Zayd Dohrn is the son of what is arguably the “First Family of America’s Far Left.” His parents, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, were the so-called “domestic terrorists” who, according to then-vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, “palled around with Barack Obama.” The 1977-born Zayd, who grew u…
Son of Weather Underground Leaders Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers Knows Which Way the Wind is Blowing in New Podcast - CovertAction Magazine Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube Start Here Regions Africa Asia Caribbean Central America Europe Global Middle East North America Oceania South America City Dispatches Athens Berlin Copenhagen Moscow Paris Series 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Biden Series Feature Series In the Spotlight Israel/Gaza War Letters Op-Ed Podcasts Political Assassinations Prison-Industrial Complex War in Ukraine Archives Covert Videos CAM Youtube Channel Audio Video About Us About Us Contact Us Letters History Links Support Us Donate Subscribe Orders My Account Log In Select LanguageAfrikaansAlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBengaliBosnianBulgarianCatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CorsicanCroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchFrisianGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHawaiianHebrewHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKhmerKoreanKurdish (Kurmanji)KyrgyzLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianLuxembourgishMacedonianMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMongolianMyanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianPashtoPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSamoanScottish GaelicSerbianSesothoShonaSindhiSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTajikTamilTeluguThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduUzbekVietnameseWelshXhosaYiddishYorubaZulu Search Tuesday, December 5, 2023 Donate Subscribe Orders Contact Us My Account Log In Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube Sign in Welcome! 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CovertAction Magazine Exposing Covert Action Since 1978 Start Here Regions Africa Asia Caribbean Central America Europe Global Middle East North America Oceania South America City Dispatches Athens Berlin Copenhagen Moscow Paris Series 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Biden Series Feature Series In the Spotlight Israel/Gaza War Letters Op-Ed Podcasts Political Assassinations Prison-Industrial Complex War in Ukraine Archives Covert Videos CAM Youtube Channel Audio Video About Us About Us Contact Us Letters History Links Support Us Donate Subscribe Orders My Account Log In Select LanguageAfrikaansAlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBengaliBosnianBulgarianCatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CorsicanCroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchFrisianGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHawaiianHebrewHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKhmerKoreanKurdish (Kurmanji)KyrgyzLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianLuxembourgishMacedonianMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMongolianMyanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianPashtoPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSamoanScottish GaelicSerbianSesothoShonaSindhiSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTajikTamilTeluguThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduUzbekVietnameseWelshXhosaYiddishYorubaZulu Social Movements: 1960s Son of Weather Underground Leaders Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers Knows Which Way the Wind is Blowing in New Podcast By Ed Rampell - October 8, 2022 3 FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmailPrint “The First Family of America’s Far Left”: Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and four-year-old Zayd outside a New York City courtroom in 1982. [Source: nytimes.com] Zayd Dohrn is the son of what is arguably the “First Family of America’s Far Left.” His parents, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, were the so-called “domestic terrorists” who, according to then-vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, “palled around with Barack Obama.” The 1977-born Zayd, who grew up underground, has grown up to be a Professor of Dramatic Writing and Director of the MFA in writing for the screen and stage at Northwestern University. He is also a gifted playwright who has a knack for dramatizing hard-hitting political themes, as in his plays Muckrakers—partially inspired by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks’ exposure of Chelsea Manning’s Iraq and Afghan war revelations—and Long Way Go Down, about the immigration debate. Dohrn puts his talents as a dramatist to good use in the 10-part nonfiction podcast Mother Country Radicals, which chronicles the urban guerrilla warfare waged by the Weather Underground, Black Panther Party and others during the 1960s/1970s to oppose the Vietnam War, racism, and other social ills. An