Weather Underground

The Weather Underground was an American Marxist militant organization active from 1969 until 1977. Originally known as the Weathermen, or simply Weatherman, the group originated as a faction of the national leadership of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The group adopted the name Weather Underground Organization (WUO) in 1970. Its members advocated revolutionary struggle against the United States government and described their politics as anti-imperialist and anti-racist. The group's ideology was influenced by Black Power and the anti-war movement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarded the WUO as a domestic terrorist group. The Weather Underground took its name from Bob Dylan's lyric "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", from the song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965). They took this line as the title of a position paper distributed at the 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 U.S. imperialism and form a classless communist world". The "Days of Rage", a riot orchestrated by the WUO in October 1969 in Chicago, was timed to coincide with the trial of the Chicago Seven. In 1970 the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the U.S. government under the name "Weather Underground Organization". That year the WUO took part in Timothy Leary's escape from prison. In the 1970s, the WUO conducted a bombing campaign targeting government buildings and banks. Some attacks were preceded by evacuation warnings, along with threats identifying the particular issue that the attack was intended to protest. Three members of the WUO were killed in an accidental explosion in New York City's Greenwich Village in 1970, but no one was killed in any...