mocracy no] ♪ amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> 1970, it 20-year-old recent fall school graduate became the most wanted woman in america. >> angela davis was replaced on the fbi's most wanted list this afternoon by bernadine dohrn. >> they said she was an enemy of

the state. >> we will attack a single institution in the american justice. >> a bomb exploded earlier this morning in the pentagon. >> j edgar hoover called her the most dangerous woman in america. she is also my mother. amy: today, we spend the hour with a woman who replaced angela davis on the most wanted list, bernadine dohrn. it was 50 years ago this year they bombed the pentagon to protest the vietnam war. we will speak with bernadine dohrn and her activist husband bill ayres about how they went underground and raised a family as they continued to fight for revolution. now, a new podcast series explores their family history. it is called “mother country radicals." we will also speak to zayd, who

spoke to leaders who went to prison. asadshould core has just turned 75. bernard dohrn third, 80. that and more coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in kentucky, the death toll from last week's massive rainstorms and flooding has risen to 28, including several children. on sunday, kentucky governor andy beshear told nbc's meet the press that recovery crews face weeks of work, even as forecasters predict more rain in the coming days. >> this is one of the most devastating, deadly floods we have seen in our history with the level of water. we are going to be finding bodies for weeks, many of them

swept hundreds of yards, core plus from where they were lost. amy: meteorologists say the record-breaking deluge would have had a one in 1000 chance of happening if not for climate change. in california, governor gavin newsom has declared a state of emergency after a fire in the klamath national forest grew to become the state's largest of the year, scorching more than 52,000 acres near the california-oregon border. in montana, the elmo wildfire expanded overnight, tripling in size to over 11 square miles. in other climate news, in iran, at least 80 people were killed and dozens more remain missing, after heavy rains triggered flash floods impacting hundreds of villages, towns and cities. as the climate emergency wrecks havoc across the globe, big oil is making record profits. during the second quarter, exxon, chevron and shell made a combined $46 billion over a

three-e-month span in part due o high gas prices. on capitol hill, democratic leaders are pushing the senate to pass new legislation on healthcare, taxes, and the climate crisis before senators leave for their summer recess on friday. last week, majority leader chuck schumer announced a surprise deal with conservative west virginia democrat joe manchin on a ten-year, $739 billion domestic policy package that seeks to reduce u.s. carbon emissions by roughly 40% by the end of this decade. all eyes are now on arizona democratic senator kyrsten sinema, who has yet to announce whether she'll support the legislation. in other news from capitol hill, the house has narrowly approved a new ban on assault weapons. the bill now heads to the senate where it is not expected to advance. a ship carryg 26,000 tons of corn left the ukrainian port of odessa today.

it is the first ship to leave ukraine under a deal to reopen ports on the black sea which have been closed since russia's invasion began over five months ago. on saturday, the ceo of one of ukraine's largest grain producers and richest entrepreneurs was killed in the southern port city of mykolaiv during intense russian shelling. oleksiy vadaturskyi died along with his wife when a missile hit their home. meanwhile, a small drone attacked the headquarters of russia's black sea fleet in crimea. russia accused ukraine of carrying out the attack which injured six people. house speaker nancy pelosi has arrived in singapore to begin an asian trip that will include stops in malaysia, south korea, and japan. cnn reports that she will also visit taiwan despite warnings from china and criticism from biting officials. -- biden officials. a chinese foreign ministry spokesperson has said such a trip would be "a gross

interference in china's internal affairs." pope francis has wrapped up his trip to canada where he apologized for the abuse of indigenous children who were separated from their families and sent to church-run residential schools, where they faced psychological, physical, and sexual violence. at least 4000 children died. on his return flight home, the pope described the forced assimilation of indigenous children to be a form of genocide. >> i apologize, i asked for forgiveness for this work which was genocide. i condemned this. taking children and trying to change their culture, their minds, race, and entire culture. amy: the top watchdog at the department of homeland security abandoned efforts to recover messages sent by the agency's top two officials around the time of the january 6th assault on the capitol and failed to warn congress that important information about the insurrection may have been erased. that's according to “the washington post,” which reports that dhs inspector general

