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It’s not Lyndon Johnson who makes the black freedom movement; it’s the black freedom movement who makes Lyndon Johnson.

Bill Ayers

I don’t know that I ever bought into the “American dream.” I was a child of privilege. I grew up in the ’50s and it was a quiet time in America, at least on the surface and I grew up in a kind of feathery bed of privilege.
BILL AYERS

America Children Dream
I was terrible student at Michigan, terrible. Because there was too much else to do. I was learning form too many other sources to go to class.
BILL AYERS

Class Michigan Sources Terrible
Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.
BILL AYERS

Day Ideals Pentagon
I get up every morning and think…today I’m going to end capitalism.
BILL AYERS

Morning Thinking Today
There was one moment when J. Edgar Hoover and us had the same distorted lens about who we were – “a real threat,” you know? He thought so and we thought so and we were buddies in that regard.
BILL AYERS

Lenses Moments Real
I was a good liberal in some sense at that point. I wanted to end a war. I wanted to support the civil rights movement.
BILL AYERS

Rights Support War
Your body’s always going through changes. It’s fattening or thinning or wrinkling or blotching, and the only thing you really have control over is putting some decoration on it.
BILL AYERS

Body Changes Fattening Going Through
It’s not Lyndon Johnson who makes the black freedom movement; it’s the black freedom movement who makes Lyndon Johnson.
BILL AYERS

Black Movement
Imperialism or globalization – I don’t have to care what it’s called to hate it.
BILL AYERS

Care Hate Imperialism
The great example, the killer example in history, is of course Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator. Read his speeches. Read the debates. Wendell Phillips called him “the great slaver from Illinois.”
BILL AYERS

Example Illinois Speech
[John] McCain seemed to be winking to the Right, and [Barack] Obama seemed to be winking to the Left. Neither one of them – if McCain had been elected we’d still be where we are on gay rights.
BILL AYERS

Gay Rights Winking
In terms of my own behavior and activity, the funny thing about regrets and saying “I’m sorry,” is that there’s so much I would do differently and want to do differently moving forward.
BILL AYERS

Moving Regret Sorry
Something about the fact that an African American had, given the long sad history of our country, now become President – that was exhilarating.
BILL AYERS

Country Exhilarating Long
Being an activist and an artist – those two things should go together. You should allow the artistic sensibility to control some of your activism, but never should it be allowed to paralyze you.
BILL AYERS

Artist Together Two
I was arrested in 1965 for opposing the war in Vietnam. There were 39 of us arrested that day. But thousands opposed us. And the majority of the people in the country supported the war then.
BILL AYERS

Country People War
I more or less shared the view that life should be lived.
BILL AYERS

Less Shared Should Views
I find some unity with Ron Paul.
BILL AYERS

Find Some Unity
I get up every morning and think, today I’m going to make a difference. Today I’m going to end capitalism. Today I’m going to make a revolution. I go to bed every night disappointed but I’m back to work tomorrow, and that’s the only way you can do it.
BILL AYERS

Morning Night Thinking
All of us pursued our own passions and our own interests. One of my brothers was filmmaker. One of my brothers was a teacher. My sister was a librarian.
BILL AYERS

All Filmmakers Librarian One Teachers
The passions and commitments that ignited my activity as a student are the same passions and commitments that I have today.
BILL AYERS

Commitment Passion Today
I suffer from a genetic flaw, which is that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna.
BILL AYERS

Hopeless Mother Suffering
What were the politics of my family? They were mainstream moderate politics.
BILL AYERS

Family Mainstream Moderate
If the logic of capitalism is “expand or die,” then either it has to die or the world has to die.
BILL AYERS

Capitalism Logic World
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.
BILL AYERS

People Vietnam War
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.
BILL AYERS

Country President Spring War
I would say when I went to Michigan. It started. I got very very involved in civil rights in Ann Harbor right away. Picketing, something I never even knew existed.
BILL AYERS

Harbors Michigan Rights
You will be raising these kids in your mind your whole life. And they will change you. Your little contribution to it – twenty years from now, they’ll be marching off into other things and that’s still the legacy you leave.
BILL AYERS

Change Kids Mind Rising Years

It’s not Lyndon Johnson who makes the black freedom movement; it’s the black freedom movement who makes Lyndon Johnson.

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It’s not Lyndon Johnson who makes the black freedom movement; it’s the black freedom movement who makes Lyndon Johnson.

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