Bill Ayers (2001). Fugitive Days. Boston: Beacon Press.
  • Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers. and Jeff Jones, editors (2006). Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiqués of the Weather Underground, 1970-1974. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-726-1
  • Cathy Wilkerson (2007). "Flying Close to the Sun," New York: Seven Story Press.
  • Unger, Irwin. "The Movement A History of the American New Left, 1959-1972" New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1974.

References

  1. The Weather Underground, directed by Bill Siegel and Sam Green, New Video Group, 2003, DVD.
  2. The Weather Underground, directed by Bill Siegel and Sam Green, New Video Group, 2003, DVD.
  3. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 55.
  5. The Weather Underground, produced by Carrie Lozano, directed by Bill Siegel and Sam Green, New Video Group, 2003, DVD.
  6. Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, (New York: Random House, 1973), 611.
  7. Harold Jacobs ed., Weatherman, (Ramparts Press, 1970), 508-511.
  8. Harold Jacobs ed., Weatherman, (Ramparts Press, 1970), 374.
  9. Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, (New York: Random House, 1973), 648.
  10. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 112-113.
  11. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 142.
  12. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 146.
  13. Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 292
  14. Marty Jezer, Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 258-259.
  15. Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 292
  16. David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, And FBI Counterintellegence, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 33.
  17. David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, And FBI Counterintellegence, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 35.
  18. Paul Wolf, COINTELPRO, www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm
  19. Nelson Blackstock, Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, (New York: Anchor Foundation, 1990), 185.
  20. Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 297.
  21. Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 297.
  22. Jeremy Varon, Bringing The War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction And Revolutionary Violence In The Sixties And Seventies, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 297-298.
  23. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 181.
  24. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 180.
  25. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 184.
  26. Ron Jacobs, The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground, (New York: Verso, 1997), 185.
  27. Richard G. Braungart and Margret M. Braungart, “From Protest to Terrorism: The Case of the SDS and The Weathermen.”, International Movement And Research: Social Movements and Violence: Participation in Underground Organizations, Volume 4, (Greenwich: Jai Press, 1992.), 67.
  28. Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, www.prairiefire.org.
  29. http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000209.txt]
  30. Great Neck
  31. The Last Rock Star Book or: Liz Phair, a Rant
  32. Diana by Grace Slick & Paul Kantner
  33. Ayers, William. 2001. Fugitive Days: A Memoir. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN.

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