joseph cuffari -- a trump appointee -- first learned last december of the missing texts involving the den acting dhs had wolf and others. but they made no effort to alert lawmakers. on friday morning, the fbi raided several properties in st. louis, missouri and saint petersburg, florida tied to the african people's socialist party which leads the uhuru movement. the pan-africanist group has been a longtime advocate for slavery reparations and a vocal critic of u.s. foreign policy. the raids came as the justice department indicted a russian man living overseas. he is cused of using u.s.-based gros to spread russian propaganda. the groups were not named in the indictment but reportedly include the african people's socialist party. one of the fbi raids targeted the home of omali yeshitela, the founder of the african people's socialist party. he accused the fbi of targeting the group for his political work. >> they see in the african

people's socialist party a and vanguard or the struggle of the people. not only of what we do the uned states but because we had the temerity to do like garvey, to take the struggle of lack people around the world. amy: in guatemala, press freedom and human rights groups are condemning the arrest of veteran, award-winning journalist jose ruben zamora. on friday, police raided his home and the office of his newspaper, elperiodico. zamora has been accused -- without evidence -- of money laundering and blackmail. he and supporters say his arrest is in retaliation for the newspaper's probes into corruption by guatemala's right-wing president alejandro giammattei and other officials. zamora spoke to reporters after being taken into custody. >> they chased me and my children in the streets in a very dangerous way. my family had to exile. my home was illegally rated.

but they have not gone as far as now with them formally arresting me. i don't know how long the process will take. four years ago, our apparent democracy was transformed, electing a president who is a thief, who has been assaulting us for the past four years. us guatemalans don't have the capacity to defend ourselves. amy: basketball legend and civil rights activist bill russell has died at the age of 88. as a player he helped transform the game as he led the boston celtics to 11 nba championships during his 13-year career. in 1967, he became the nba's first black coach. off the court, russell was a longtime civil rights advocate. in 1961, he led a boycott of a game in kentucky after two of his black teammates were denied service at their hotel. in 1963, russell participated in the march on washington. where dr. king spoke. he also spoke out against school segregation and racism in boston which he described as a "traumatizing" pla to live.

and the pioneering black actress nichelle nichols who played lt. uhura on “star trek” has died at the age of 89. she was one of the first black women to have a leading role on television. in the 1960s, one of her biggest fans was dr. martin luther king who told her "when we see you, we see ourselves, and we see ourselves as intelligent and beautiful and proud.” nichols later worked with nasa to help the space agency recruit women and people of color. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. today, we spend the hour with an activist who replaced angela davis on the fbi's 10 most wanted list, bernadine dohrn, a leader in the 1970s's radical organization called the weather underground. it was 50 years ago this year that they bombed the pentagon to protest the vietnam war. they also battled with police during days of rage on the

streets of chicago and partnered with black liberation groups to rob banks. when bernadine dohrn and her fellow activist husband bill ayers literally went underground to avoid arrest, they then raised a family as they continued to fight for revolution. now, a new podcast explores their family history. it's produced by their son, zayd ayers dohrn. this is the trailer for “mother country radicals.” >> in 1970, a 28-year-old recent law school graduate became the most wanted woman in america. >> angela davis was replaced on the fbi's 10 most wanted list this afternoon by bernadine dohrn, described as an underground leader of the weatherman. >> they said she was an enemy of the state. >> a homegrown terrorist. >> a bomb exploded earlier this

morning in the pentagon. >> j edgar hoover called her the most dangerous woman in america. she is also my mother. amy: the mother country radicals podcast was created, written, and hosted by zayd ayers dohrn for crooked media and audacy and features interviews with his parents bernadine dohrn and bill ayers, as well as other former weather underground leaders who were captured and went to prison, like the late kathy boudin, mother of former san francisco district attorney chesa boudin, who then became a brother to zayd. zayd also speaks to kakuya shakur, daughter of assata shakur. who still lives in exile in cuba. we will hear from both later. after they resurfaced, bernadine dohrn went on to become the founding director of the children and family justice center at northwestern university school of law.

