Many people don’t know that the actor who provides many of the most popular
Bill Ayers is a radical. And that five-word sentence is about all that most people know about him.
When he was 24 Ayers co-founded the far left Weather Underground, whose aim was to overthrow the U.S. government. The group set off bombs at public buildings, And the FBI labeled them domestic terrorists.
Ayers became a fugitive for the better part of 10 years. But later he re-emerged as a community organizer and became a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
It was Bill Ayers’s casual connection with another Chicagoan that propelled him into the public spotlight once again in 2008.
After the New York Times reported a fleeting link between Ayers and Barack Obama early in Obama’s political career, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin went on the attack:
“Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
Obama denounced Ayers and his radical past, and the episode was forgotten.
Back in 2001 Bill Ayers wrote a book about his radical past, called Fugitive Days. And in 2013 he wrote about it again in a book he called Public Enemy. I had the chance one day that November to meet with him when a book tour brought him to Washington DC.
So here now, from 2013, Bill Ayers.
Bill Ayers will be 81 next month. He is retired now.