Seattle Weather Collective
| Seattle Weather Collective | |
|---|---|
| Participant in the Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War | |
The Weather Underground symbol
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| Active | 1969-1970? |
| Ideology |
Marxism–Leninism Communism Anti-imperialism New Left |
| Area of operations | Seattle |
| Part of | Weather Underground |
| Opponents | The United States' Reserve Officers' Training Corps |
| Battles and wars | The Days of Rage and Weather High School Jailbreaks |
The Weather Underground organized collectives around the country 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 organized the white working class against imperialism by holding militant demonstrations and engaging in small scale property damage.
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.
The first item on the Seattle collective's agenda was to help organize for the Days of Rage that would be in Chicago in October 1969. Members of the Seattle collective produced pamphlets about the Days of Rage in order to raise awareness of the event and encourage people to travel to Chicago to participate.
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 Days of Rage. 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. Even further members would spray paint Weather slogans on the blackboards.
Reserve Officers' Training Corps 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 building 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 was protesting an "empire [that] feeds on war."
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Wikipedia