Confessions Of An American Dissident: ’60s Leftist Leader Bill Ayers

When Donald Trump throws around the term “leftist radicals” he’s talking about Democrats. But a few years ago a genuine leftist radical started a group aimed at overthrowing the government.

In this 2013 interview, Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers talks about his book Public Enemy.
Get your copy of Public Enemy by Bill AyersAs an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.

You may also enjoy my interviews with Cathy Wilkerson and Elaine Brown

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#1960s # 1970s # Weather Underground #radical

When it comes to prisons, I'm anabolitionist, when it comes to
economics, I'm a socialist. And when it comes to government,
I'm an anarchist. So you know, I'm many things and
more than that. 60s leftist radical Bill Ayers today and now
I've heard everything. I'm Bill Thompson.

(00:25):
Bill Ayers is a radical. That five word sentence is about
all that many people know about Bill Ayers.
When he was 24, he Co founded the group the Weather
Underground, a radical group dedicated to overthrowing the US
government. Weather Underground members set
off bombs at public buildings inWashington and elsewhere.

(00:47):
The FBI labeled them domestic terrorists and Bill Ayers
himself became a fugitive for the better part of 10 years
before the charges against him were dropped.
When he re emerged, he became a community organizer and
ultimately a professor at the University of Illinois in
Chicago. Now it was his casual connection

(01:08):
with another Chicagoan who propelled Bill Ayers back into
the public spotlight. In 2008, The New York Times
reported a tenuous and fleeting connection between Bill Ayers
and Barack Obama early in Obama's political career.
And when that story came out, Republican vice presidential
nominee Sarah Palin went on the attack.

(01:31):
Opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to
pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.
Obama denounced Ayers and his radical past, and the episode
was largely forgotten. Now, back in 2001, Bill Ayers
had written a book about his fugitive days.
In fact, he called his book Fugitive Days.

(01:52):
In 2013, he wrote another book, this one called Public Enemy,
and I had the chance to meet with him for a few minutes when
his book tour brought him to Washington, DC one day in
November of 2 or 2013. Just a moment, our conversation.
As the saying goes, if you haven't heard it, it's new to
you. Here's an interview from the 30

(02:14):
year archive of radio personality Bill Thompson.
Enjoy SO. Here now from 2013.
Bill Ayers. I think what people are right
about is that I am a radical. I am AI can still consider
myself a revolutionary. So in in changing times and

(02:36):
shifting circumstances and over a long life, but I'm still
trying to fight for more democracy, more participation,
more peace, more transparency. And it's the the passions that
ignited inside me and that led to commitments when I was 19 are
the same commitments I have today.
So people aren't wrong to say, look, he's A and he's not sorry

(02:58):
he was a radical and I'm not. The other thing that I think has
happened is that the Weathermen,the Weather Underground, that
whole moment is still very alivein this country because we've
never resolved the Vietnam War. We've never had a process of
truth and reconciliation, of truth telling.
And I don't mean by that achieving the final decision

(03:20):
about Vietnam. What I mean is we've never gone
through the process of trying toface one another and say what we
understand to have happened. And that allows us to be living
in a delusional life. How could John McCain run for
president as a war hero? There were no war heroes in that
war. That was a an invasion, an
occupation, a genocide of war. The heroes were people like my

(03:43):
brother who deserted and LED that movement to Canada.
That to me was heroism at a verydifficult, difficult moment.
So I think part of why weather is alive, part of why I continue
to kind of be thrown up and it'snot one sided.
I mean, you may see one side of it.
I get thrown into this kind of conversation because we have not
faced the Vietnam War in an honest way.

