Top Bill Ayers Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Bill Ayers Biography

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 imperialism, 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.

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Bill Ayers Quotes

If you were against slavery in 1840 and a white person, you would have been against the law, the Bible, your church, your pastor, your parents, common sense, tradition, everything. You would have been against everything.

Law, White, Common Sense, Church, Tradition, Sense

The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam.

Life, Massive, Movement, Vietnam, War

I spoke at the University of Georgia, and a whole contingent of Tea Party people in Hell's Angels regalia came in and sat in the front and scowled at me while I gave my talk. And afterwards the head of the group got to the microphone and said, I'm surprised that I agree with almost everything you said, but I'm worried that you're a big government guy.

Angel, Contingent, Government, Microphone, Party, People

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.

Group, Growth, Organization, Vietnam, War, Ways

Fairly apolitical. Kind of aspiring to participate in life. I'm 18-19 years old. Wanting to dive into the world and finding the world opening for me in ways that were unimaginable. I didn't sleep for the whole first year at university because it was too much going on. Too many films to see, too many concerts to go to.

Sleep, Wanting, World, Years

Nothing is more boring than some old person going on and on about the way things used to be.

Boring, Old, Person, Used, Way

I'm not disappointed in [Barack] Obama. He said who he is; he's doing what he said he would do.

Barack, Disappointed, Obama, Said

[Lyndon ] Johnson was responding to a black freedom movement that was tearing the country open and he did what he had to do as a conservative politician.

Black, Country, Freedom, Movement, Politician

When [my dad] was at the University of Michigan, my mom was a social-worker. As he rose, he voted for [Adlai] Stevenson initially. Then he voted for [Dwight] Eisenhower. Then he kept voting Republican until he voted for Barack Obama. So that's kind of amazing. But he was offered a cabinet post by Eisenhower in his second term. So he was moderate Republican. But if you asked him, he would've said, "I don't have any politics. I'm a business person. " Mainstream, the American view, as he understood it.

Dad, Kept, Mainstream, Mom, Post, Views

I'm an optimist in my heart - I'm a hopeless pollyanna just like my mother - but a pessimist in my head. I think that's the dialectic we all need to be in.

Mother, Heart, Thinking, Optimist, Hopeless

I've said for thirty years that capitalism is an exhausted system. But now you can see the handwriting everywhere. And one especially horrifying part is the fiscal crisis.

Capitalism, Exhausted, Handwriting, System, Years

Politicians are conservative by nature.

Conservative, Nature, Politician, Politicians

Something about the fact that an African American had, given the long sad history of our country, now become President - that was exhilarating.

African American, American, Country, Long

One of the things that's complicated about writing anything is that it's an act of narcissism, and then of course once it sails out into the world, you have to let go of it.

Act, Let, Letting Go, Things, World, Writing

Organizing the working class in England or the U. S. or any other advanced capitalist country has been a daunting challenge.

Advanced, Challenges, Class, Country, Organizing

If you read Martin Luther King speeches and sermons in the last two years of his life - you might want to - when I read these to my students, they think it's Malcom X because it's so radical. And if you read nothing else - if your viewers read nothing else - then the April 4, 1967, speech at Riverside Church called "Beyond Vietnam," that's where he says the greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my country. And he connects the triplets of evil, racism, militarism, and materialism, and that connection makes him a radical.

Country, Kings, Life, Thinking, Violence

My brother and I met several times during that weekend trying to figure out what we were each going to do, and we met for breakfast the morning of the sit-in and I had decided that I was going to go get arrested, and he decided that he was going to have the harder job and go tell our parents that I'd been arrested.

Brother, Harder, Jobs, Morning, Parents, Tell

To me, activism requires you to try very hard to open your eyes to the world as it is. See as much as you can, knowing that whatever you see is going to be partial. That you possess a partial consciousness in an infinite and expanding universe.

Eye, Expanding Universe, Knowing, Universe, Expanding, Partial

Injustice anywhere is an assault on all of us. That means that we all can get busy.

Anywhere, Assault, Busy, Injustice, Mean

I do think [Barack Obama's] strategy for re-election is so misguided. He's counting on the Republicans to self-destruct, and they might, you know, but they might not. So he might be a one-term president.

Thinking, Self, President, Think, Republicans, Strategy

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