bill ayers is now a retired professor in the college of education at the university of illinois at chicago. the final installment in the 10-part “mother country radicals” series is just out. today, we bring you our interview with zayd and his parents as the series premiered last month. i spoke with them alongside juan gonzalez. we begin with one of the many archival crypts -- clips featured in mother country radicals. >> an anonymous phone call leading them to a cassette tape hidden in a public phone booth. it begins like this. >> hello. this is bernadine dohrn. i will read a declaration of a statement of or. this is the first communication of the weather underground. >> bernadine dohrn is my mother. she is recording this tape when she is 28 years old to run it by

a few friends in a safe house in san francisco in an apartment they rented using a fake id. the place is crowded. most of the people in the room are even younger than she is, student activists, grad school dropouts in their early to mid 20's. there is a device the size of a lunchbox set up in the middle of a table, an old-school tape cassette player with a red record button. >> all over the world, people fighting american imperialism look to america's youth to join forces in the destruction. kids know the lines are drawn. revolution is touching all of our lives. amy: zayd ayers dohrn, take it from there. we just listen to the voice of bernadine dohrn in los angeles. describe how that cassette got on the air. zayd: the weather underground

had just gone underground, was deciding what to do next. my mom recorded that tape, send it to radio stations, announcing they were going to launch a bombing campaign against the u.s. government in protest of the war in vietnam, in protest of police violence against black people here in america. what the show does is goes back from that moment, tells the story about how my mom was radicalized, what took her from being a straight a student at the university of chicago all the way to being on the top 10 fbi wanted list, her friends and comrades, how they got to that point as well. juan: zayd, could you tell us what drove you to do this podcast? it is an amazing series of shows. could you talk about the motivation and why at this particular time? zayd: there were two motivations.

one was political and one was personal. the political motivation, i started a right before the pandemic began. when trump was president, i was thinking about the history of resistance in america, how young people had come together at times to resist fascism, white supremacy, authoritarianism. as i went along, george floyd was murdered, we had this uprising on the streets. at the time i was interviewed my parents, others in the black panthers, black liberation army, and i learned that so many of them were radicalized after action by police. those were 7-eleven's for so many of these radicals in the 1970's. i started to realize there was this interesting echo happening today. that was the political motivation. the personal motivation, we were separated by the pandemic. i was missing my parents. i was thinking they were about to get older, my mom was turning

80, and i wanted to ask questions that i had never asked, get their voices on tape for my daughters, future generations. just wanted to have an archive of what they did, how they thought, what made them who they are today. juan: i want to welcome bill ers and bernadine dohrn, former comrades of my, students of a democratic society from decades ago. bill, the title “mother country radicals" could you talk about the origin and the meaning of that phrase? bill: it is a great title for the series because what zayd as he was going through the articles to talk people, this was the title given to us by the black panther party, fred hampton, qed newton david they said they were not interested in

allies, they were interested in comrades. they wanted to think of us not as people who were helping the struggle but people who were invested ourselves in the end of what supremacy, fighting against police violence and empire. they always to us as their comrades, mother country radicals. that is what we took on. i think zayd took that on as a starting point of coming together on the weather underground, black liberation army. amy: i want to get zayd's comment on this, but let's go first to fred hampton himself, the black panther leader, before he was assassinated by chicago police. eakinghat sa year in 19. >> a lot of people don't understand the bck panther party relionship th mothe countrradicals the a white pple in t motherountry tt are fighting

fothe same typ of things th we are we snd with anybody that has revotion on eir mind. amy: zayd ayers dohrn, talk about your choice of this title. zayd: i wanted to highlight what i found when i was doing this research into my family and history which was this remarkable moment when right radicals, black radicals, people of all colors were coming together to resist the government, white supremacy, imperialism abroad. fred hampton was try to put together a rambo coalition of activist groups here in chicago. they were a part of that rainbow coalition. there was an effort to bring these groups together. then of course friend was murdered by the chicago police. part of the series is trying to understand how white radicals and black radicals collaborated, how it was complicated, messy, but lessons we can learn today