important recurring leitmotif of Mother Country Radicals is how parents’ militant activism impacted the revolutionaries’ children, the so-called “Weather Kids” and “Panther Cubs” of which Zayd was a charter member. [Source: crooked.com] Interviewed by phone in Chicago, in this wide-ranging candid conversation, Zayd Dohrn discusses: growing up Dohrn; podcasting; Tupac Shakur; Assata Shakur; Chesa Boudin; the role of violence; PTSD; comparing the New Left and MAGA; “defunding the FBI”; if COINTELPRO agitated splits in SDS; Fonzie; the Obamas; and in between bombings, street fighting, “expropriations,” and the like, how Bernardine and Bill were at home as mom and dad; and much more. Origin Story COVERT ACTION MAGAZINE: How did Mother Country Radicals come about? ZAYD DOHRN: There were really two things, a personal element and a political question I was thinking about. It all came together in 2020—the end of the Trump administration, the beginning of the pandemic. I was interested politically in how people resist authoritarian governments and what it looks like when authoritarianism seems to be rising in your country and how people come together to try to fight back against that. So, I started thinking back to my parents’ story and simultaneously I had this personal element. My parents were getting older, my mom had just turned 80 years old and my adopted mom Kathy Boudin had cancer and was dying. I had a feeling this might be the last chance to ask them the questions I had on my mind and the last time to preserve their voices for history. They’re my parents, family members and friends, but they’re real historical figures. My mom marched with Martin Luther King and was friends with Fred Hampton and broke Timothy Leary out of prison, so I thought it was important to get these stories down on the record while I still could. CAM: Discuss podcasts as a medium and how viable they are? DOHRN: I think people are still trying to figure out how to make money from podcasting but they’re certainly viable because they have a huge audience. The reach of podcasts is pretty phenomenal. Hundreds of thousands of people have listened to our show… with the advent of podcasting and people having phones in their pockets and needing something to do while commuting or doing chores, people are voracious consumers of podcasts. Artistically and creatively, it’s a whole new frontier and it’s really exciting what’s going on in the world of narrative podcasts right now. The kind of stories you can tell and the ways people are experimenting in the medium. In my own project the ability to use the voices of the people you interview but also archival audio and my own voiceover narration. It really gives you a flexibility and an immersive storytelling quality that’s really exciting. CAM: Was being a playwright helpful to you in constructing the podcast? DOHRN: Definitely. I’m a playwright and screenwriter first and foremost, so I think in terms of dramatic storytelling. Even though Mother Country Radicals is nonfiction, it’s a documentary in a way, I thought a lot about how to tell stories in a way that is dramatically satisfying. That had character arcs and drama and pulls you along so you’d be immersed in and learn from the story at the same time. All my years I spent as a dramatic writer helped me tell the story in a way that’s exciting and compelling. Zayd Ayers Dohrn [Source: chicagomag.org] Revolutionary Genealogy CAM: Well, you’ve succeeded. To say the least, you have quite a yarn to spin, a breathtaking story to tell. In a broad overview, what is the ten-part Mother Country Radicals about and who are the main dramatis personae? DOHRN: It’s a helluva story, a wild yarn. Even for me, as somebody who grew up with it, I was surprised and had my mind blown several times by the twists and turns the story takes. But it’s about this group of young people, Black and white, who come together in the late ’60s to oppose the Vietnam War and police violence against Black people. Two of the main figures are my parents, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. My mom was the head of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which was the biggest student antiwar group in the country. She started out as a small-town girl from Wisconsin, ended up in law school at the University of Chicago, a straight A student, a cheerleader and became a radical anti-racist and anti-imperialist and ended up declaring war on the U.S. as the founder and head of the Weatherman organization. She ended up being on the FBI’s ten most wanted list and J. Edgar Hoover actually called her “the most dangerous woman in America.” She was an archetype of the all-American young person who rebelled against her family and upbringing and became this radical revolutionary. She’s one of the main characters in the story and my relationship with her and what it was like to have her as my mom. [Source: photos.com] My dad, Bill Ayers, was a student at the University of Michigan, became an antiwar activist, joined the Weathermen and then joined my mom 12 years underground as fugitives from the FBI. [Source: chicagoreader.com] One of the things I discovered along the