“You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows…”

At the SDS National Convention in 1969, Karin Ashley, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, John Jacobs, Jeff Jones, Gerry Long, Home Machtinger, Jim Mellen, Terry Robbins, Mark Rudd, and Steve Tappis submitted what would become the founding document of the Weather Underground: “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows….”

Taking its title from Bob Dylan’s 1965 song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” this document identifies that the primary task of the revolutionary struggle is to destroy U.S. imperialism and establish a communist world. The document identifies U.S. imperialism abroad and at home, specifically in the systemic oppression of Black people. They reject the notion that oppression against Black people only exists in the South and that Black people in the North are instead incorporated into white working-class society. Rather, they identify anti-Black racism as systemic and not confined to one geographical location. The group used the term “Black Colony” to express that in the U.S., “common features of oppression, history and culture… unify black people as a colony” (3). Recognizing that white people will never fully understand the lived experiences of Black people in America, the WUO positioned themselves as an armed white fighting force to back up the Black Liberation Movement. Proactively responding to the question of how the struggle for Black self-determination connects to the broader goals of the revolution and the establishment of communism, the group answered:

 [A] revolutionary nationalist movement could not win without destroying the state power of the imperialists; and it is for this reason that the black liberation movement, as a revolutionary nationalist movement for self-determination, is automatically in and of itself an inseparable part of the whole revolutionary struggle against US imperialism and for international socialism (WUO 3).

 The other key tenant of the founding document was the WUO’s stress on the importance of a youth-led revolutionary party. Identifying that most young people in the U.S. were a part of the working class, the WUO saw that “youth struggles are, by and large, working-class struggles” (13). In this way, involving and centering young people in the movement still responds to the issues faced by working-class adults but has the added advantage of ideological openness. Generally, the WUO wrote, young people “have less stake in a society (no family, fewer debts, etc), [and] are more open to new ideas (they have not been brainwashed…)” (14). It is easier, therefore, to organize and radicalize them, especially when young people had felt the impacts of U.S. imperialism their entire lives. The WUO identifies four examples of tangible ways U.S. imperialist ideology impact young people: first, jail-like schools where curriculums center American-exceptionalist myths, promote racist and anti-communist ideologies and make young people into capitalistic machines. Second, at the time, “youth unemployment [was] three times the national average” (15). Young people also work longer hours and are compensated less compared to their older counterparts. Third, the WUO reported that there were “two and a half million soldiers under the age of thirty who are forced to police the world [and] kill and be killed in wars of imperialist domination” (15). And finally, as these problems spread to more and more young people, police act in increasingly violent and oppressive ways. Ultimately, the WUO hoped that by centering young people who were working-class (members of the proletariat), the movement would be able to reach a wider audience and move away from a predominantly student elite base.

While most of the statement is centered on race and class, the WUO makes a point to discuss gender as well, specifically focusing on how the New Left has largely failed to address patriarchy and women’s issues. Because of these failings on the left, WUO acknowledged that “we have a very limited understanding of the tie-up between imperialism and the women question” (20). How then, the WUO asked, “do we organize women against racism and imperialism without submerging the principled revolutionary question of women’s liberation—we have no real answer” (20). Even though the group posits no answer to this question, their recognition of the fundamental ways women’s liberation is bound up in anti-imperialism is critical. The group offered the following regarding what they phrase as “the women question:”

To become more relevant to the growing women’s movement, SDS women should begin to see as a primary responsibility the self-conscious organizing of women. We will not be able to organize women unless we speak directly to their own oppression. This will become more and more critical as we work with more oppressed women. Women who are working and women who have families face male supremacy continuously in their day-to-day lives; that will have to be the starting point in their politicization. Women will never be able to undertake a full revolutionary role unless they break out of their woman’s role (WUO 6).

Osawatomie 

Later in the group’s history in 1975, they published a periodical titled Osawatomie, the nickname given to abolitionist guerilla warfare fighter John Brown during the Civil War.

On the opening page of the periodical is the group’s “Who We Are” statement that outlines some of their campaigns and broader ideologies and goals. In this statement, we can see how women’s liberation has become an integral part of their political agenda. Explicitly listed as part of the group’s program is the “Struggle Against Sexism and for the freedom of women” (2). Additionally, the very first sentence of the statement reads that the WUO is a “revolutionary organization of communist women and men” (2). This explicit inclusion draws attention to how the struggle against imperialism is an intersectional struggle. Liberation from oppression based on class, race, and gender all envelop one another.