from that effort. amy: let's go to the remarkable archival footage that is in “mother country radicals" of fred hampton's assassination. >> about 10 panthers went to the monroe street address and had a dinner and kool-aid before they went to sleep. >> fred is supposed to stay at his moms house that night. it is late. he goes into the bedroom with his fiancee deborah johnson. she is eight months pregnant with his child. >> i looked up and i saw bullets coming, it looked like the front of the apartment, from the kitchen area. they were just shooting. >> shealy remembered that night. this is after she gave birth and she is cradling her baby, fred junior you can hear him cooing in the background. >> imagine you can feel bullets

going into him. when he looked up, he didn't say a word, he didn't move. just moving his head up. he later laid his head down. he never said a word, never got off the bed. the person in the room cap hollering, stop shooting, we have a pregnant sister in here. they just kept on shooting. he kept on hollering out. finally they stopped. they pushed me and the other brother by the kitchen door, told us to face the wall. i heard him say, he is barely alive, we will barely make it. that they started shooting again.

i heard a sister scream. they stop shooting. then they said, he is good and did now. >> through all the gunfire, screaming, fred hampton never wakes up. the autopsy shows a sedative in his system. william o'neill, the panther who made the kool-aid that night, turns out he is also an fbi informant. fred had been drugged on the orders of federal law enforcement, and assassinated by chicago police. amy: it was december 4, 1969, and somehow i remember seeing footage, bernadine, of you walking into the house. was it the same day after he was assassinated, a day later? if you could talk about who fred hampton was, how that assassination even further

radicalized you, what it meant for the movement in this country and for the weather underground? bernadine: i remember, everyone my aide remembers the day that fred hampton and mark clark was assassinated. it seared into our head because it was people that we knew, the city of chicago, the red squad and the sheriffs and police all collaborated with the fbi. we took six years to bring it to trial and prove it. people's law office did in incredible job doing that. i remember one of things they did, they immediately took the door off its hinges, and invited the city of chicago to walk into that apartment building and look at what the police and fbi had done in the process of murdering

black radical revolutionary leaders like fred hampton and mark clark. it was reminiscent of other chicago massacres, mass participations, observing not the body in this case, but the site. it had a chicago feeabout it. it was a somber and terrible moment where we felt, we must act, we must do more than we been doing, more than the kind of solidarity that we offered. we used to talk about it as putting our bodies between the bullets and the black radical leadership in the united states. juan: zayd, many of the people that you interviewed i knew personally back then, folks like

kathy putin, cathy wilkerson, eleanor stein, jeff jones, brian flanagan, who was a good friend of mine years ago. what did you take away from their assessment, of their rollback back then of the movement, whether it is bitterness, pride, contrition? what did you get from your interviews with them? zayd: it is funny because the name that you mention are all members of the weather underground. i also interviewed angela davis, members of the black panther party, black liberation army. i was talking to a lot of them about how they had first become radicalized. i kept on hearing these echs, ite and ack radals, radicalid by sta violee ainst leaders. martin luther king's

assassination, fred hampton's assassination, they were all telling me the same story about how they came to struggle. in terms of how they look back on it, the series talks about that. later i get into regrets, tactics, what they would do differently now. the, denominator is there is a lot of acknowledgment about mistakes made, but also a sense of we were on the right side of history, we were struggling on their right side, and it is hard to regret your willingness to put your body on the line of what you believe, if what you believe is right. amy: we will be back with zayd ayers dohrn, producer of the “mother country radicals" series and his parents bernadine dohrn and bill ayers, in 30 seconds.

