Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson

Last updated
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson
NLN Cathy Wilkerson (cropped).jpg
Wilkerson in 2007
Born (1945-01-14) January 14, 1945 (age 79)
CitizenshipUSA
Education Swarthmore College (1966)
Occupation teacher
Known for1970s Weather Underground radical, bomb maker, fugitive
Children1
Parent(s)James Platt Wilkerson, Audrey Olena

Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson (born January 14, 1945), known as Cathy Wilkerson, is an American far-left radical who was a member of the 1970s radical group called the Weather Underground Organization (WUO). [1] She came to the attention of the police when she was leaving the townhouse belonging to her father after it was destroyed by an explosion on March 6, 1970. [2] Members of WUO had been constructing a nail bomb in the basement of the building, intending to use it in an attack on a non-commissioned officers dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey that night. [3] Wilkerson, already free on bail for her involvement in the Chicago "Days of Rage" riots, avoided capture for 10 years. [4] [5] She surrendered in 1980 and pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of dynamite. She was sentenced to up to three years in prison and served 11 months. [2] [5]

Contents

Early years

Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson was born on January 14, 1945. [4] Her father, James Platt Wilkerson, was an advertising executive and part-owner of a radio station in Omaha, Nebraska [6] from the Midwest. [2] [7] Her mother, Audrey Olena Wilkerson, graduated from Smith College and later took a job as a teacher in Manhattan. [8] Cathy Wilkerson grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In Stamford, Connecticut she attended Martha Hoyt School through 3rd grade, Emma Willard Middle School (5th grade), and New Canaan Country School (6th through 9th grade). In Andover, Massachusetts, she attended Abbot Academy, an all-girls school. [9] She graduated from Abbot Academy in June 1962.[ citation needed ]

Early activist work

After graduating from high school, Wilkerson was accepted into Swarthmore College. [4] During the first year of college she became interested in politics. In April, 1962 Wilkerson became involved with a civil rights group that organized anti-segregation work in Cambridge, Maryland. [10] Her activist work continued throughout college. Aged 18, in June 1963, she attended Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) National Meeting in Pine Hill, New York, and wrote a pamphlet Rats, Washtubs, and Block Organizations. [11] She graduated in June 1966 and spent summer and fall working for Representative Robert Kastenmeier, a liberal Democrat from Wisconsin. In 1967, Wilkerson was employed in the national office of SDS, in Chicago and became the editor of New Left Notes, an SDS newspaper. [4] In 1967, she was elected into SDS National Interim Council and moved to Washington, D.C. to set up a regional office. [4]

Wilkerson and three other SDS members went to Cambodia where they met representatives of Vietnamese National Liberation Front. After the trip she wrote several articles describing her experiences and stressing the issue of failing morale of U.S. troops. [1] Although, as Wilkerson recalls in her memoir, [12] she had few disagreements with the main ideas promoted by the Weathermen, including their deep desire to be involved in the most effective endeavor to end the Vietnam War. Her perception that policies both at home and abroad were unfair prompted her to become a member of Weatherman in 1969. Shortly after her graduation from college, Wilkerson traveled to Cuba to witness the results of the Cuban Revolution first hand. She was active in civil rights and the women's movement. However, she put anti-war and anti-racist work before the women's movement. In 1969, the New Left was present at a Counter-Inaugural to Richard Nixon's first inauguration, at which the anti-war leader Dave Dellinger, serving as master of ceremonies, incorrectly announced, "The women have asked all the men to leave the stage." [13]

After that, SDS activist Marilyn Salzman Webb attempted to speak about women's oppression, and SDS men heckled her, shouting, "Take her off the stage and fuck her!" and so forth until she was drowned out. [13] [14] [15] [16] Later, Webb received a threatening phone call which she thought was from Wilkerson, but that was not confirmed, and it may have been from a government agent. In any case, the call contributed to driving apart outspoken feminists in the national SDS and people who put anti-racist and anti-war work before feminism and went toward the Weathermen. [15]

