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The Weather Underground was a far-left 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.
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background."
David Gilbert is an American activist who participated in the deadly 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored vehicle. Gilbert was a founding member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and became a member of the Weather Underground. Gilbert, who served as the getaway driver in the robbery, was convicted under New York’s felony murder law in the killing by co-defendants of two Nyack, New York police officers and a Brink's security guard.
Hubert Henry Harrison was a West Indian-American writer, orator, educator, critic, race and class conscious political activist, and radical internationalist based in Harlem, New York. He was described by activist A. Philip Randolph as "the father of Harlem radicalism" and by the historian Joel Augustus Rogers as "the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time." John G. Jackson of American Atheists described him as "The Black Socrates".
Mark William Rudd is an American political organizer, mathematics instructor, anti-war activist and counterculture icon who got involved with the Weather Underground in the 1960s.
Roy Emile Alfredo Innis was an American activist and politician. He was National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) from 1968 until his death.
Theodore "Ted" Gold was a member of Weather Underground who died in the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.
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.
In 1968, a series of protests at Columbia University in New York City were one among the various student demonstrations that occurred around the globe in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, as well as their concern over an allegedly segregated gymnasium to be constructed in the nearby Morningside Park. The protests resulted in the student occupation of many university buildings and the eventual violent removal of protesters by the New York City Police Department.
James W. “Jim” Ford was an activist, a politician, and the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Communist Party USA in the years 1932, 1936, and 1940. Ford was born in Alabama and later worked as a party organizer for the CPUSA in New York City. He was also the first African American to run on a U.S. presidential ticket (1932) in the 20th century.
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.
The Harlem riot of 1964 occurred between July 16 and 22, 1964. It began after James Powell, a 15-year-old African American, was shot and killed by police Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan in front of Powell's friends and about a dozen other witnesses. Immediately after the shooting, about 300 students from Powell's school who were informed by the principal rallied. The shooting set off six consecutive nights of rioting that affected the New York City neighborhoods of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In total, 4,000 New Yorkers participated in the riots which led to attacks on the New York City Police Department (NYPD), vandalism, and looting in stores. Several protesters were severely beaten by NYPD officers. At the end of the conflict, reports counted one dead rioter, 118 injured, and 465 arrested.
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 since 1970, he died of melanoma in 1997.
Robert Roth was an active member in the anti-war, anti-racism and anti-imperialism movements of the 1960s and 70s, and 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 to this day.
Howard Norton Machtinger is a former director of Carolina Teaching Fellows, a student teacher scholarship program at the University of North Carolina. He is an education and civil rights activist, a teacher, a forum leader, and a political commentator. Machtinger is a former member of Students For a Democratic Society and Weatherman.
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 Hirsch is a former member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Weatherman (WUO).
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships and parliamentary procedure, the founders conceived of the organization as a broad exercise in "participatory democracy". From its launch in 1960 it grew rapidly in the course of the tumultuous decade with over 300 campus chapters and 30,000 supporters recorded nationwide by its last national convention in 1969. The organization splintered at that convention amidst rivalry between factions seeking to impose national leadership and direction, and disputing "revolutionary" positions on, among other issues, the Vietnam War and Black Power.
Edler Garnet Hawkins (1908–1977) was a Presbyterian minister from New York City. He is known for his ecumenical work and for being the first African American to serve as Moderator of the General Assembly for the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
Walter H. Gladwin was an American politician in the Bronx in the mid-20th century. He was the first black person to be elected to the New York State Assembly, be appointed an assistant district attorney or be named a criminal court judge in the Bronx. A park in the neighborhood where he served was renamed in his honor in 2020.
References
- Mark D. Naison, "White Boy, A Memoir," (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002)
- Harvey Pekar, "Students for a Democratic Society, A Graphic History," (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008)
- https://web.archive.org/web/20080905090036/http://www.fordham.edu/history/faculty/naison.shtml
- "New York Times" February 29, 1968, p. 44