Works Cited

Karin Ashley, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, John Jacobs, Jeff Jones, Gerry Long, Howie Machtinger, Jim Mellen, Terry Robbins, Mark Rudd, and Steve Tappis. “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows.” New Left Notes, vol. 4, no. 22, SDS, June 1969, pp. 3-9.

Osawatomie, vol. 1, no. 2, Weather Underground Organization, Summer 1975.

Weather Underground Organization. “Who We Are.” Osawatomie, vol. 1, no. 2, Weather Underground Organization, Summer 1975, pp. 2.

In many of the Weather Underground’s printed communications, one woman’s voice comes through loud and clear: Bernardine Dohrn. Dohrn was a member of SDS and one of the foundational members of the WUO; later, she would go on to become one of the group’s leaders. More than that, she was often the face of the entire organization. As Mona Rocha, author of The Weatherwomen: The Women of the Weather Underground, called her, Dohrn was effectively the group’s “high priestess” (82). In this role, she is highly visible in many of the group’s public messages, three of which include their “Declaration of War,” the report “Honky Tonk Women,” and the apotheosis of their political agenda, their manifesto Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism.

The WUO’s “Declaration of War” 

By the time the organization disseminated their “Declaration of War,” written directly from the voice of Dohrn, much of the group had gone underground.

As the preface to the declaration summarizes, “Five months ago, most Weathermen disappeared from public view. […] Now, another Weatherman fugitive has been heard from—Bernardine Dohrn, ex-SDS activist and member of the Weather Bureau, Weatherman’s elite leadership group” (4). This communication served as an indication of where the group stood following the arrest of many of its members and the death of three members in an accidental explosion in a New York City Townhouse. The WUO explains that they “mailed copies to several of our friends and to several of our enemies,” RAT Subterranean, an underground New York City-based newspaper, being one of their friends.

The Declaration begins as such: “Hello. This is Bernardine Dohrn. I’m going to read A DECLARATION OF A STATE OF WAR” (4). This statement is powerful; although Dohrn writes that she will be reading the statement, it is still her name and voice that first come through. Further, as this is a written declaration and not in fact being audibly read by Dohrn, the word “read” really feels like “written.” While this declaration does not make any explicit links to the Women’s Movement, Dohrn’s power in the piece cannot be ignored.

 “Honky Tonk Women”

At the WUO National War Council, Weatherwomen presented the document “Honky Tonky Women” outlining the group’s position on women’s liberation and articulating what their militant feminism truly meant. This document largely responded to the failings the group saw in the Second Wave movement:

For white women to fight for “equal rights” or “right to work, right to organize for equal pay, promotions, better conditions… ” while the rest of the world is trying to destroy imperialism, is racist. Those material improvements, like the rest of our privileges, are taken from the people of the world. These demands aren’t directed toward the destruction of Amerika, but toward helping white people cope better with life in an imperialist system (185).

This position aligned the Weatherwomen with many women of color and working-class feminists of the time who felt alienated by the superficial feminism coveted by largely white middle-class women. In this assessment, the Weatherwomen stress that striving to improve life under an “imperialist system” actually hinders true liberation as it fosters complacency within an inherently oppressive system. Instead, the Weatherwomen felt that

Our liberation as individuals and as women is possible only when it is understood as a political process—part of the formation of an armed white fighting force. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, and the struggle to gain and use political power against the state is the struggle for our liberation (186).

Here, the Weatherwomen synthesize the purpose and goals of their militant feminism. By framing women’s liberation as a “political process,” the Weatherwomen implicate the entire political system and oppressive political systems in their struggles. Further, naming women’s liberation as political allows them to apply their militaristic practices to the cause. The WUO asserted that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” or militant action. Women’s liberation would only come from the destruction of imperialism which the WUO saw as only possible through militant means.

Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism

Published in May of 1974,  Prairie Fire was the longest and most detailed account of the WUO’s ideology and strategy for revolution. It was not authored by one particular member of the group but rather reflected their collective views and experiences throughout their active years.  Prairie Fire is dedicated to all “sisters and brothers who are engaged in armed struggle against the enemy. It is written to prisoners, women’s groups, collectives, study groups, workers’ organizing committees, communes, GI organizers, consciousness-raising groups, veterans, community groups, and revolutionaries of all kinds” (5).