Arrests

In 1963, Wilkerson was arrested in Chester, Pennsylvania for distributing handbills advertising a mass meeting to discuss the planned boycott of the public schools. On August 25, 1968, she was arrested during the Democratic National Convention and charged with disorderly conduct and posting handbills on private property without the owners' permission. On May 2, 1969, Wilkerson was arrested and charged with unlawful entry and destroying property during a takeover of Maury Hall at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. On September 4, 1969, she was arrested in Chicago on charges of disorderly conduct. On September 4, 1969, Wilkerson was arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with 25 other female members of SDS, who were trying to recruit students to the anti-war movement by staging a high school "jailbreak". She was charged with inciting a riot, rioting, and disorderly conduct. On October 9, 1969, Wilkerson was arrested and charged with mob action, aggravated battery, and resisting arrest. [17]

Joining Weathermen

Wilkerson joined the Chicago Weatherman Collective during the summer of 1969. [18] She actively participated in riots during the Days of Rage that took place in Chicago on October 8–11, 1969 and was arrested for attacking a Chicago policeman with a club. [4] After spending two and a half weeks in jail, she was released on bail. [19] Wilkerson attended the WUO "War Council" in Flint, Michigan during December 1969. [1] In January 1970 she was sent to Seattle, Washington to join a local collective. After a few days in Seattle Wilkerson was invited by Terry Robbins to come to New York, New York. [20] After firebombing the home of New York State Supreme Court Justice Murtagh, who was presiding over the trial of the so-called "Panther 21" members of the Black Panther Party and few other unsuccessful fire bombings, the New York collective members decided to use dynamite in future actions. The bomb factory was set up in a townhouse owned by Wilkerson's father. [21]

Greenwich Village townhouse explosion

On the morning of March 6, 1970, there was an explosion in the sub-basement of a townhouse owned by Wilkerson's father, located at 18 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village. [2] The blast killed three people, but Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin were helped from the rubble, and they immediately went underground. [2] The townhouse was being used by the Weather Underground to make bombs, in particular a nail bomb that was to be used against soldiers and their dates at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey that night. [3] That evening, a man's body was found in the basement of the townhouse, and a short time later, a woman's torso was discovered on the first floor. [22] Police also found several handbags with personal identification that had been stolen from college students over the previous few months. [23] Over the next few days, police discovered at least 60 sticks of dynamite, a live military antitank shell, blasting caps, and several large metal pipes packed solid with explosives and nails as shrapnel. [22]

Three members of the WUO were killed in the explosion: Theodore Gold, the 23-year-old leader of a student strike at Columbia University in 1968; Diana Oughton; and Terry Robbins. [2] [23] Wilkerson and Boudin stayed overnight at Boudin's parents' house a few blocks away on St. Luke's Place before they both went underground. [24] Wilkerson's father, who owned both houses, was on vacation in the Caribbean. [25] She was charged in absentia with illegal possession of dynamite and criminally negligent homicide and eluded capture for 10 years. [26]

Surrender

On July 23, 1970, Wilkerson and twelve other members of Weather Underground Organization were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to bomb and kill. [27] Placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, some avoided capture for as long as ten years. On March 25, 1977, Phoebe Hirsch and Robert Roth became the first two WUO members to surrender. [28] Wilkerson stayed underground for three more years. She surrendered in 1980 and was tried and convicted of illegal possession of dynamite and sentenced to three years in prison. She was released on a sentencing technicality after serving 11 months, with the judge noting that "her conduct while in jail has been exemplary". New York State's Commissioner of Correctional Services was critical of the early release, calling the judge's action "mistaken". He maintained that many inmates with better disciplinary records remained behind bars because they did not have good lawyers and were black or Hispanic. [5]

Later years

Cathy Wilkerson (left) with Meaghan Linick. Linick is an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society. (2007) NLN Cathy Wilkerson.jpg
Cathy Wilkerson (left) with Meaghan Linick. Linick is an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society. (2007)

Today, Wilkerson lives in Brooklyn, New York with her partner, criminal defense attorney Susan Tipograph, and is the mother of an adult daughter, Bess, who was born in California while she was underground. [29] [30] Wilkerson spent the last 20 years teaching mathematics in high schools and adult education programs. [31] In August 2003, she gave the first telephone interview after not talking to reporters in about 20 years. Although Wilkerson agreed that mistakes were made, she maintained many of the ideas that she supported in the 1960s. [31] Wilkerson wrote a book about her experience in the Weather Underground, Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times As a Weatherman, which was published in 2007. [32]