way is that the Weatherman, which was this white protest organization, really was deeply intertwined with and connected to certain radical Black freedom organizations: first, the Black Panthers in Chicago under Fred Hampton, and later the Black Liberation Army. I spoke to members of the Panthers and the BLA, like Jamal Joseph who was a teenager in Harlem who was radicalized when Dr. King was killed and became an underground soldier. [NOTE: Again, I believe it should be “Weathermen” (line 1)] Assata Shakur, who was the figurehead and one of the leaders of the BLA, I spoke to her daughter, Kakuya Shakur, about her mother’s significance as a Black liberation leader. The characters are pretty incredible. Along the way, they end up robbing banks, breaking friends out of prison, fighting with police on the streets of Chicago. There’s a lot of dramatic turning points in the story, but ultimately it ends up being a story about young people who tried to fight for a better world, to oppose racism, to build solidarity between Black and white activists. Assata Shakur with daughter Kakuya. [Source: atlantablackstar.com] It’s also a story about children, my generation. I was born underground, on the run, so a lot of the podcast is about what it’s like growing up with revolutionaries as parents and how that changes your family, how it can cause rifts in the family and painful separations. And also, what we can all learn from the activists of that day as we try to build a better world today. CAM: Explain to us who Chesa Boudin is, how he became part of your family and why he was recently in the news? DOHRN: Chesa is my brother. We adopted him when he was a year-and-a-half old. His parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were also members of the Weather Underground. They were friends and comrades of my parents. But when my parents finally turned themselves in after a decade and more on the run to the FBI, Chesa’s parents stayed underground and remained allies of the Black Liberation Army and ended up participating in an attempted bank robbery, now called the Brinks Armored Car Robbery, where they attempted to steal $1.6 million from an armored truck in upstate New York. That was a BLA action, but carried out in solidarity with several white activists, former members of the Weather Underground organization. Chesa Boudin, left, with mother, Kathy, and father, David Gilbert. [Source: centerforjustice.colombia.edu] That robbery went terribly wrong, three people were killed, a police officer and Brinks guards, and Chesa’s parents were arrested and ended up going to prison for decades. They had left Chesa at home with a babysitter when they went out to rob a Brinks truck, so Chesa suddenly found himself without parents. My parents stepped in to adopt him. I was about four years old at the time, he was almost two, and he came to live with our family and became my brother. So, we grew up together and I think of him as close as my biological brother; he’s part of our family. Chesa Boudin as a baby with David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin. [Source: sfchronicle.com] He was in the news recently because after—you can imagine, he had a very difficult childhood… he was an angry kid and went through a lot. But he turned his life around, became a very good student, went to Yale, ended up winning a Rhodes Scholarship and then going to Yale Law School and becoming a lawyer. He was, incredibly, elected District Attorney of San Francisco a year-and-a-half ago on a platform of progressive prosecution, which basically means trying to change the criminal justice system from the inside, trying to end mass incarceration and the criminalization of small nonviolent drug offenses, and things like that. He was in the news again recently because he was recalled from office, there was a concerted effort by right-wing donors and the police union in San Francisco to undermine his office and he was essentially recalled. Chesa’s a pretty amazing person, an activist, lawyer, intellectual and there’s going to be many more chapters to his story. But he’s already had quite an extraordinary life. CAM: Of course, his grandfather, Leonard Boudin, was a noted defense attorney for the Left. DOHRN: Yes. Civil liberties attorney. Defended Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government and people who were blacklisted, Paul Robeson, among many others. CAM: Genealogy is an important part of Mother Country Radicals. How does rapper Tupac Shakur tie into all of this? DOHRN: [Laughs.] Yeah, that’s a pretty crazy connection. My parents and members of the Weather Underground came into alliance with the Black Liberation Army. Founding members of that group including Afeni Shakur, who was Tupac’s mother, and Jamal Joseph, who was Tupac’s godfather and is interviewed extensively in this podcast…Tupac came out of that world of Black liberation theory. Afeni Shakur with Tupac. [Source: dazeddigital.com] CAM: What is Tupac Shakur’s relationship to Assata Shakur? I don’t think he has a blood relationship to Assata Shakur. Many of the BLA members took Shakur as a revolutionary name. But they were all friends and comrades