(04:04):
We haven't faced the black freedom movement in an honest
way. When we do, I'm confident that
while I didn't do everything right, I did a lot wrong.
I'm absolutely confident that I would be happy to stand on a
stage with anybody else over 55 and say what I did, what I'm
sorry about, what I think I would do differently and so on.
It's a lot easier for politicians and the news people

(04:25):
who have to write about them to just shorthand you as, oh, he's
that unrepentant terrorist guy. Yeah, I think that's part of it.
But I think it's also interesting that my students
shorthand me in a different way.They they would say the old
professor, you know, I mean, I mean, we do this to one another.
And, and frankly, as an educator, I've spent most of my
adult life resisting the kind oflabeling that is a toxic habit

(04:48):
in most of our schools. And I resist the labels of
BDLDEMH when it's applied to kids, but I also resist the
labels that are applied to me and to everybody else.
So when somebody says you're a radical, I want to say, yeah,
I'm a radical in the sense that I want to go to the root of
things. But when it comes to the First
Amendment, I'm a fundamentalist when it comes to prisons.
I'm an abolitionist, when it comes to economics, I'm a

(05:10):
socialist and when it comes to government I'm I'm an anarchist.
So, you know, I'm many things and more than that.
So I I don't want to sum myself up and I don't want to fall into
the glib easy summing up of other people either.
So much bad that you've written an entire book about it, in
fact. This, coupled with fugitive
days, I would guess, kind of presents a pretty full picture,

(05:32):
don't you think, of of those years.
Well, to me it does. But remember, it's a memoir.
And some people pick up my work because they know a fraction of
of my history and they think that I must have written a
manifesto. I didn't write a manifesto.
And it's it shouldn't be read asa manifesto.
I didn't write a history. It's not the truth of what
happened or the facts of what happened.
It's a memory book. It's a book based on what you

(05:55):
know, taking this character, Bill Ayers, setting him down in
a landscape and without benefit of hindsight, seeing how he
makes decisions. But I know one of the funny
tricky things about memoir, Of course, it's a it's a naturally
narcissistic form. But one of the funniest things
about writing memoir is that I've never read aloud from this
book or the earlier book where Ihaven't had somebody take issue

(06:17):
with something or another. And the, the best example is my
younger brother Rick, who was with me for for several years
underground, for a decade underground.
And when Rick read the draft of Fugitive days, he called me and
he said, man, you've got so muchwrong in there.
And I mean, we're very close. And I thought, Oh my God, what I
said, what's wrong? For example, he said, well, the
first place you portray mom as just a wonderful person.

(06:40):
Mom was a bitch. And I'm like, holy cow, if I got
that wrong. But you see, that's an example
of it's an interpretive work. I mean, to me, Mom was a
wonderful person. To him, she was some kind of a
witch. But I didn't see her that way.
My. Child psychiatrist.
Psychiatrist will tell you that children in the same family all
have different parents. And different siblings.

(07:01):
I mean, the whole story of family life is Rashomon, but
that's also the story of our lives in general.
So the idea that I could get it right.
I'll give you an example from Public Enemy.
I describe one of my officematesbeing a Democratic Party
activist and coming into my office and always squabbling
about the problems in the Democratic Party, and I'm always

(07:21):
amused by it. And I say, you know, I'm glad
I'm not a Democrat. But.
But I say in the book that my friend ESPY and her daughter
were hardcore for Hillary, whileher husband and son-in-law were
equally strong for Obama. I read the book aloud a few
weeks ago in LA and it turned out Espy's daughter was in the
audience. She came up to me and said,
Bill, that's wrong. I wasn't for Hillary.

(07:44):
I was for Obama as well. So I took the book and crossed
out that passage and gave it to her.
She has the only accurate book on that question all.
Right. But again, coming back what she
said a moment ago, it is a memoir.
I mean, these are your perceptions filtered through
your eyes, I mean, and nobody else's.
But that's why it's so importantI've, I've discovered over the
years to read as broadly as you can about any period of time,

(08:05):
because the only way you can be able to get to what anybody can
call the truth is by triangulating from everybody's
point of view. Without a doubt.
I mean, I think I think you wantto get, I think memoir is a
marvelous form. It's it's filled with with
potential dangers, but I think it's a marvelous form to see how
one person experienced a set of circumstances not of their
choosing. And you're right, I would read

