The day before every revolution that’s ever happened, that revolution was impossible. The day before Rosa Parks, that was impossible. The day after, it was inevitable.

Bill Ayers

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Two thousand people a day were being murdered in Vietnam in a terrorist war, an official terrorist war.
BILL AYERS

Murdered
Blanche Wiesen Cook
BLANCHE WIESEN COOK
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
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.

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.
BILL AYERS

Sorry
Imperialism or globalization – I don’t have to care what it’s called to hate it.

BILL AYERS

Bill Ayers
BILL AYERS

Imperialism
What were the politics of my family? They were mainstream moderate politics.
BILL AYERS

Mainstream Moderate
I suffer from a genetic flaw, which is that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna.

BILL AYERS

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

Hopeless
Large numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.

BILL AYERS

Large numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.
BILL AYERS

Broken Numbers
Politicians are conservative by nature.
BILL AYERS

Conservative Politician
They were pretty interesting about being interesting able to look at their children and think oh my children know things and they gave us a lot of sense of our own agency, and that may be a kind of a ruling class trait.
BILL AYERS

May Ruling
I breathed the air of deliverance through books, and through books I leapt over the walls of confinement.
BILL AYERS

Confident
When someone who’s always been in your life is gone, it’s a stunning adjustment of your own identity.
BILL AYERS

Adjustment Gone
We should open our eyes, see what’s in front of us, and act.

BILL AYERS

We should open our eyes, see what’s in front of us, and act.
BILL AYERS

Eye Fronts Should
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.

BILL AYERS

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.
BILL AYERS

White
I lasted a year and a half at Michigan before I dropped out and joined the merchant marines and I was a merchant marine for my sophomore year then I came back to Michigan.
BILL AYERS

Lasted Marine Merchant Year
In Cairo, these young men hanging around in the street, we’re told these guys are lazy, they’re uneducated, they don’t care, they don’t have any political instincts – just like the working class in America, apparently – and then suddenly what the hell happened?
BILL AYERS

Happened Political