 

 

 

Prairie Fire tackled feminism in many of its sections, including the introductory ones, where  Prairie Fire names what it sees as the current obstacles to revolution, one of which is sexism. The section reads:

The full participation and leadership of women is necessary for successful and healthy revolution. Revolutionary organizations must recognize the struggle for women’s liberation as a fundamental political revolution and must repudiate the intolerable backwardness of all forms of sexism. The development of the independent women’s movement as well as active struggle against the institutions and ideas of sexism are the basis for insuring that the revolution genuinely empowers women (12).

Compared to their founding document, “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows,” this articulation of the role of women’s liberation in the revolution is far clearer. It acknowledges the value of a separate women’s movement specifically focused on women’s issues as well as the necessity of having those same women involved in the revolution the WUO was attempting to incite.

In the section “Imperialism Means Sexism,” the WUO links the struggles of women in America to women of color (referred to as “Third World Women) in Vietnam specifically through the bigger system of imperialism. The WUO clearly states that the brutal impacts of U.S. imperial action are felt in countries the U.S. effectively colonizes. Under the guise of American exceptionalism and patriarchy, “women are murdered/tortured, sterilized/raped, stifled/crippled, owned/exploited” (87). In these ways, “imperialism enforces a systematic terror against women” that cannot be ignored. While fighting for revolution, the WUO could not “betray the struggle of women in general and our Third World sisters in particular. We embrace these struggles as our own and merge them with our own we create a basis for revolutionary sisterhood” (90). Again, the idea of “revolutionary sisterhood” and the emphasis on women’s liberation globally throughout  Prairie Fire reflects how feminism truly was a central aspect of the WUO’s conceived revolution.

Works Cited

Rocha, Mona. The Weatherwomen: Militant Feminists of the Weather Underground. Jefferson, McFarland & Company, Inc, 2020.

Weather Underground Organization. “Declaration of War.” RAT: Subterranean News, June 5-19, 1970, pp. 4.

Weather Underground Organization. “Honky Tonk Women.” National War Council Packet, December 1969.

Weather Underground Organization. Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism. San Francisco, Communications Co., 1974.

Published between 1975 and 1976, WUO’s periodical Osawatomie featured book reviews, editorials, updates on the group’s progress, and even short stories. All of these contributions tackled issues central to the left including women’s issues. By focusing on two of these contributions, I aim to stress how the WUO maintained a commitment to highlighting women’s struggles and sought to bring these issues beyond nation-state borders.

“A Mighty Organization: An Investigation of Women Workers”

The periodical’s second issue featured a mass spread titled “A Mighty Army: An Investigation of Women Workers.”

This article interrogates the working conditions of women and debunks derogatory myths about women and women’s rights. Three main questions structure the first part of the article: First, “who are the women who work for wages?” (7). Second, “Where do women workers work? (8). And third, “Why do women work?” (9). Answers to the first question introduce the reader to five key statistics about the demographic of working-class women. At the time of its publication in 1975:

40% of the workforce [were] women; Black and other Third World women are more likely to be in the work force; married women work, women who head families work, and single women work; 38% of all mothers with children under 18 work; almost half of women works are 40 years or older, almost 2/5 are 45 or older (7).

Answers to the second shed light on the fact that women overwhelming work at non-unionized jobs, and about half of all women workers are “concentrated in 21 occupations which are the lowest paying jobs in the U.S.” (8). Because organizing through class solidarity was one of the main principles of the WUO, information about who comprises the working class is of paramount importance.

In response to the final question, the article essentially writes that women work for the same reasons as everyone else: survival. However, their contribution to society and economic development “has been erased from history and ridiculed by myths about womanhood, all of which serve the imperialists” (9).

The article goes on to dispel the myths that 1) “women don’t have to work;” 2) “women are hard to organize;” 3) “women belong in the home.” By dispelling these myths, the WUO positions itself as not only an explicitly feminist organization but also as one of the few organizations of the New Left that center women. Readers of Osawatomie would have largely been other members of the WUO and leftists, therefore this detailed article would hopefully work to quell sexism within the leftist community.

“The Women’s Question is a Class Question”

Each issue includes a section called “Where We Stand” meant to focus on one issue in particular and give the WUO stance. Two issues following the article “An Investigation of Women Workers”, Osawatomie’s “Where We Stand” focused on women’s liberation.

Titled “The Women’s Question is a Class Question,” the article is written by Weatherwoman Celia Sojourn, another member of the group’s Central Committee. Echoing the group’s previous writings on the Women’s Movement and as the title states, the WUO situated women’s liberation in the larger context of class struggle. More than this though, the article goes on to talk about key problems in many mainstream feminist spaces. These issues are the separation of white women’s movement from Black and other Women of Color’s movements, the idea that men are the enemies of women, and that the women’s movement “doesn’t have to take on the state” (5). If these three issues persist, Sojourn argues, the movement will never be successful.