♪♪ [music break] amy: "draft morning," by the byrds. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. with juan gonzalez. today we are spending the hour what former underground leaders bernadine dohrn and bill ayers, and their son zayd ayers dohrn. there series “mother country radicals" recently won the award for best podcast at the tribeca film festival awards.

you begin to unpack some of the conflicts that arose between predominantly white activists, like those in the student democratic society, a larger group from which members splintered off to form weather underground, and black activists, like those in the black panthers, black liberation army. let's turn to bernadine dohrn in “mother country radicals." bernadine: whenever white people have a choice, you cannot make that choice without thinking about how easy it is to not stand up for black people at any given moment. i never felt like i wasn't choosing women, but i felt like the essential american dilemma is white people standing up, not just once, but consistently over time, against the apparatus of black slavery. amy: and this is angela davis.

>> she knew exactly how to make those connections long before the term intersectionality had ever been introduced. at a time when we had not yet developed the vocabulary that allowed us to talk about gender issues, and intersectional ways. i read some of her communiques, and my reaction was always, right on. amy: that is angela davis speaking about bernadine. bernadine, i want to go to you next. angela davis was on the fbi's most wanted list. he replaced her on that list. i want to go back to that time. this was the fbi time of j edgar hoover. for those not familiar with this history, talk about how you got involved, and that how you got involved with the weather underground, became the leader of weather underground.

bernadine: it is astonishing, what can i say, there is no such thing as replacing angela davis on any list, anything. she is a comrade, colleagues, sister, and friend. her pointing out that we didn't have the language in 1969, 19 70's, not just about language, but the connective tissue of the word intersectionality, so you didn't have to choose between being a woman and being against the war in vietnam, that was insane, but the politics often made that true on the ground. her whole life, her whole career making that manifest form black lives matter, the activists of today, it is quite dramatic. you can see their wisdom, their

ability to fight for unity, at the same time as they have disagreements and move in different ways. i am filled with admiration for this generation of activists, in awe. trying to tag along and keep up with them on the streets. amy: by the way, happy birthday. you recently turned 80 years old. interestingly, decades ago, you were one of the older members of the student movement, one of the older leaders. you were actually in law school. talk about what radicalized you at the time, and then joining sds, why you ford with bill ayers and others, the weather underground. bernadine: you know, i always felt that i had been a wimp,

failure to go south with the southern civil rights movement. i thought about it, i didn't know anybody connected tot. i nted to . my boyfriend talkeme out o want to go. it wasidiculou wi the civil rights movement, . kin allhe alls with him came to chi, i was secondear law udent. ihoug, this i i i have put mylf in th strugglhere inhicago. i to a bunch of lastudents with me mt dr. ki. as he always did, he had tons of law firms, lawyers around him willing to help and organize. he sent to me, we said we would like to do something. he said find the biggest slumlord in chicago, identify

and give me the evidence of who the biggest slumlord is in chicago. we ran back to the law school, we went to the library to the people we thought would help us, not so much the faculty, and we spent a week looking at the records, going through film. we couldn't find anything that would identify slumlords. we went back to dr. king the next weekend, ashamed. he turned to me, what did you find? we said we could not identify it because of this, this, and this. he said that's fine, we will call a citywide rent strike. then we got organized on the citywide rent strike. for me, it is an example, if you just take a step toward a movement, toward somebody that you admire organizing a campaign around you, you will stay yourself but you will be changed by it, and you'll grow by it.

i think that is still true today. juan: a central tsion in the podcast is the balance in your live between activists and that as parents. could you talk about that? maybe zayd could chime in as well with what you try to do with the podcast. zayd: the personal entry into the story, these are my parents. when i was born, they were on the ground from the fbi. i grew up my first few years in this strange situation of being underground, knowing we were underground, knowing that the fbi was chasing us, although i was not sure what the fbi was. when i started working on this project, i was thinking, i have daughters now. what kind of commitment would make people have children when they were fugitives, to balance those ideas?