in New York in the early 1970s. Jamal Joseph, who is one of the main characters in the podcast, he was good friends with Afeni and was Tupac’s godfather. Afeni herself, who was one of the Panther 21, was indicted and tried for conspiracy to kill police officers in New York and the subject of Tupac’s song “Dear Mama.” Jamal Joseph [Source: wikipedia.org] CAM: Where is Assata Shakur nowadays? DOHRN: She’s still underground, she’s still a fugitive…The FBI put a bounty on her head…I mention in the podcast that Donald Trump called for her to be extradited from Cuba—nobody knows where she is because she’s underground. Assata was last living in Havana as a refugee from American law enforcement. I don’t know where she is. I spoke pretty extensively to her daughter, who is based in Chicago and has her own experience growing up the daughter of a famous fugitive, which is an experience similar to mine. So, we have a lot to talk about. CAM: I guess when Assata Shakur’s whereabouts are concerned: “Those who say, don’t know. Those who know, don’t say.” DOHRN: [Laughs.] That’s exactly right…A lot of people feel like Assata should be allowed to come home. Assata was convicted by an all-white jury and her full story has never fully been told. She’s written an autobiography but because of the charges brought against her and that conviction, she’s never been able to speak to her own story and be back in America for many decades now. CAM: Who were you and your biological brother Malik named after? I was named after Zayd Shakur, who was another BLA member and was killed when he and Assata Shakur were pulled over by New Jersey state troopers. Assata was shot and arrested. My parents named me after Zayd Shakur, giving me a Black revolutionary name as a way of commemorating him and his struggle. My brother Malik was named after Malcolm X, whose full name was el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. Zayd was named after a Black revolutionary. [Source: Photo courtesy of Zayd Ayers Dohrn] The Role of Force in History CAM: Early in Mother Country Radicals you say that the U.S. dropped 2,000 tons of bombs every day on Indochina. Much has been made of the violence of the New Left during the 1960s/1970s. But do you think if all the shootings, explosions, the Days of Rage, the prison breakouts, Attica, the New Jersey Turnpike shoot out, the Brinks Armored Car Robbery, let’s throw in the SLA actions and so on, were combined, they would have had as much firepower as a single, solitary, routine, aerial bombing mission carried out by the U.S. in Vietnam? DOHRN: [Laughs.] That’s a leading question. You’re right to point out that – one of the things I thought a lot about while making this series is the place of violence and whether violence can ever be justified? You’re absolutely right, one thing that became very clear working on this series is that violence is very complicated and the choices people made to turn to violence. I spent lots of time on the show interrogating those choices. But you have to see it all in the light of state violence that was overwhelming and still is overwhelming. Yes, you mentioned the bombs being dropped on Indochina, and that was a huge part of it. But also, so many of the people I spoke to for this series mentioned they were initially radicalized by the government killing Black leaders in America. Whether that was Fred Hampton, murdered by the Chicago police, or members of the Black Panthers or BLA, who were hunted down and, in many cases, killed or imprisoned by police or federal law enforcement. It was fascinating for me, because I was hearing these stories of radicalization—I learned about this 10-year-old boy, Clifford Glover, who was killed by an undercover cop in New York in 1974, radicalized a whole generation of Black activists. [Source: nydailynews.com] As I was having these conversations with people, George Floyd was murdered and we had this uprising on the streets of America today. I spent a lot of time thinking about how much has changed—and how little has changed. And how state violence really has a way of boomeranging back upon itself, and that the killing of Black people in America by the police is still going on and is still making radicals of young people today. It’s a huge question and it’s worth Americans spending time thinking about how much of the violence in our culture is perpetrated by our own government? CAM: About which Dr. Martin Luther King, another victim of assassination, said: “America is the biggest purveyor of violence in the world.” Much is made about how Vietnam, Afghan and Iraq War veterans experienced PTSD. In Chapter 3 of your podcast, after the explosion of the townhouse in Greenwich Village that killed Diana Oughton, her father James talks about what he calls “an intellectual hysteria.” Do you think that one didn’t have to be on the battlefield per se to be afflicted with PTSD? Do you think that people on the home front, horrified by the terrifying news and images of an illegal, immoral, imperialist war, that for the first time was being beamed into the living rooms of Americans via their TV sets, could… truncated (35,351 more characters in archive)