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Quote by Bill Ayers

“That's where we all kind of were in the mid-1960s. Students for a Democratic Society grew from a small group of socialists at the university of Michigan into a national organization, and in many ways, its growth was driven by the Vietnam War.”

Quote by Bill Ayers

Author

Bill Ayers (born December 26, 1944) is an American educator and former professor who taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He earned his doctorate in education from the University of Michigan and specialized in curriculum theory, teacher education, and educational reform. Ayers is a controversial figure due to his past involvement with the Weather Underground, a radical left-wing organization in the 1960s and 1970s. He has authored several books on progressive education and teaching methods. His academic work has influenced educators in the progressive education movement, though his historical association with radical groups remains a subject of public debate. more

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“Students for a Democratic Society was also affiliated with the civil rights movement everywhere.”

Rights Movement Students Democratic Civil Rights Civil Rights Movement Democratic Society

Author:Bill Ayers

“The end of Students for a Democratic Society is viewed by me and a lot of other people as a terrible sorry in many ways, tragic event even though I participated in it and played some role in it. But I regret a lot of that.”

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Author:Bill Ayers

“When I was arrested opposing the war in Vietnam in 1965, as I said about 20 or 30% of people were opposed to the war. By 1968, more than half of Americans were opposed to the war. If you pull in Europeans, Canadians, people from around the Third World, the war was vastly unpopular. But even half of Americans by 1968 opposed the war.”

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Author:Bill Ayers

“Lyndon Johnson who was the president who was executing that war, announced in the spring of 1968 that he would not seek the presidency again. He would go to Paris and end the war in Vietnam. Well we were ecstatic.”

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Author:Bill Ayers

“I'd been arrested many times by then. I'd been an organizer, so many things had changed over those three years [from 1965 till 1968].”

Years Three Changed Three Years Arrested Organizer

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“So we were ecstatic and we swirled around spontaneously, the campus in Ann Harbor and about 4,000 of us landed on the steps of the president of the University of Michigan's home.”

Home President Steps University Harbors Campus Ecstatic Michigan University Of Michigan

Author:Bill Ayers

“The president of the University said that night, congratulations to you the students, you've won a great victory, now the war will end. And I'm certain that he believed it that night and I believed it and we went away happy. Four days later, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Two months after that, Kennedy was assassinated. Two months after that, Henry Kissinger emerged from the swamp he was living in at Harvard with a plan to expand the war.”

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Author:Bill Ayers

“I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.”

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“The [Vietnam] war's gone on for three years. And we'd thought we'd ended it because we'd done exactly what we were told and what we told ourselves we'd had to do. We had a majority. We were against the war and this created a crisis for democracy and a crisis for the antiwar movement.”

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Author:Bill Ayers

“I don't want people to think about my age. Notbecause I don't want them to know my age, I just don't want them to think about it, I don't want itto be a factor.”

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Author:Paula Scher