(08:25):
lots of memoir, but let's push it further than that.
I would read a lot of fiction. I think it's great to read
history, but my insights about, for example, the Holocaust and I
was pretty serious student of the Holocaust, but my insights
about the Holocaust were amplified when I met Red Art
Spiegelman. I didn't know there was more to
know. Spiegelman blew my mind with his
graphic memoir Mouse. I mean suddenly I saw it

(08:48):
differently. Or recently I read Russell Banks
account of John Brown, his book,his marvelous novel called Cloud
Splitter. And I had a different perception
about abolitionism that I've ever had.
So yes, we should read a range of sources and we should also
read as skeptics, not as credulous believers.
And that's true whether you're reading a history or a book on

(09:09):
science or a fiction or a memoir.
You read with a certain amount of skepticism because it's not
the truth, it's a it's an utterance in a conversation.
And I'd much rather see it that way.
You had some difficulty with with Fugitive days, with again,
the timing was probably not ideal with the bookstores
deciding whether they wanted to cancel your appearance or not,
and it was some some difficult. Have you had any difficulty at

(09:31):
all with Public Enemy? Well, let me correct one thing.
The interesting thing about Fugitive Days is that I was
cancelled at 4 universities and two humanities festivals.
I was not cancelled at a single independent bookstore.
And I think it's an important distinction because from my
point of view, independent bookstores are one of the heroic

(09:52):
bastions fighting to create the public space, where the public
space is being eroded. So I had no trouble in
independent bookstores. In fact, after 911, the
fascinating thing was I had hugecrowds in independent
bookstores, bigger than the stores could handle.
Not because people were coming out to support me or my book,
but they were coming in the wakeof 911 to find a public space to

(10:16):
discuss public politics. I think that's marvelous.
But in terms of this book, it's been a very different launch, of
course, because we are now way, way, way beyond 911.
And after 911, there was a moment of great openness.
Even as the noisy, loud, powerful voices were telling us
to shut up, there was an openness to the world, an

(10:37):
openness to understanding where we are in the world.
But since then, we've had a continuous state of war.
We've had a financial crisis. We've had disillusionment with
government and corporations. We've had Edward Snowden,
another American dissident and an American hero.
We've had Glenn Greenwald and Chelsea Manning and on and on.

(10:57):
I could go on, but we are now 15years beyond.
And so people are looking at theworld again with a kind of
openness and skepticism that I think is healthy.
After this short break, Bill Ayers talked about whether you
could even hide out for 10 yearsthese days.
You know, AI is not just for 22 year old coders.

(11:20):
A lot of us older adults are drawing on our life experience
to find unique and creative waysto use AI at home or at work.
Got an AI success story you'd like to share?
Tap the link below to visit our YouTube channel, AI After 40 and
Let's keep learning together. Now back to my 2013 conversation

(11:45):
with Bill Ayers is. There any modern tool of
technology you wish you'd had 40some years ago?
Well, I mean, I love all the modern tools of technology.
The problem I have with them is that I'm clearly a digital
immigrant. I speak with a thick accent and
and my children are all digital natives.
So you know, the the weird thing, we were talking a little

(12:05):
earlier, but every time I say tomy every time I can't ask a
single question to one of my three sons that they don't say
you can Google that. So I can ask them the name of a
baseball player or the year thatthe the Bears won the Super Bowl
or, or the name of an actor in amovie.
And they always say you can Google that.
Why don't you just tell me God damn it, or you Google it.

(12:25):
But anyway, I love that phrase. You can Google that.
And I use some of the language without actually knowing what it
means. So somebody took my picture last
night at a bookstore and I said tagged me on Facebook.
I don't know what the fuck that means, but I it sounded.
It sounded knowledgeable, I think.
Who knows? I.
Couldn't help wondering. I mean, with security cameras

(12:47):
everywhere, with everybody's gota camera on their cell phone
post everything to the Internet,could you hide out?
For 10 years these days. You know, I think you could,
although I'll tell you a couple of funny stories.
You know, one of the things I think is interesting is when you
and I were kids and you're much younger than I am.
But when you were a kid as well,1984 was a theory and a
possibility. 1984 is a reality. We are all under surveillance

(13:10):
all the time and we know it. And the interesting thing is the
thing I love about Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and
and the the rest of Anonymous and all these folks is that they
don't represent the end of that surveillance, but what they
represent is US watching them watch us.
I think that's worth something. I don't have any idea.

