Bill Ayers

William Charles "Bill" Ayers (born December 26, 1944) is an American elementary education theorist and a leader in the counterculture movement who opposed US involvement in the Vietnam War. He is known for his 1960s radical activism and his current work in education reform, curriculum and instruction. In 1969, he co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described communist revolutionary group with the intent to overthrow the U. S. Government., that conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings (including police stations, the US Capitol Building, and the Pentagon) during the 1960s and 1970s in response to US involvement in the Vietnam War.

Contents

• Bill Ayers The Call To Teach
• Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn Demand the Impossible
• Early life
• Early activism
• Involvement with Weather Underground
• Fugitive Days A Memoir
• Statements made in 2001
• Views on his past expressed since 2001
• Academic career
• Civic and political life
• Political views
• ObamaAyers Controversy
• Personal life
• Works
• References

He is a retired professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, formerly holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar. During the 2008 US Presidential campaign, a controversy arose over his contacts with candidate Barack Obama. He is married to Bernardine Dohrn, who was also a leader in the Weather Underground.

Early life

Ayers grew up in Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. His parents are Mary (née Andrew) and Thomas G. Ayers, who was later chairman and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Edison (1973 to 1980), and for whom Northwestern's Thomas G. Ayers College of Commerce and Industry was named. He attended public schools until his second year in high school, when he transferred to Lake Forest Academy, a small prep school. Ayers earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from the University of