What is The Weather Underground Organization?

Abstract

The Weathermen, also known as the Weather Underground or the Weather Underground Organization, are the primary research focus. This study aims to elucidate the history of this violent group, its leaders, its methods and strategies, its recruitment policies, the significance of their violent activities, and how the government handled the matter. Internet-based resources will be utilized to undertake the investigation. The researcher will seek vital material pertaining to the issue and list discoveries regarding the group’s history, aims and objectives, essential leaders, methods, recruitment strategies, and response to the Weathermen’s influence.

The History of the Weathermen 

The Weathermen emerged as a unique political organization in the United States. In June 1969, the group was created as part of the New Left movement’s political and cultural endeavors to transform the country. In 1968, when the country was experiencing the repercussions of the Vietnam War, its original concept, termed the Weather Underground, developed. The organization appeared to have sprung from national liberation and leftist revolutionary or guerrilla activities in the 1950s (Zalman, 2017). Its proponents envisioned a new society in which the political and social hierarchy between the developed and developing worlds, between genders, and between races would be inverted. According to Zalman (2017), Students for a Democratic Society was one of the most prominent movements of the era (SDS).

Founded on New Left principles, the organization was extreme, particularly in opposition to the nation’s engagement in the Vietnam War. The organization challenged the notion that the United States is an imperialist nation and was dedicated to transforming American society to embrace communist ideals. The Weather Underground was an offshoot of the SDS with similar beliefs (Zalman, 2017). The distinction is that it chose an even more drastic course of action.

Like the SDS, the Weather Underground campaigned for the liberation of the United States from its fixation with war and imperialist ideologies. However, the Weathermen added a militaristic dimension to SDS’s initial methods (Zalman, 2017). The leaders were inspired by other violent groups fighting for similar revolutions in different regions of the world.