The

Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a Far-left politics, far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organiz ...

organized collectives around the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in an attempt "to challenge the state directly in solidarity with Third World liberation movements, particularly the Black Power movement here and the Vietnamese in Southeast Asia."

Collectives A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

organized the white working class against imperialism by holding militant demonstrations and engaging in small scale property damage.

Formation of the Seattle Collective

During the Ave Riots in Seattle's University District on August 10–14, 1969, the women who were participating came together and from this bonding experience, formed "the core of the Seattle Weathermen". The Ave Riots were part of larger actions around the country protesting the Vietnam War. Rioters in Seattle were also protesting police brutality, but news reports from the time claim that the group was just "teenagers looking for trouble." However, less than a week after these Riots, the Seattle Weather Collective was formed.

Preparing for Chicago's Days of Rage

The first item on the Seattle collective's agenda was to help organize for the

Days of Rage The Days of Rage were a series of protests during three days in October 1969 in Chicago, organized by the emerging Weatherman faction of Students for a Democratic Society. The group planned the October 8–11 event as a "National Action" ...

that would be in Chicago in October 1969. Members of the Seattle collective produced pamphlets about the

in order to raise awareness of the event and encourage people to travel to Chicago to participate.

Jailbreaks

Members of the Seattle Collective would visit several high schools a day in an attempt to recruit members and encourage students to travel to Chicago for the

. They titled this action jailbreaks, taking over classrooms while one member stood on a desk speaking to the students. Other members would block doorways and telephones so no one of authority could be notified to what was going on. Others would spray paint the group's slogans on the blackboards.

ROTC attacks

Reserve Officers' Training Corps The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Overview While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...

centers were a popular place for protesting. These offices are where college students are trained for the U.S. military. In May 1970 alone, "thirty ROTC buildings were burned or bombed and National Guard units were mobilized on twenty-one campuses in sixteen states." By protesting these offices that prepare officers for war, Weather Underground was protesting an "empire

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

feeds on war."

September 30, 1969

Female members of the collective stormed the Air Force ROTC office on the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

campus. They "spray aintedwalls, throwing ink bombs, and resisting ROTC cadets who tried to detain them". The women surprised the ROTC cadets who were chasing them by turning back for a member who had been detained and attacking the men.

October 02, 1969

News of the September 30th ROTC attack attracted three hundred people to a rally that preceded the Students for a Democratic Society's first meeting of the year in Seattle. Following several speakers, Susan Stern stood up and declared "we're going to smash an ROTC building". A group of people jumped up and followed Stern to the

's Clark Hall where there was an ROTC office. Once again, the group spray painted walls and resisted the cadets trying to stop them. No one was arrested for this action. The

later banned six non-students who had been present for the action.

December 01, 1969

The ROTC office in the

's Savery Hall was attacked. This was the final straw for the

, they no longer recognized

Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...

as a student organization on their campus.

January 18, 1970

On the day before the

Seattle Liberation Front The Seattle Liberation Front, or SLF, was a radical anti-Vietnam War movement, based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. The group, founded by the University of Washington visiting philosophy professor and political activist Michael L ...

's organizing meeting, two members of the Seattle collective, Trim Bissell and his wife Judith were caught planting a bomb under the Air Force ROTC building at the

April 30, 1970

President Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was t ...

announced he was sending United States troops into Cambodia. Protests erupted around the country, and Seattle. On the

campus, ROTC offices were attacked in a similar manner to previous Weather Underground attacks on the ROTC offices and Downtown demonstrators attacked the Boeing Employment Center.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seattle Weather Collective Far-left politics in the United States Guerrilla organizations Weather Underground COINTELPRO targets Defunct American political movements Political violence in the United States History of Seattle Crimes in Washington (state) 1969 establishments in Washington (state) Left-wing militant groups in the United States