 

 

Works Cited

Celia Sojourn. “The Women’s Question is a Class Question.” Osawatomie, vol. 1, no. 4, Weather Underground Organization, Winter 1975-76, pp. 3-5.

Weather Underground Organization. “A Mighty Army: An Investigation of Women Workers.” Osawatomie, vol. 1, no. 2, Weather Underground Organization, Summer 1975, pp. 6-14.

For a group most remembered by their bombing campaigns, poetry may seem like an unexpected political and revolutionary tool. However, when put into the context of the radical feminist poetry and print movement, it makes sense that the Weatherwomen should add their own contribution and engage in the feminist tradition of poetry as an extraordinary political instrument.

Published in 1975, Sing a Battle Song: Poems by Women in the Weather Underground is a collection of poems written by women of the WUO. No poem has a named author nor does the anthology. Instead, the anthology centers not only on the collective voice of the Weatherwomen but the struggles of Vietnamese women and other women of color worldwide. The collection’s dedication to “all women / who are fighting / fighting to survive / fighting to live in dignity / fighting to change things” is intentionally widespread in an effort to call attention to the experiences of women across race and class divides.

Prior to the poems, Sing a Battle Song’s introduction cements the anthology’s aims and ideologies, building on the idea of “revolutionary sisterhood” first introduced in Prairie Fire. Namely, that the struggle for women’s rights is fundamentally an anti-imperialist struggle. In order to end the ways women are “dehumanized and exploited,” the institutions and forces that enforce these practices need to be destroyed. The introduction also offers the Weatherwomen’s stance on poetry and the purpose of publishing these poems:

We are not professional poets. Some poems were chosen for what they say, some for how they say it. Poems are for people to write, as they live; they are a way to share experiences and move others. We prepared this book of poetry as cultural workers, striving to create poems which are accessible to the people and responsible to the struggle (1).

At a time when the actions of women are policed and restrained, poetry offers a uniquely liberating form from which to express these experiences. In order to look at the way these poems reached across race, class, sexuality, and nation-state borders, I will be analyzing “Spider Poem,” “For Assata Shakur,” and “For Two Sisters.”

“For Two Sisters”

“For Two Sisters” paints a picture of love, security, and the simple beauty of female love.

The use of all lowercase letters lends the poem an air of intimacy; it also feels innocent and young as if through the letter case the poem is trying to capture the very sensations of the love it describes. Speaking directly to the reader, the author writes that “i think of you often / woman love” (25).  By addressing the reader directly, the poem feels almost like a love letter with the reader embodying her partner. She tenderly remembers the woman coming upstairs in the mornings, “still drowsy with sleep / lovemaking on your breath / on your bodies” (25). This description is sensuous and tender. Although the author is speaking about sex, it is not a graphic description. Rather, diction like “lovemaking” bathes the scene with feelings of domestic contentment. Yet, it is not the physical connection or even what the women say together that sticks with the author. Instead, it is “the touch of your closeness and / womandepth of your loving / that have become for me / a time worn mirror / into which i’ve often looked / seeking my reflection there” (25). The depth of their emotional intimacy, specifically her partner’s “womandepth” is what has kept her whole. Her desire to seek her reflection in the “time worn mirror” not only points to the desire to be seen the way her lover sees her but how another woman who loves her has seen her. Her special “womandepth” is an intrinsic part of her being, captured in the intimacy of this poem.

“Spider Poem” 

Through the imagery of a spider weaving a web, “Spider Poem” calls attention to how women’s struggles are united and woven together in a way that transcends geographical location yet also recognizes the nuances of different experiences. The poem begins, “spider, spin me a world web / touch women far away / I go slide down the strands / subway spider strands / to other lands / to touch other hands” (9). The metaphorical “web” is what connects all women in their collective struggle and shared experiences. This opening stanza makes clear that the different segments of the metaphorical web are not separate, rather, women can access and learn about each other’s experiences if they “slide” or ride the “subway” strands. No experience is utterly closed off between women, even if they are different, there is this fundamental “web” connecting them.

