As a child of mum-and-dad fugitives, it was normal for Zayd Ayers Dohrn to be shaken awake in the middle of the night.
“We have to leave,” his mother would whisper, “right away.”
Zayd’s parents, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, were founding members of the Weather Underground, a band of revolutionary militants who waged a violent bombing campaign in the US in the 1960s and ’70s.
“There were some very scary moments,” Zayd tells Woman’s Day from his home in Chicago.
“My childhood felt like having to leave all the time. It felt like somebody’s chasing us, it felt like a lot of road trips.”
Zayd, 49, an acclaimed author and playwright, has now penned a book about his parents, and his life, called Dangerous, Dirty, Violent & Young.
He is also sharing his extraordinary story at a Sydney Opera House event on October 4 as part of the Curious season.
“My childhood felt quite normal, because I had nothing to compare it to,” says Zayd, who was three when his parents finally turned themselves in to the authorities.
“My friends were also the children of revolutionaries, so it wasn’t odd in our circle.”
From anti-war sentiments to the FBI’s Most Wanted
The Weather Underground was born out of anti-war sentiments and the group conducted a bombing campaign that targeted US government buildings, police stations and the Pentagon.
“They had two pillars of their belief system,” explains Zayd when talking about his parents.
“One was being against the Vietnam War. The second was about racial equality.”
Taking its name from a line in the Bob Dylan song, Subterranean Homesick Blues, the group never killed any civilians, but three members died in an accidental explosion of a bomb they’d built in 1970.
It was after this incident that Zayd’s parents went on the run. Bernardine, who had a law degree and marched with Martin Luther King Jr in 1966, was only the fourth woman in history to make the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
The then FBI director, J Edgar Hoover, dubbed her “the most dangerous woman in America”.
The couple stayed wherever they could – communes, motels or rundown hotels in the slums of a city.
Years later when Zayd was born, in 1977, and joined them on the run, he recalls studying road maps in the back seat of the car, noting they never visited tourist attractions like Disneyland.
For him, however, it wasn’t a big deal.
“I always felt like we were on this great adventure,” he says.
Indeed, in explaining their crusade to their son, Bernardine and Bill compared it to Luke Skywalker’s fight against the evil empire in the Star Wars films.
“And they used stories like Robin Hood. We were stealing from the rich and giving to the poor,” he explains.
Zayd was also taught how to spot an unmarked police car, or a government agent. “I’ll still notice a car today and think, ‘Oh it’s the police,’” he says.
“Because the antenna looks a little bigger than usual, and the engine sounds souped-up.”
Bernardine and Bill’s fugitive life came to an end when they surrendered to authorities at a Chicago courthouse on December 3, 1980 – the same year that Bernardine gave birth to the couple’s second child, Malik.
“There were photographers and reporters everywhere,” recalls Zayd.
“Imagine going from being secretive, to suddenly being within a crowd of 60 people screaming questions. It felt like our world had broken open.”
By then, a deal had been hammered out and the more serious charges against the couple had been dropped, due to “FBI misconduct”.
Bernardine was sentenced to three years probation and fined $1500 for offences including aggravated battery.
While she escaped going to prison then, two years later she was locked up for seven months after refusing to testify against other revolutionaries.
His parents later adopted Chesa Boudin, when his Weather Underground parents were jailed.
Today, the couple are retired university professors in their 80s living in Chicago.
‘The right side of history’
“I think there are things they regret, but they don’t regret fighting against racism or against the war,” Zayd says.
“They feel like they were on the right side of history.”
But Zayd, who has two adult daughters with his novelist wife Rachel DeWoskin, could never envision such a life for his kids.
“My overwhelming urge to protect our daughters makes it hard to imagine putting them at risk in the way that my parents put us at risk,” he says.
Yet Zayd says he always felt cared for by “very good” parents.
“I know people whose parents were abusive and neglectful, and that’s just so much worse than having parents who were fugitives,” he says. “In that sense, I feel pretty lucky.”
