Weather Underground

The Weather Underground was founded in 1969 “by SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] members who no longer saw legislative change, nonviolent collective protest, or reform policies as politically effective” (Thompson, 2001, p. 95). The Weather Underground attempted to create another militant front (theirs all white) so the government would not be able to concentrate all its force on militant fronts made up of people of color like the Black Liberation Army (BLA) or the American Indian Movement (AIM). The Weather Underground also hoped to fund a largely defunded militant movement. Members did actions that took advantage of their invisibility, like bombing government and corporate buildings in the seats of power and obtaining large amounts of money through robbery (Thompson, 2001, p. 96). Members of the Weather Underground found that “the cushion of white privilege” extended even into their militancy. The Weather Underground, as an all white organization, could take advantage of the fact that they had a much larger population to blend into, more access to and sources of funds, and that there was less likelihood of group members being subjected to routine police stops and checks (Thompson, 2001). In the Weather Underground's political manifesto, “Prairie Fire” (1974), they explain why they chose the tactics they did and their ultimate goal:

We made the choice to become a guerrilla organization at a time when the Vietnamese were fighting a heroic people's war, defeating half a million troops and the most technologically advanced military power. In our own hemisphere Che Guevara urged that we ‘create two, three, many Vietnams,' to destroy U.S. imperialism by cutting it off in the Third World tentacle by tentacle, and opening another front within the U.S. itself. At home, the struggle and insurrection of the Black liberation movement heightened our commitment to fight alongside the determined enemies of the empire.

This defined our international responsibility and our duty as white revolutionaries inside the oppressor nation. We are part of a wave of revolution sparked by the Black liberation struggle, by the death of Che in Bolivia in 1967, and by people's war in Vietnam. This period forged our belief in the revolutionary necessity of clandestine and armed struggle (Department of Justice, 1976, p. 16).

…

Our goal is to attack imperialism's ability to exploit and wage war against all oppressed peoples. Our final goal is the complete destruction of imperialism, the seizure of the means of production and the building of socialism. To create the conditions in which we can take the offensive, destroy the old system and build a new life, we must weaken and at least partly destroy the empire (Department of Justice, 1976, p.19).

Weather Underground has been criticized on many fronts, including on the sexism many women experienced in the organization. See Naomi Jaffe.

References

Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1976). Weather Underground Organization (Weatherman). Retrieved April 5, 2004 from http://foia.fbi.gov/weather/weath1a.pdf

Thompson, Becky. (2001). A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.