1968: The Global Revolutions

The Weatherman faction of Students for a Democratic Society first appeared at the organization’s 1969 convention, in Chicago, where their Bob Dylan-inspired manifesto, “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows,” outlined a platform of militant confrontation with police and government authorities. Weatherman identified black and Third World revolutionaries as the leadership of the movement, seeing the role of white youth as allies and supporters. Weatherman won control of SDS and promptly called for a series of militant actions. By 1970, the leaders had disappeared from view, leaving the old SDS in disarray and forming a new group: the Weather Underground. For the next five years, despite desperate attempts by Hoover’s FBI to apprehend them, underground members coordinated a sustained campaign of bombing attacks against symbols of American imperialism. The Weathermen brought their message to the public through a series of communiqués, a film, and a book entitled Prairie Fire, which was published in a special, red–covered edition for clandestine reading.