they were great parents, but yet, there was this risk associated having kids when you are also fighting a revolution against the state. my mom went to jail when i was a kid. my adopted brother, his parents went to prison for decades. later on in the podcast, episodes nine and 10, it ends up about my peers, chesa boudin, assata shakur, who is still underground in cuba. talking about what it was like to be kids born into the revolution, really informs a lot of the show, the questions i'm asking about how you can balance family with the struggle. bill: one of zayd's kids asked me the other day, when you had

kids, did that change your politics? she was referring to her father. and she is 14 years old. i sent to her, it certainly didn't make me change my politics, but it did make me think twice about the risks i was willing to take, wanted to take. i had a particular responsibility to this child, our next child, had a particular responsibility to them, but we couldn't lose sight of the fact that other people's children were under attack in vietnam, at home, in puerto rico. i don't think that contradiction is any different than the contradiction faced by revolutionaries and radicals around the world through all time. you talk about, what about martin luther king, barnett -- malcolm x? fred hampton had a son. you refer to all of them.

bernadine: there is a picture -- i'm not sure if it is in this -- but zayd on a table in the house. i had a picture of ho chi minh right near him, and who else,, jay guevara -- che guevara. he was also robin hood for halloween a number of times. for him, the character characterized some of the evils that we saw in government. we tried to integrate it with our lives once we had children. amy: i want to go to episode nine of “mother country radicals ," an episode between you, zayd, and your father, bill ayers. zayd: did you ever take part in action after i was born, in the underground? bill: a few things.

it was a jailbreak. i cannot tell you the details except to say that we were very clear that bernadine would be with you, i would do this, and then we would assess after the fact. in retrospect, it was really risky, on the age. zayd: this was new information for me. before i started working on this project, i was always told that my parents ended the arms struggle with my birth. but i cannot say i'm exactly surprised. i've always known that they were willing to risk almost anything to do what they thought was right. did you think about what would happen if you were caught? bill: i thought my life would end. zayd: so why? bill: because it mattered. the world needed it to happen. amy: bill ayers and zayd ayers dohrn. let's talk about this issue of violence. bernadine and bill, how you felt

then and how you feel today? either of you can take it. there are some actions that you admit involvement in, some you don't. bernadine: well, i don't. [laughter] just to be clear. except for communiques which i was a part of. it always seems odd to me about the question of violence. we live in one of the most violent countries in human history. we have military still to this day and scores of countries around the world. imagine if some other country, italy, had a military base in the middle of north carolina. it is unspeakable -- one thing that we take for granted, united states, we have arms and wars all over the world, and on the

other hand, we are a secret country. telling the truth about the cost of violence, u.s. violence in the world, having that be a part of us. of course, i want to say, democracy now!, you, amy, juan, have always done a wonderful job covering those things, thinking about those things, talking about who pays the heaviest prices. but the illusion of the united states as being against the violence, what can you say? this last year, children killed -- it is unspeakable. we had a focus on that. we saw the truth and thought it didn't have to be this way. bill: i think it is still true.

we live in the sewer of violence. we like to think of ourselves as peaceful people, think of the united states as a peaceful place, but that is not true. it is a violent society. when we were a of the weather underground, 6000 people a week were being murdered by our government in vietnam. we were trying to rise up to stop the genocide. but as bernadine said, it always strikes us as odd, john mccain, who was a war criminal, was not asked what it felt like to be a war criminal. we were always trying to stop the war crimes, asked, why were you violent? it is like asking nat turner, why did you rise up and kill people on the plantation? rising up against the system was the right thing. amy: i want to ask bill and bernadine about your decision to go underground, and then about

your decision to resurface? bernadine: we went underground a day after the explosion at the townhouse. amy: explained that explosion. bernadine: we heard on the news, actually -- i was in california, bill was in michigan. i heard on the news that there had been a ghastly explosion in new york. i thought that was probably not a gas explosion. i took that news to be very bad news. i had been in new york a week before. i knew that people were working on explosive devices.

