"We are neither terrorists nor criminals. It is precisely because of our love of life, because we revel in the human spirit, that we became freedom fighters against this racist and deadly imperialist system."
- David Gilbert, a former member, from his court statement September 13, 1982.
(Photo credit: www.globalnewsdaily.com)
see CDS 166, 179, 192, 397
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The Weather Underground originated in 1969 as a faction of the Students For A Democratic Society. The group was convinced that only militant action could end racism, white supremacy, imperialism and the inequalities of a capitalist society.
The Weather Underground engaged in a campaign of bombings throughout the mid-1970s. The "Days of Rage," their first public demonstration on October 8, 1969 in Chicago. It was a militant response to the Democratic National Convention and intended to challenge the US war crimes in Vietnam. In 1970, the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United States government, under the name "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO). They took responsibility for bombing two dozen public buildings, including the Pentagon.
The Weather Underground took their name from a lyric from the Bob Dylan song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues": "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." This lyric was also the title of their founding document, which they distributed at an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969. This founding document called for a "white fighting force" to be allied with the "Black Liberation Movement" and other radical movements to achieve "the destruction of US Imperialism."
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