(13:32):
I've never been a tactician and I have no idea how one would do
anything like what we did. But I'm absolutely confident
that people will figure out whatneeds to be done in the struggle
for justice. The struggle for peace Last the
other night at a bookstore, I was doing a lot of question to
answer the very last question came from an anarchist dressed

(13:53):
in black, tattooed and pierced. And he said some of us feel that
we might be underground one of these days.
You have any advice for how we should prepare?
And I said hydrate and take vitamin CI know nothing beyond
that. You know, I mean, how does one
prepare for something like that?But what I am confident about is
that the injustices, the the endless war, the the down

(14:17):
pressing of people's lives, all of this leads to a necessary
reaction. And I'll tell you, there's no
way to predict. I'm neither an optimist or a
pessimist because I don't know how things are going to go.
But I see rumblings all the timeof people pushing back against
the destruction of the planet. And it could spring off in
China, it could spring off in India or El Salvador or Oakland,

(14:39):
I don't know. But I'm pretty confident that
people are not going to allow the planet to be destroyed,
destroyed in the interest of, you know, disaster capitalism
without a pushback. And I think when that pushback
comes, let's all be together. We'll figure out tactically what
to do with each other. So why?
Why aren't you more pessimistic?I mean, it seems, it seems after
all these decades, you know, that the struggle just goes on

(15:01):
and on and on. Well, I think that's the nature
of life. The struggle does go on and on
and on. And I don't, I, I don't expect
anyone should, should think thatwe'll reach a point where we can
all sit in our armchairs and watch the world go by.
I'm not a pessimist because I can't predict what's going to
happen. I am.
Or another way to say it is I'm a pessimist of the head and an

(15:22):
optimist of the heart. But the way I prefer to think
about it is that I'm a hopeful person.
That is, since I don't know what's going to happen.
Optimists are sure they know. Pessimists are sure they know,
says I don't know. I choose to get up every morning
and be hopeful that today we canrally and pull ourselves
together and make good things happen.

(15:42):
But there's no way to know. And it's very easy to look
quickly at history and, and, andsee that this makes sense as a
as an approach to life for two in two ways. 1 is the day before
Occupy happened. You didn't predict it and I
didn't predict it and, and had somebody come to me and said
here's what we're planning, a little tent city around Wall
Street. I just said you're out of your
mind. What are you, what are you

(16:03):
talking about? But God damn, they did it.
It changed the frame of the discussion.
You know, people could say it was a failure.
It wasn't a failure. It was a tent city.
It wasn't intending to take power.
But it was a very exciting moment of changing the frame of
the discussion and unleashing a lot of energy where every
grievance could come into the public square.
The day before Rosa Parks sat down.

(16:25):
We couldn't have predicted it. In fact, she tried to get
arrested two times before that. But what made it come together
and happen? I don't know.
But I, I do know that hopefulness is the only way to
to live a life with your chin up.
And what I mean by that is I have a T-shirt that says
depressed question mark. And on the back it says maybe
it's political. And I do believe that cynicism,

(16:47):
passivity, pessimism, the great antidote to that is to stand up
and do something. When you do something, you feel
the power or of other people, you feel the possibility that we
could be different than we are. And I have moments all the time
that I savor where people stood up and did something and changed
the face of of the world. I think we can do it.