i didn't know where or what. that explosion meant that scores of us around the country disappeared. we thought it would be necessary for some people to build a clandestine line organization because of government misconduct, government violence against the activists. but we didn't know how it would come about. it came out in a chaotic way where lots of people disappeared. over the course of next year's, people decided to return to their lives, work in organizations, public organizations. other people, for a variety of reasons, decided to join the underground. even after that moment, over the course of the 10 years, people actually came and went.

many people left being underground after stonewall happened. they were activists, they wanted to join the public movement. with other things, sometimes family matters, sometimes personal things, sometimes wanting to be public. there was more churning than one would think in the way that it actually happened. i like that part of it. the underground, it would be assumed that you could never talk about it, but you can go back and do public work. eventually, we all did that. bill: when i think about the choice to go underground, the american invasion occupation of vietnam began in 1965. for five years, we oppose the war with militant actions, letter writing, talking to congresspeople and someone.

by 1968, most of the americans oppose the war, and the war ground on. 6000 people being murdered a week in asia. we tried everything. we thought, by 1970, that we would have to build some kind of clandestine capacity, not only to take the board to the more makers, but to survive what we thought of as an impending american fascism. we were building a clandestine organization alongside a public organization. then the townhouse explosion happened. three of our comrades were killed. we all went underground in a minute. we didn't want to spend all of our time building in a legal system and so one, so we went underground. then the war in vietnam ended in 1975 with the u.s. defeat, but

was brought on by the vietnamese revolutionary itself, and we spent another couple of years thinking about coming above ground. it took a while to persuade bernadine. she didn't want to give the state any kind of victory. but eventually we did, we went back to public political work. that was the 11 years that we spent underground. zayd was born underground. malik was born underground. amy: bill ayers alongside bernadine dohrn and their son zayd ayers dohrn. producers of “mother country radicals." back in 20 seconds. ♪♪ [music break] amy: dylan.

this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. with juan gonzalez. we continue with bernadine dohrn, bill ayers, zayd ayers dohrn. juan: i wanted to ask, in addition to looking at this history, your podcast, “mother country radicals," also tries to look forward to the future of activism. what did you find out about the next generation of activists? zayd: it is connected to this kind of violence. chesa boudin, when he was one and half, they left him with a babysitter, went to rob the black liberation army, and spent decades on his own. he was with us and often spent time. kakuya shakur, her mother was imprisoned, had to flee to cuba,

is still underground 40 years later. kakuya has talked about her mother has never met her children. assata shakur has never met her children. amy: this is kakuya shakur. zayd: this might be an impossible question, but do you think it was worth it what your mom tried to do, what your family went to for it? >> that is a deep question. i felt deeply loved by my mom, but i knew the struggle was more important, and the broader context. and so many points of our history, we had no choice but to struggle, resist. unfortunately, loss was a part of that. all of the strap that came before contribute to us being in this moment now. every act that happens, then

creates another act. i can almost feel that my life is a result of all of these experiences, the atrocities, the trauma, the strong role, as well, i'm a result of all of that. zayd: these are all young people who have to live with the consequences of that violent struggle, but most of the people that i talked to in my generation are still in some way committed to the struggle for a better world. chesa became the district attorney of san francisco. kakuya is working as a social worker here in chicago. a lot of them grapple with, what does it mean to try to change the world, how far should we go? also they are very aware of how it can look like when people decide to go down the path of revolutionary violence, what that does to families,

individus. it's a complicated question and i try to wrestle in the show with that complexity. amy: i want to go to another clip of “mother country radicals ." you speak about kathy boudin, who recently died of cancer. she was jailed in 1981 along with her then husband david gilbert, in connection with the armed car robbery carried out by the black liberation army in rocklin county new york, that left a security officer and police guard to dead. she would serve to years in prisonchesa, to become elected the district attorney of san francisco, was recently recalled. in thistalks about being chesa's mother. >> i was determined to have me being a mother not stop me from being a revolutionary.

