Weatherman
With the split of SDS in 1969, Oughton and Ayers joined the Weatherman faction. Oughton's sense of herself made it more difficult to get along with her father. Her parents' lives in Dwight, Illinois were seen by Oughton as complacent and secure. Oughton saw lives in the impoverished sections of Chicago and Detroit as chaotic. At this time, SDS protests became more violent and radical. Oughton and Ayers had been drifting apart since December 1968. Monogamy, according to Ayers, would interfere with his political work. Oughton replaced her old friends, and she abandoned teaching, for politics was now Oughton's life. Merrill Rosenberg told Oughton, "Revolution means violence and risk, or it is only talk. The Weathermen's arguments pointed to their conclusion that the time was now to fight."
In August 1969, Oughton participated in an SDS delegation that traveled to Cuba for the third meeting between Vietnamese and American delegates. The Vietnamese called the meeting to discuss progress taken in the peace movement as the war in Vietnam was entering its final stages. Oughton was impressed by Cuba's progress in literacy and medical treatment. The pace of movement toward action within the Weathermen picked up soon after their return from Cuba.
Oughton and seventy-five other Weatherwomen drove to Pittsburgh on September 3, 1969, after attending a caucus in Cleveland to take part in what the Weathermen Group called a practice run of the "Days of Rage". On the morning of September 4, twenty Weatherwomen entered the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) office and held the office workers captive until the Weatherwomen had run off copies of a leaflet to be handed out to student sympathizers. One of the Weatherwomen told Miss Dodd, who worked in the AFSC office, "We thought until now you were on our side. Now we know you are a member of the enemy." A short time later, all seventy-five Weatherwomen appeared at South Hills High School in Pittsburgh to participate in a "jailbreak". The women spray painted anti-war slogans "Ho lives" and "Free Huey" on the school's main entrance doors, and handed out leaflets, urging high school students to "bring the war home," and asking students to leave the school campus. Some Weatherwomen made speeches in the school's play yard about racism, imperialism, and the SDS national action plans. Oughton was able to escape from the Pittsburgh police, but 26 others, including Cathy Wilkerson and Jane Spielman, were arrested at the school. The students at the high school had no idea who the Weatherwomen were, or even why the women chose their school.
Part of this move toward greater violence was seen during the "Days of Rage" in Chicago, taking place on October 8-11, 1969. One purpose of the "Days of Rage" was to create an image of strength and determination that would win converts to revolutionary violence. Weathermen gathered at Grant Park, around a fire made from nearby park benches. They listened to leaders' speeches about Che Guevara and the world revolution. The last speech spurred the group to head for the Drake Hotel, which was the home of federal judge Julius Hoffman. He was the presiding judge at the Chicago 8 trial. Weathermen took their helmets, clubs and chains, and entered into the streets. The group smashed car windshields and store windows. Oughton was one of the people arrested on October 9 in Chicago, when she was spied by police keeping an eye out for other Weathermen who might turn up. Her bail was set at $5,000, which her father came up from Dwight to pay. Until Oughton's arrest, her family did not know who the Weathermen were or what they stood for. After she was released, Mr. Oughton dropped his daughter off at a church where she was meeting up with other Weathermen; shortly afterward, police raided the church and arrested 43 members of the group. Oughton managed to escape by jumping from a ground floor window.
After the "Days of Rage", the group became increasingly violent. Oughton returned home for a short visit around Christmas Day 1969. She seemed pleased to receive some clothing items and other gifts from her family. Though she appeared thin and fatigued, her family did not press her to stay. Oughton left her parents' home for the last time to go to Flint, Michigan for the December 27 "War Council" meeting. Oughton made the decision at the meeting to go underground. In her book Flying Close to the Sun, former Weatherman member Cathy Wilkerson describes meeting with Terry Robbins, also a member of the Jesse James Gang, who told her about a small, semi-clandestine group in New York to which he belonged. He explained briefly that the group had already been active: a firebomb had been thrown at the home of Judge Murtagh, then presiding over the trial of the Panther 21. When Wilkerson joined the collective, the members were in need of a place to stay. Wilkerson's father had a townhouse in New York but was to be away for a couple of weeks. Terry Robbins wondered whether Wilkerson could get the keys. She did so, and the group arrived at 18 West 11th Street to decide their next move.
Jonah Raskin, whose wife Eleanor Raskin was part of the Weather Underground organization, and who was himself a courier for the Underground, recalls the last time he spoke with the members of the collective in New York: "I had talked to them not long before the townhouse blew up and they seemed to have lost touch with reality- and were incapable of making sensible decisions about almost everything."
Read more about this topic: Diana Oughton