(17:08):
I don't know that we will, but Ihope we will.
I intend to be there a few more years.
I'll be in a Walker. But I told these young
anarchists the other night, you know, save a space for me on the
barricade. I'll bring my Walker right up
and and be right there. Unless you know something I
don't know. You look 25 years younger than
me. I.
Love it brother. Thank you so much.
But that's why, you know, you and I both have faces made for

(17:30):
radio. I, you know, but I don't look I
don't look 25 years younger. I'm almost 70, but I, I, I think
I do get a lot of energy from, I've never really lived in a, in
an age ghetto. I I really think that you get
energy when you live across generations and being a teacher
my whole life, I've always had the great benefit of being with

(17:50):
young people and I get a draw a lot of energy from that.
But always remember, no more corn, no.
More corn, you know, should I reference that?
OK, you know, the, the, the truth, You know, one time I was
doing AQ and a a question and answer in Greenwich Village
around the film The Weather Underground.
And one of the questions that was asked by a young woman was

(18:11):
what was it like for your children growing up with you as
weird parents? And my son Cheza, who is now 33,
was with me and he stood up and answered the question.
He started by saying, what was it like for you to be raised by
your weird parents? And his point was nobody chooses
their parents. We are all thrust into the
world. You don't choose your moment in
the sun, your race, your gender.You don't choose anything.

(18:34):
Well, you can choose your gendernow, but.
But I'm just saying you're thrust.
Yeah, you're thrust into the world.
You and Chase went on to say nobody chose, you know, you
didn't choose your weird religion or the visits to Uncle
Bob or whatever you did. His point was what kids want is
to be loved and cared for and recognized for who they are.

(18:54):
They got all that plus, but theydid live in a political
household. And there's a lot of examples of
it, but the one you're referringto is is I was swimming with my
oldest son, Zaid. He was two years old, and he'd
been at Aqua Tots, and we came out of the YMCA near Times
Square, New York, just as a hugedemonstration was rushing past.

(19:14):
And I'm kind of genetically programmed to join
demonstrations. So I put Zaid on my shoulders
and we raced along with the demonstrators, and it was a
group of feminists, and they were chanting no more porn, no
more porn. As we marched towards Times
Square, he got hungry, so we stopped at a pizza parlor, and
as we settled into the booth, heturned to me and said that was

(19:35):
really fun. Why don't we want more corn?
So Paul, it's a wonderful misinterpretation.
On one level he got the gist of it anyway.
He got the gist that people havea right to stand up and chant
from the age he was. From the time he was born, we
were at peace rallies and anti nuclear rallies in Central Park.
So our kids grew up with that. Did we force them to do any of

(19:57):
that? Not really.
But was that part of the culturethey inherited?
Yes. And all three of them are just
lovely, lovely, lovely. Kids in their mid 30s now, I
wouldn't say any of them are political in the way we were
political. One is an artist, 1 is a
teacher, 1 is a public defender.But they're doing good work and
they're good people. And what else can you ask?

(20:18):
Bill Ayers will be 81 next month.
He is now retired. You can get your copy of Public
Enemy by Bill Ayers by tapping the link in our show notes by
clicking the link in the description below.
If you're watching this on YouTube or by going to our
website heardeverything.com, we may earn an Amazon Commission if
you make a purchase. Heard everything.com is where

(20:39):
you can also find my 2007 conversation with a member of
the Weather Underground who was involved in that fatal bombing
in New York City, Kathy Wilkerson there.
Was a bombing a day going on? It was very, very common.
The rage represented everybody but that particular tactic.
We couldn't go down that road with half baked thoughts and

(21:00):
romantic illusions. And my 1993 conversation with
the former chairwoman of the Black Panthers, Elaine.
Brown, the person who shaped my political consciousness, was a
white man, and here I ended up aBlack Panther.
And they may see him a contradiction in terms.
But when you know the rest of mylife, you do know that it all

(21:20):
makes sense. And of course, we post new
episodes of Now I've Heard Everything every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday, and you can find us wherever you find
podcasts. And thank you so much for
listening. Next time on NOW I've Heard
Everything, we'll talk to an Olympic skater turned children's
book author. My 2012 conversation with Kristi
Yamaguchi. I mean, it definitely was a
lifetime ago. I feel like it's been 10 years,

(21:42):
maybe 10 years ago, 20 years. It's like I can't be that old
yet, really. I was just a toddler at the
Olympics. That's next time on NOW.
I've heard everything. I'm Joel Thompson.