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Bill Ayers

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File:BillAyersMugshot.jpg
Bill Ayers's mugshot after his 1968 arrest.

William C. ("Bill") Ayers (born 1944) is a former member of the Weather Underground who is now a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Biography

Ayers was a 1960s-era political activist and Weather Underground member. He grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago in a highly privileged family (his father, Thomas Ayers, was Chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison) and attended Lake Forest Academy. According to Ayers' memoir Fugitive Days, he became radicalized at the University of Michigan. During his years there, he became involved in the New Left and the SDS.

Ayers went underground with several comrades including Brandy Diekman and Arion, after their co-conspirators' bomb accidentally exploded on March 6, 1970, destroying a Greenwich Village townhouse and killing three members of the Weather Underground (Ted Gold, Terry Robbins, and Diana Oughton, who was Ayers' girlfriend at the time). He and his colleagues invented identities and traveled continuously. They avoided the police and FBI while bombing high-profile government buildings—including the United States Capitol (two bombs on March 1, 1970), The Pentagon (May 19, 1972), and the Harry S Truman Building which houses the United States Department of State (on January 29, 1975)—along with several banks, police department headquarters and precincts, state and federal courthouses, and state prison administrative offices.[1][2] Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn raised two children, Zayd and Malik, underground before turning themselves in in 1981, when most charges were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct during the long search for the fugitives.[3] They also adopted a son, Chesa Boudin, who is the biological son of former Weathermen David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin.

Ayers published his memoirs in 2001 with the book Fugitive Days. His interview with the New York Times to promote his book was published on September 11, 2001, and includes his reaction to Emile De Antonio's 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen: "He was 'embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way,' he writes. 'The rigidity and the narcissism.'" In this interview, he also was quoted as saying, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."[3] The book has been criticized for numerous important factual inaccuracies, among other things.[4]

Ayers has also edited and written nearly a dozen books on education theory, policy and practice. In the fall of 2006, Ayers was asked not to attend a progressive educators' conference on the basis that the organizers did not want to risk an association of their movement with his violent past.[5]


Ayers serves presently on the board of the Woods Fund, a leftist foundation. Notable members have included Barack Obama who worked there from 1999 to 2002.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kushner, Harvey W. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, 2002. ISBN 0761924086
  2. ^ "Byte Out of History: 1975 Terrorism Flashback: State Department Bombing." Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. Department of Justice. January 29, 2004.
  3. ^ a b Smith, Dinitia. "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen." New York Times. September 11, 2001.
  4. ^ Lemisch, Jesse. "Weather Underground Rises from the Ashes: They're Baack!" New Politics. Summer 2006.
  5. ^ Ben Smith (February 22, 2008.). "Obama Once Visited '60s Radicals". Politico. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080401/NATION01/603988821
  • The Revolution #63, Oct. 2006
  • Ayers, William. 2001. Fugitive Days: A Memoir. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-7124-2.
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