She criticized the memoir of her former Weatherman Underground colleague, Bill Ayers in ZNet, describing his memoir as, "a cynical, superficial romp … making these struggles seem like a glorious carnival … Ayers relates his relentless sexual encounters without the slightest trace of awareness that some of these encounters might not have been so positive for the woman." [33]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weather Underground</span> American far-left militant organization, 1969–77

The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organized as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) national leadership. Officially known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) beginning in 1970, the group's express political goal was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government, which WUO believed to be imperialist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Rudd</span> American anti-war activist and math teacher

Mark William Rudd is an American political organizer, mathematics instructor, anti-war activist and counterculture icon who was involved with the Weather Underground in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Days of Rage</span> 1969 student activist demonstrations in Chicago, Illinois, USA

The Days of Rage were a series of protests during three days in October 1969 in Chicago, organized by the emerging Weatherman faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Oughton</span> American social activist and anti-war radical (1942–1970)

Diana Oughton was an American member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. After graduation, Oughton went to Guatemala with the American Friends Service Committee program to teach the young and older Native Americans.

Linda Sue Evans is an American radical leftist, who was convicted in connection with violent and deadly militant activities committed as part of her goal to free African-Americans from white oppression. Evans was sentenced in 1987 to 40 years in prison for using false identification to buy firearms and for harboring a fugitive in the 1981 Brinks armored truck robbery, in which two police officers and a guard were killed, and Black Liberation Army members were wounded. In a second case, she was sentenced in 1990 to five years in prison for conspiracy and malicious destruction in connection with eight bombings including the 1983 United States Senate bombing. Her sentence was commuted in 2001 by President Bill Clinton because of its extraordinary length.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Jones (activist)</span>

Jeff Jones is an environmental activist and consultant in Upstate New York. He was a national officer in Students for a Democratic Society, a founding member of Weatherman, and a leader of the Weather Underground.

Terry Robbins was an American far left activist, a key member of the Ohio Students for a Democratic Society, and one of the three Weathermen who died in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Whitehorn</span> American activist and convicted bomber

Laura Jane Whitehorn is an American activist who participated in the 1983 United States Senate bombing and was imprisoned for 14 years in federal prison. In the 1960s, she organized and participated in civil rights and anti-war movements.

Naomi Esther Jaffe is a former undergraduate student of Herbert Marcuse and member of the Weather Underground Organization. Jaffe was recently the Executive Director of Holding Our Own, a multiracial foundation for women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenwich Village townhouse explosion</span> 1970 accidental detonation of bomb in New York City

The Greenwich Village townhouse explosion occurred on March 6, 1970, in New York City, United States. Members of the Weather Underground (Weathermen), an American leftist militant group, were making bombs in the basement of 18 West 11th Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood, when one of them exploded. The resulting series of three blasts completely destroyed the four-story townhouse and severely damaged those adjacent to it, including the then home of actor Dustin Hoffman and theater critic Mel Gussow. Three Weathermen—Ted Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins—were killed in the blast, while two survivors, Kathy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson, were helped out of the wreckage and subsequently fled.

Brian Flanagan is an American former militant and activist who was a member of the radical left organizations Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Jacobs (activist)</span> American anti-war activist (1947–1997)

John Gregory Jacobs was an American student and anti-war activist in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was a leader in both Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman group, and an advocate of the use of violent force to overthrow the government of the United States. A fugitive after 1970, he died in 1997 in Canada.

Dianne Marie Donghi is a French former member of Students for a Democratic Society and Weatherman (organization).

Robert Roth was an active member of the anti-war, anti-racism and anti-imperialism movements of the 1960s and 1970s and a key member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) political movement in the Columbia University Chapter in New York, where he eventually presided. Later, as a member of the Weatherman/Weather Underground Organization he used militant tactics to oppose the Vietnam War and racism. After the war ended, Roth surfaced from his Underground status and has been involved in a variety of social causes.

Eleanor E. Raskin was a member of the Weathermen. She is currently an adjunct instructor at Albany Law School. She was an administrative law judge at the New York State Public Service Commission.

Phoebe Elizabeth Hirsch is a former member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Weatherman (WUO).