Even though women are able to connect to each other’s shared experiences, the poem still acknowledges the differences in experiences, captured in the line: “We will meet / all of us /. women of every land / children on backs, in / arms, in shopping carts” (10). The three options of children “on backs” or “in arms” or “in shopping carts” highlight these differences. Yet even with these differences, whether they be class, race, or location, the author promises that “We will meet / in the center / make a circle / to discuss / to simply discuss / to simply discuss amongst / ourselves / our lives” (10). Here, the “center” is the union of these women, the place where their lives intersect so they may come together. The desire of sharing and power of “simply discuss[ing] our lives” as the poem expresses was a critical component of the Women’s Movement. Ending the isolation that trapped women in their condition alone was paramount to the success of the movement. As this poem highlights, the power of shared experience cannot go underestimated. In this way, power is what transforms the spider web into the final stanza’s “spidernet” (10). While webs are fragile, nets are strong, strong enough to “entangle / the powers / that bury / our children” (10). Nets can last generations. And, as this final line promises, the Women’s movement not only transcends place but also time. It is with a powerful worldwide network of women that true liberation and justice will be secured.

“For Assata Shakur”

In the mid-1970s, poems and odes to Assata Shakur were not uncommon. Shakur was an activist with the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Movement, the anti-war movement, and other groups. On May 2nd, 1973, according to a recent Essence article, Shakur was “pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice and then charged with murder of a police officer” (Paula Rogo). She spent six and a half years in a maximum-security prison before escaping in 1979 to Cuba where she has lived in exile ever since. There is currently a two-million-dollar reward for her arrest.  To this day, she remains, in the words of Essence magazine, a “revolutionary Black icon.”

“For Assata Shakur” is an ode to her life—a cry for her wrongful persecution and a celebration of her strength. The author speaks to Shakur’s dexterity as a political leader, telling her “You moved among your people / a gentle wind / Invisibly winding into their lives” (4). A “gentle wind” does not speak to any particular gentleness of character or action, but rather how Shakur’s work and activism encompassed all parts of the lives she fought for and how her work will continue to shape and mold people and the world for years to come.

Once Shakur escaped from prison, she immediately became a target of the U.S. government including the F.B.I. and state police. During this especially tumultuous time, she garnered much support from the outside as expressed by the poem’s speaker: “when they hunted you hard / I was a visible supporter, / working on another front.” The author, and thus the Weatherwomen as a whole, are unwavering in their support for Shakur. By including this poem, the Weatherwomen further affirm their commitment to freedom and justice for all women. Any woman’s fight for her liberation is their fight as well, and so when Shakur was captured, “I wept / for all of us” (10).

On the back cover of the anthology is a final note to the readers of Sing a Battle Song. Addressing the note to the organization’s “sisters and brothers” includes men in the conversation and struggle for women’s liberation. This choice reinforces the WUO’s assertion that men themselves are not the problem, rather, it is the larger systems of oppression that strengthen and uphold the patriarchy. The WUO sent this anthology to bookstores and presses specifically on March 8th, International Women’s Day. A day where “millions of people around the world celebrate the victories that women have won in the liberation struggle. It is a day when we gather to reaffirm our commitment to the struggles that lie ahead.” This anthology, then, both lifts up and celebrates the incredible work done by women globally to end their oppression while still looking forward to all the work that remains. For this work to happen and achieve the global liberation of women, the Weatherwomen wrote: “We believe that revolutionary culture helps to weave us together and acts as a source of renewed strength. Our poetry, our art, our music are powerful weapons in each of our hands.” In this poetic way, militant feminism is not just about literal weapons or threatening violence or destruction. Instead, it is about powerful declarations of humanity, love, and strength that in the hands of a committed collective, have the power to truly change the world.

Works Cited

Rogo, Paula. “8 Things to Know About Assata Shakur and the Calls to Bring Her Back from Cuba.” Essence, 26 Oct. 2020.

Weatherwomen. “For Assata Shakur.” Sing a Battle Song: Poems by the Women in the Weather Underground Organization, edited by the Weatherwomen, Weather Underground Organization, pp. 3-4.

Weatherwomen. “For Two Sisters.”  Sing a Battle Song: Poems by the Women in the Weather Underground Organization, edited by the Weatherwomen, Weather Underground Organization, pp. 25.

Weatherwomen. “Spider Poem.” Sing a Battle Song: Poems by the Women in the Weather Underground Organization, edited by the Weatherwomen, Weather Underground Organization, pp. 9-10.

Weather Underground Organization, editors. Sing a Battle Song: Poems by the Women in the Weather Underground Organization, Weather Underground Organization, 1975.