also in terms of net and women, i wasn't going to have me as a woman, not be able to do something, have david be able to go. that relegated me to the role of a mother, which i felt like was nothing that i wanted as part of who i was, but i didn't want you to take away from me the other things that i could do. amy: she also talks about how bernadine and bill ended up adopting their son chesa while she and her husband david gilbert were imprisoned. >> he had no idea who i was. he didn't pay attention to me. of course, chesa began to call bernadine mom. and i was like, oh my god. zayd: this is an important part of the story, too, the

collateral damage. the people who committed the corroborate. none of those children decided to be a part of the revolution. we were born into it and still have to suffer the consequences. amy: that is zayd ayers dohrn narrating this incredible series. bill and bernadine, if you could talk about how you ended up adopting chesa. adding to your family maliki and zayd, and what you saw as your role together. not in prison and then in prison, and so many black panthers, members of the black liberation army actually killed. bernadine: i am glad that you brought up kathy's name. of course, we are all stricken

by her absence. it seems like a sudden absence even though it was a 30-year struggle she had against cancer. she and i had a long two days of conversations the week that she died. part of it was just spurred by her saying we had an incredible relationship. we have had really an incredible relationship, sisterhood. very difficult when she was in pron and wwere rsing che . very difficult for us toave chesa thrgh so ny priso visits during thisime when he was struggling wh other issues. and yet, somehow, we worked very hard, her parents worked very hard, to make it one family. many families in this country,

because of the prison situation, are facing this situation of children visiting prisons. we were not alone. that, i think, helped, brought chesa into the struggle against mass incarceration. really, all of our children have vivid memories of getting searched, going into prison to visit kathy in particular. it is a part of the american story, an odd art for us, but really very common. we must do away with mass incarceration. it is insane. there are a million ways to sanction behavior, ways that the rest of the world does successfully. bill: we had two kids when

kathy and david were arrested. i was working in a day care center. bernadine and i had one conversation. we took a walk around the block. we said, if something happened to us, what would our friends and comrades do? without much thought, we said we would take him. we spoke with his grandparents, where he was living a few days later, and he came to live with us right away. it changed the dynamic of the family and it was enriching in the long run, very powerful. we have no regrets on that regard. zayd just said, kids have to suffer the consequences, and that is true, but it is also universally true. imagine ted cruz's kids. they have to suffer the consequences of having ted cruz as a father. everyone gets the family they get.

we tried to roll with it with engagement, compassion. bernadine: luckily, bill was a long-term early childhood educator and have the confidence to do this. i'm not sure without him i would have even thought about it. we made a family. both malik dohrn, six months older than chesa, we have some pictures of them holding hands and building blocks, and then zayd became his protector. helped him in school, reading, friendships, making friends with people. chesa would have gotten there anyway, wherever he was, but in our family that is how it worked.

it was wonderful to have the surprise family of three boys that i never expected. amy: finally, zayd, what it was like to do this podcast, this audio storytelling, which won best podcast at the tribeca film festival, especially at the time --j edgar hoover called her the most dangerous woman in america -- to talk about these public figures that you know so intimately as mom and dad? zayd: that was a big part of why i wanted to do this. i have known them very well, i know the public stories that are out there about that. i wanted to tell the story about the people that i know, not just about their parents but their friends and comrades, people who

have been represented in the media for 50 years, but we never really understood what drove them. what made them want to conduct the struggle in the way they did, what radicalized them? for me, it was helping me understand my parents, helping daughters understand my parents. even if you know the history, i don't know that anyby has actually heard these people at length discuss why they did what they did, what brought them to that place in their lives. amy: zayd ayers dohrn, creator and host of the new 10-part podcast series “mother country radicals" from cooking media and odyssey, featuring his parents, former underground whether leaders bernadine dohrn and bill ayers. it has been a top 10 podcast in the country. people can listen to the whole series for free on apple, spotify, anywhere that you

listen to podcasts. we will link to it at democracynow.org. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] ñcñcñcñc■é■í

♪ ♪ hello there and welcome to nhk "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in new york. u.s. media are reporting that the leader of al qaeda has been killed in a drone strike in afghanistan.