The Flint War Council was a series of meetings of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) and associates in Flint, Michigan, that took place from 27 December 1969 to 31 December 1969. During these meetings, the decisions were made for the WUO to go underground, to "engage in guerilla warfare against the U.S. government," and to abolish Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Jailbreaks were demonstrations staged by members of Weatherman during the summer and fall of 1969 in an effort to recruit high school and community college students to join their movement against the United States government and its policies.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Weather Underground Organization (Weatherman)". Federal Bureau of Investigation. 1998–2007. p. 228. Archived from the original on 2008-03-12. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gussow, Mel (March 5, 2000). "The House On West 11th Street". The New York Times . Retrieved 2008-04-22.
  3. 1 2 Rudd, Mark. "The Kids are All Right". Archived from the original on 2007-05-03. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Charlton, Linda (1970-03-16). "Cathlyn Wilkerson: Portrait of a Young Revolutionary". The New York Times . Retrieved 2007-11-27.
  5. 1 2 3 Shipp, E. R. (1981-12-24). "Correction Chief Critical Of Wilkerson Probation". The New York Times . Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  6. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 8. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  7. ↑ "James Platt Wilkerson." Marquis Who's Who TM. Marquis Who's Who, 2009. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC. Fee via Fairfax County Public Library, accessed 2009-06-07. Document Number: K2017834261.
  8. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 9. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  9. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. pp. 12–28. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  10. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 46. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  11. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 63. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  12. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 273. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  13. 1 2 clarissakennedyjacob (2013-05-06). "Susan Faludi on Shulamith Firestone, The New Yorker | The Women & Film Project". Womenandfilmproject.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2014-01-12.
  14. ↑ Dan Berger (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press. p. 365. ISBN   978-1-904859-41-3.
  15. 1 2 Doug Rossinow (January 1998). The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America. Columbia University Press. p. 441. ISBN   978-0-231-11057-0.
  16. ↑ Gessen, Keith (2012-09-26). "n+1: On Shulamith Firestone, Part One". Nplusonemag.com. Archived from the original on 2013-12-14. Retrieved 2014-01-12.
  17. ↑ "Committee Print the Weather Underground Report of Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and the Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee of the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-Fourth Congress, First Session. pp.112-114". United States Government Printing Office. Washington, DC. January 1975.
  18. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 270. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  19. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 307. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  20. ↑ Wilkerson, Cathy (2007). Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman. Seven Stories Press. p. 324. ISBN   978-1-58322-771-8.
  21. ↑ Franks, Lucinda (1981-11-22). "The Seeds of Terror". The New York Times .
  22. 1 2 Robinson, Douglas (1970-03-11). "Bombs, Dynamite and Woman's Body Found in Ruins of 11th St. Townhouse". The New York Times . Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  23. 1 2 The Brinks Robbery of 1981 – The Crime Library – The Crime library Archived February 9, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  24. ↑ Brightman, Carol (December 18, 2003). "Running on Empty". The Nation . New York, New York: Katrina vanden Heuvel. Archived from the original on 2017-09-04. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
  25. ↑ Clendinen, Dudley (23 July 1981). "A City Town House, Risen from Ashes". The New York Times . Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  26. ↑ "Underground leader gives up after 10 years". Tallahassee Democrat. 1980-07-09. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-06-27.
  27. ↑ Flint, Jerry (1970-07-24). "13 WEATHERMEN INDICTED IN PLOTS; U.S. Grand Jury in Detroit Charges Bombing Plans". The New York Times . Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  28. ↑ "2 Weather Underground Members Give Up After 7 Years as Fugitives". The New York Times . 1977-04-15. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  29. ↑ Alyssa Galella (October 10, 2007). "Activist spark is still burning for a survivor of explosion". The Villager. Archived from the original on September 1, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2015.
  30. ↑ "Shaking Off the Dust of the Underground". NY Press. November 14, 2007.
  31. 1 2 Wakin, Daniel (2003-08-24). "Quieter Lives for 60's Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs Hasn't Faded". The New York Times . Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  32. ↑ "Flying Close to the Sun, My Life and Times as a Weatherman". Archived from the original on 2010-08-26. Retrieved 2010-10-01.
  33. ↑ Jesse Lemisch (Summer 2006). "Weather Underground Rises from the Ashes: They're Baack!". New Politics.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.