Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers are former 1960s-70s radical activists who led the controversial Weather Underground Organization before becoming Chicago-based activists, academics and authors. Their lifelong activism engages with many of the same issues dividing America today. They are also the grandparents of Light Dohrn, a Midway editor-in-chief. Responses and questions have been lightly edited for clarity, length and style.
LIGHT: Thank you both for sitting down with me. How does it feel that the next generations of Ayers-Dohrns seem to be so interested in your history?
BERNARDINE: I’m glad you’re interested, because I think the issues that we tried to address — and sort of left you a mess here — of equality, gender equality, ethnic and racial justice and war and peace are unfortunately still ongoing issues. And I feel ashamed to leave this mess to you, to tell you the truth. I wish we’d done better.
BILL: You know, I feel similarly. I feel like the issues that drove us, and kind of defined our lives, gave us a purpose and a direction; they’re still alive and still with us… We were joking about the fact that, you know, protest and radical politics is the “family business.” But I don’t think it’s so much that as it is that responsible people need to look at the world as it is, and decide how they’re gonna live in that world, a world out of balance, a world in need of repair. I think young people are prone, generation after generation, to reimagine, rethink, reevaluate what they’ve been left and try to reimagine what they can build. So that’s what I see you doing — not only you, but your comrades, your colleagues, your friends.
LIGHT: You should know that the intro text for this centerspread is a James Baldwin quote: “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” So I’m wondering, what do you guys think it means to love America?
BERNARDINE: The aspirational idea of America is determination to free itself from England, its determination to not have a king. Its emphasis on democracy and equality, even though those were hollow words for decades and even centuries, is admirable. And it contains within it possibilities of holding, of planting your fists there, and holding it on tight, and trying to give it real meaning. Generation after generation have — some better than others — stood up and said: “We may have abolished slavery, but we still have racism so deeply embedded in the fabric of the country, and the laws, and the Constitution.”
BILL: You know, I think Baldwin’s comment makes a certain amount of sense — and to me, I interpret it as saying that you don’t get to cherry pick everything about the country. You have to see it whole. You have to face it honestly. And just as I said a minute ago, looking honestly at your legacy in a family, or in a community, is valuable. I think looking honestly at your legacy as a country is critical. And that means looking at it with all of its warts, all of its sore spots, all of its mistakes… Many of us felt like we grew up with this idea that all people are created equal. When we took it seriously, they got mad at us.
LIGHT: I think that the image, for me, of you two as 20-year-old Ivy League dropouts hurling smoke bombs at police officers brings to mind that there must have been a part of you guys that loved the country. I think that it’s a very simplistic view of your movement and your history to say that you hated America, because otherwise you wouldn’t have done anything. Do you have any idea what made you care so much?
BILL: We were very lucky. You know, you look at the broad sweep of the last 250 years… how lucky would it be to be a young person confronting the British Empire and insisting that you had the right to break from that empire? What a great feeling of solidarity and courage and commitment.
And then, 100 years later, 150 years later, to be part of that Second American Revolution, the Civil War, and to say, “You know, we were founded on this idea that everyone’s equal, and yet we’ve lived for the last many decades. With this horrible original sin, defining our country and stolen land and stolen bodies.” And what a great, wonderful feeling, to be part of that movement, to be part of the struggle to build an underground railroad, to attack Harper’s Ferry, to walk arm in arm with Harriet Tubman.
And then 100 years after that, to be part of a third American revolution, where you’re still saying, essentially, that the founding ideals that we want to embrace are these, and then we’re gonna make them come true. So we were very lucky that we got to see ourselves as part of that great tradition, because the American story is many stories.
LIGHT: I think sometimes about the fact that my friends and I, or my Midway colleagues and I… we are trying to change the world in different ways. We’re trying to be journalists or make our art or find our voices in high school and so on. Do you see that as a valid method of revolution? Do you wish we were doing more?
BERNARDINE: No, I think you’re doing exactly the right thing, to know yourself and to know who you are, and what your strengths are, and to operate from that point of view. I don’t know any other way to move forward. I think it’s essential to start from where you are located and try to move out from there. Making fundamental change is impossibly complicated, and unintended consequences often outweigh good intentions, time and time again.
BILL: If there were a “right thing to do,” we’d all have done it. If there were a right way to end racism in the United States, if there were a right way to transform the U.S. from a military field into a force for peace, we’d have all done that already. So there is no right way. The right way to do something is to open your eyes.
There’s a rhythm to doing the right thing, and I think you’re right on that rhythm. You have to open your eyes to the world as it is, or you can’t make real change.
