Mother Country Radicals

In 1970, a former law student named Bernardine Dohrn declared war on the United States government. Decades later, her son Zayd Ayers Dohrn tells the story of how his mother was radicalized, and became the most wanted woman in America.

For more of the story, check out:

• Students for a Democratic Society, The Port Huron Statement (1962)
• Revolutionary Youth Movement, "The Weatherman Paper" (1969)

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Jamal Joseph is radicalized at 15, and joins the New York Black Panthers. And a deadly attack by Chicago Police puts both Panthers and Weathermen on a path towards violent revolution.

For more of the story, check out:

• Jamal Joseph, Panther Baby: A Life of Rebellion and Reinvention (2012)

Stanley Nelson, The Black Panther Party: Vanguard of the Revolution (2016)

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Zayd’s father Bill Ayers joins the Weathermen, and he and his friends teach themselves to be revolutionaries, gearing up to build bombs and brawl with police on the streets of Chicago.

For more of the story, check out:

• Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Carlos Marighella, The Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla (1969)

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The Weathermen decide to bring the horrors of the Vietnam War back to America’s doorstep, planning an action that will change the future of the organization, and Zayd’s family, forever.

For more of the story, check out:

• Bill Ayers, Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist (2001)

Cathy Wilkerson, Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman (2007)

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The end of the Vietnam War means the end of the Weather Underground. Zayd’s parents and their radical comrades, still on the run from the FBI, plan a different kind of future.

For more of the story, check out:

• Emile de Antonio, Underground (1976)

Mona Rocha, The Weatherwomen: Militant Feminists of the Weather Underground (2020)

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