Absolutely, Jill. Happy to recommend other authors.
In contemporary non-fiction, off the top of my head I recommend Heather Ann Thompson, Alex Kotlowitz, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Jo Ann Beard, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Edwige Danticat.
For novels, I love Ben Lerner, Emma Cline, Sally Rooney, Chris Ware, James McBride. And my wife, Rachel DeWoskin, has written five brilliant novels—my personal favorite is BIG GIRL SMALL.
I love James McBride and Sally Rooney and will give the others, including your wife’s books a try. After writing your book, have you heard from other people who grew up in the underground. How are they faring. Anyone rebel and become a secret conservative.
Yes, I’ve heard from many children of the underground (we call ourselves “Weather Kids” and “Panther Cubs”). Many of them I already knew, but I’ve also connected to some I had never met.
Interestingly, no one (that I know of) has become a secret conservative. Of course, no one has become an armed revolutionary either. Most of us are writers or historians social workers or lawyers or teachers—all the ones I know are progressive, and most are trying, in their own way, to make the world a better place.
Despite living underground or because of it, you and your fellow Weather Kids and Panther Cubs, seem to recognize the importance of preserving history, encouraging nonviolent change and giving back. At one point, your parents, especially your father, was used to attack Barack Obama. What impact did this have on you and your family.
Yes, during the 2008 election, my father’s connection to Barack Obama was used by Fox News and others to imply that the Democratic presidential candidate was somehow “un-American. Sarah Palin memorably accused Obama of “pallin’ around with terrorists.”
At the time, it was surreal—by 2008, my father had been an ordinary citizen for decades. The city of Chicago had given him a “Citizen of the Year” award for his work on school reform. So it was strange to be drawn back into the national political conversation based on a caricature from 30 years earlier. Of course, it’s always disruptive to be in the middle of a national press scandal, and for a while it made it hard to go about our daily lives. But once the election was over, our lives pretty much went back to normal.
Sorry for all upheaval it caused to your family. If it helps any, anyone in opposition to a conservative agenda is a radical left terrorist, so we are in this together. Thank you so much for writing this book, participating in this discussion and answering my questions. I look forward to your future projects. I’ll keep following this thread to see what others think and if I have any additional queries.
How many hours of interviews did you have to conduct for the podcast? Is there a person who was reluctant to speak to you who finally agreed? Whose story, apart from your parents’, did you find the most surprising or interesting?
Which part of the podcast or book did you find the most fun to research?
I know you received a lot of positive feedback for the podcast and book. I’m curious, though, whether you heard from people who were angered by your parents’ story?
I did hundreds of hours of interviews. The most interesting, apart from my parents, was probably Jamal Joseph, the former Black Panther who was 16 when he was arrested as part of the Panther 21 trial, and eventually went underground as part of the Black Liberation Army. It was also super fun to interview my daughters, who talked to me about their view of my parents, and of their family legacy.
Most of the feedback has been incredibly positive. Of course, my parents are super polarizing, so there have been people who respond by attacking my parents, often without reading the book at all. And there has been the usual handful of hate comments and death threats. But my family is used to that. It’s been good to see that even many people who think they know the story of the Weather Underground or the Black Panthers feel like they learn something from this story.
What do your students think of the book. Do they know your background or are they surprised.
During the podcast, there’s a scene you talk about where your daughter and your dad get into a debate over dinner about John Brown’s sacrifice. She tells him, “it’s not really a rational thing to give up your family and then yourself.” He counters that it’s not rational to just let slavery be.
You and the other kids impacted by your parents’ actions struggled with this question, too, but it seems like by-and-large you and others seem to understand them, at least in part.
Did your daughters listen to the podcast and/or read the book? What were their reactions after the material was released? Do you think they understand their grandparents’ actions any better now?
You mention that there has been some progress on some issues. Under the current administration, though, there’s been a lot of backsliding. I sense that people are really angry. There have been a number of very large peaceful protests, and some violent ones as well (particularly after George Flloyd’s murder).
I don’t have a lot of contact with young adults. Do you get the sense that they’re angry, too, or is it mostly the older generation, who are more aware of losing the things they struggled so hard for?
Having grown up in the time period discussed in the book, I see parallels, but overall I still feel like the tensions that existed back then aren’t present now (at least, not yet). Do you think we’re at the cusp of a more contentious time, or is the calmer atmosphere the way protests have evolved over time?
(Yes, I know I’m asking you to predict the future, haha.)
I keep asking myself where today’s political protest songs are. I’m not sure if I’m just out of the loop or if there truly aren’t a lot of musicians speaking out right now.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the next generation—my students and my daughters—and their reactions both to the book and to what’s happening in the country.
My students might know my family story if they bothered to google me, but it’s not something I bring up in class. But yes, both my daughters and many of my students have now read my book, and I think they feel inspired by many of the stories from thaty time. Not that they’re ready to become armed revolutionaries, but just the idea that young people in this country were once willing to sacrifice so much to try to change the world.
I do think young people right now are angry, and I do think we might be on the cusp of a darker turn. I couldn’t help but notice, in my research, that my parents and their friends spent almost the entire decade of the 1960s protesting peacefully against racism and against the Vietnam War. They ran voter registration drives, marched in demonstrations, were arrested in non-violent sit-ins. And yet nothing seemed to change. By 1969, the Vietnam War was escalating. Black leaders were being assassinated by the government. If anything, the situation seemed to be getting worse.
The turn towards violence in 1970 grew out of that decade-long disillusionment. And I do worry that we might be at a similar moment—that a decade of protesting since 2016 has seemingly failed to stop the erosion of our democracy and the march of white Christian nationalism. That situation is a breeding ground for extremism on all sides.
And speaking of protest songs, what can you tell us about your musical? How did it come to be?
My musical came out of listening to the music of Rage Against the Machine back in 2020, during the BLM protests and the racial reckoning over racist police violence.
Rage was one of my favorite bands back in high school, and there was something about that sense of anger and outrage that seemed to speak to our current moment.
So I reached out to Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Morello and asked if he’d consider letting me use his music to tell a story of intergenerational resistance in Chicago. He was open to the idea, so I wrote a script that integrated some of his existing songs. When he read the script, he got excited, and wrote some new music for the show, and we were off and running.
REVOLUTION(S) opened at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in October, with an incredible cast and creative team, and had an outstanding run there. We’re currently working to bring the show to New York.
In spite of the vast amount of news we have available - and available instantly - I feel like overall people are less informed than they were in the 70s. People read the news that aligns with their own opinions, and consequently we only get more polarized. What do you think is the best way to sway individuals away from truly fake news and back to facts?