After I had known [Barack Obama] for a while, I remember saying to my partner, “You know, this guy is really ambitious, I think he wants to be Mayor of Chicago.” That was the limit of my imagination.
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.
The president of the University said that night, congratulations to you the students, you’ve won a great victory, now the war will end. And I’m certain that he believed it that night and I believed it and we went away happy. Four days later, Martin Luther King was assassinated.
[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.
Well, first of all I think that we have to be careful with terms like the working class, obviously. When [Karl] Marx wrote about the working class he was writing about something much more bounded than we’re talking about.
![Bill Ayers Quote - After I had known [Barack Obama] for a while, I remember saying to my partner, “You know, this guy is really ambitious, I think he wants to be Mayor of Chicago.” That was the limit of my imagination.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/after-i-had-known-barack-obama-for-a-while-i-remem.jpg)
![Bill Ayers Quote - [The whole first year at university] was a great time for me and great time of awakening.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/the-whole-first-year-at-university-was-a-great-tim.jpg)
![Bill Ayers Quote - I’m not disappointed in [Barack] Obama. He said who he is; he’s doing what he said he would do.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/im-not-disappointed-in-barack-obama-he-said-who-he.jpg)
![Bill Ayers Quote - His [Martin Luther King] last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, is a direct reference to angles, barbarism or socialism.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/his-martin-luther-king-last-book-where-do-we-go-fr.jpg)
![Bill Ayers Quote - [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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/lyndon-johnson-was-responding-to-a-black-freedom-m.jpg)
![Bill Ayers Quote - Well, first of all I think that we have to be careful with terms like the working class, obviously. When [Karl] Marx wrote about the working class he was writing about something much more bounded than we’re talking about.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/well-first-of-all-i-think-that-we-have-to-be-caref-683x1024.jpg)
