Fairly apolitical. Kind of aspiring to participate in life. I'm 18-19 years old. Wanting to dive into the world and finding the world opening for me in ways that were unimaginable. I didn't sleep for the whole first year at university because it was too much going on. Too many films to see, too many concerts to go to.
Bill AyersI'd been arrested many times by then. I'd been an organizer, so many things had changed over those three years [from 1965 till 1968].
Bill AyersThere are things about classic liberalism that obviously I'm drawn to and I bet all of you are as well. Those are things like liberty, freedom, the Bill of Rights. But the reason that I reject the label is that I grew up cutting my teeth against the liberals.
Bill AyersBeing an activist and an artist - those two things should go together. You should allow the artistic sensibility to control some of your activism, but never should it be allowed to paralyze you.
Bill AyersThat's where we all kind of were in the mid-1960s. Students for a Democratic Society grew from a small group of socialists at the university of Michigan into a national organization, and in many ways, its growth was driven by the Vietnam War.
Bill Ayers