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So we were ecstatic and we swirled around spontaneously, the campus in Ann Harbor and about 4,000 of us landed on the steps of the president of the University of Michigan’s home.

Bill Ayers

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
I don’t think saying “I was wrong here, I was wrong there” absolves you of anything particularly, nor does it get you into heaven.
BILL AYERS

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

Murdered People War
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.
BILL AYERS

Assisted Congratulations Kings War
This 1965. We went to trial on our city. We were obviously borrowing tactics and strategy from the Black freedom movement, and we were echoing their approach to things.
BILL AYERS

Black Cities Trials
That’s what [Abraham] Lincoln said. “The white man will always be above the black man. I don’t want them to run for office, or have political rights, or vote. I want them to go back to Africa.”
BILL AYERS

Men Rights Running
I was involved in the anti-war movement.
BILL AYERS

Involved Movement War
Certainly my parents were Dr. [Benjamin] Spock-driven parents. So they were tolerant.
BILL AYERS

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

Hopeless Mother Suffering
Hating war in Vietnam in 1965 was minority position.
BILL AYERS

Hate Minorities War
One of the things that happened that I think is noteworthy, my parents were pretty tolerant people given their position in society.
BILL AYERS

Agency Children Thinking
I think I am a radical. I have never deviated from that. By radical, I mean someone trying to go to the root of things.
BILL AYERS

Mean Roots Thinking
I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.
BILL AYERS

Children Fire Military Trillion World
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.
BILL AYERS

Agree Government Guy Surprise Worried
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
Part of the fun of writing, touring, teaching, is engaging with real people about all of it: what to do now, how to build a movement, of approaches to teaching, of parenting – it’s exciting to be in that dialogue.
BILL AYERS

Fun Real Teaching

So we were ecstatic and we swirled around spontaneously, the campus in Ann Harbor and about 4,000 of us landed on the steps of the president of the University of Michigan’s home.

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So we were ecstatic and we swirled around spontaneously, the campus in Ann Harbor and about 4,000 of us landed on the steps of the president of the University of Michigan’s home.

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Popular Authors

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