HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Terry Robbins (October 4, 1947 – March 6, 1970) was an American
far left Far or FAR may refer to: Government * Federal Acquisition Regulation, US * Federal Aviation Regulations, US * Florida Administrative Register, US Military and paramilitary * Rebel Armed Forces (Spanish: '), a defunct guerilla organization ...
activist, a key member of the Ohio
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships a ...
(The S.D.S.), and one of the three Weathermen who died in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.


Early life

Terry Robbins was raised in
Queens, New York Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...
in a
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family by his mother Olga, a
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...
alumna, and father Sam, who worked at a garment factory. When Robbins was six years old, his mother began to suffer from
breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...
, which eventually caused her death three years later. As Olga's health deteriorated, Robbins' father hired a
domestic worker A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly ...
, nicknamed "Auntie Annie" by Robbins and his sister. "Auntie Annie" remained in the Robbins employ for two years until Olga died. Two years after his mother's death, Robbins' father remarried. Robbins became withdrawn and buried himself in schoolwork. He also began to turn to poetry and music as a refuge, and with his sister and cousins discovered the musical world of the
Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
,
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
, and
Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand ( ; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, songwriter, producer, and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success across multiple fields of entertainment, being the ...
. Robbins, an avid
pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...
fan, drew particular inspiration from " Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965), a
Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...
single by
Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...
artist
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
, which would have a profound influence on forming Robbins' personal and SDS/Weathermen identity. After graduating from Lawrence High School on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
, Robbins attended
Kenyon College Kenyon College ( ) is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1824 by Episcopal Bishop Philander Chase. It is the oldest private instituti ...
in Ohio in the fall of 1964 and majored in English. In his first year of college, Robbins heard about Dickie Magidoff, a member of a
far left Far or FAR may refer to: Government * Federal Acquisition Regulation, US * Federal Aviation Regulations, US * Florida Administrative Register, US Military and paramilitary * Rebel Armed Forces (Spanish: '), a defunct guerilla organization ...
political group called
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships a ...
, who was working in the Cleveland area. In the summer of 1965, he joined Magidoff and became involved in th
what they called the "Cleveland Economic Research and Action Project (Cleveland ERAP)"
which exposed him to a more SDS members. He moved into the Cleveland ERAP house and began helping raise capital to support their efforts. In the fall of 1965, the beginning of his sophomore year, Robbins was eager to start up his own SDS chapter at the Kenyon College campus; he was the only official SDS member during his time there. In the following 1966 spring semester, he was able to team up with the chaplain of the school and organize a Student-Faculty Committee on the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
. In an informal letter to Magidoff, Robbins spoke of his successful strategy at the Kenyon College campus and how he was able to get the support of "five faculty members and at least eighteen students to gather together and attempt to make a case for a critical approach to American foreign policy."


After Kenyon College (1966–1967)

After his sophomore year in 1966, Robbins decided to drop out of Kenyon College due to his unpopularity and inability to recruit students for his SDS chapter. He began his summer working with the Cleveland Project, which was concentrating their efforts on creating an alternative school for children to attend in order to escape the perceived racial inequalities of the public school system.Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence In the Sixties and Seventies. University of California Press: Berkeley, California, 2004. It was then that Robbins met
Bill Ayers William Charles Ayers (; born December 26, 1944) is an American retired professor and former militant organizer. In 1969, Ayers co-founded the far-left militant organization the Weather Underground, a revolutionary group that sought to overthr ...
and
Diana Oughton Diana Oughton (January 26, 1942 – March 6, 1970) was an American member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn ...
, other SDS members that were a part of the Children's Community in
Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in Washtenaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the List of municipalities in Michigan, fifth-most populous cit ...
. Ayers and Robbins' interest in writing became a bond between them; they collaborated for the first time, authoring a lengthy paper called ''Turn Toward Children'', which discussed the educational and political philosophies of the Children's Community of both Ann Arbor and Cleveland. At the end of that summer Robbins left Cleveland and joined Ayers and Oughton in Ann Arbor to spend some time trying to use the long history of SDS to encourage more student activity at the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
. Robbins felt he had more in common with the members of the Michigan SDS. They were a much younger chapter than in Cleveland and they all shared a great passion for music and sarcasm.


Jesse James Gang (1968)

Working in partnership with Jim Mellen from the
Revolutionary Youth Movement In the United States, the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) was the section of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that opposed the Worker Student Alliance of the Progressive Labor Party (United States), Progressive Labor Party (PLP). Most of ...
, Ayers, Oughton, and Robbins began a new faction of the Ann Arbor SDS set out to transform SDS's identity in their area. They were excited by the idea of militancy and in the words of writer Jeremy Varon, they used "confrontational action, in your face politics and their boisterous, even anarchic, spirit to help build large SDS chapters at colleges and universities everywhere." Robbins and the other founding members recognized that the politics of the old SDS did not command any appeal to their younger student members. The gang felt that the younger students were now being attracted by culture and not by politics. They were in search for validation in their anger over the war. As a main member of the gang, Robbins and the others embarked on a project that included: classroom disruptions, burning exams, public critiques of courses/and professors, and the disruption of the upcoming presidential elections.


Case Western Reserve University and Kent State (1968)

As student activism and community organizing became two of his passions, Robbins traveled to other surrounding campuses to help other students establish their own SDS chapters. While traveling back to the Cleveland area, Ohio SDS Regional staff member Lisa Meisel and several other students passed out leaflets that drew about a hundred people to Case Western Reserve University to hear Robbins and Ayers talk about the possibility of a revolution. They addressed the issues of the draft, university complicity, women's liberation, and the protest of the upcoming presidential election. The following day, Robbins and Ayers led sixty students in a "shout-down" demonstration disrupting presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey's speech. During a 1968 spring semester visit to Kent State, one of Ohio's most radical chapters, Robbins was able to convince a small group of activists in using a more forceful approach in their demonstration methods. In a statement from Robbins and Meisel title
War At Kent State''
both claimed that a war was on at Kent State and demanded the university "abolish ROTC because it protected imperialism by suppressing popular movements at home and abroad, end the Project Themis Grant and the universities involvement in developing sophisticated weaponry used against people's struggles for freedom, abolish the Law Enforcement School and abolish the Northeast Ohio Crime Lab because both institutions defended the American status quo and protected the interests of the ruling class."Robbins and Meisel (1968) The War At Kent State The first of such action against the university began on April 8, 1969. The SDS held a rally that attracted about 400 people in support of their demands and led 200 of them to march on to the administration buildings and use force to get past the police that were blocking their way. The university responded by suspending seven Kent State students and ended up pressing charges against five other people. Several other rallies were conducted over the next few days while the university continued to ignore the SDS's demands. Robbins and the remainder of the SDS members reaffirmed their demands and added a fifth demand that called for open and collective hearings of the suspended students. On April 16, 1969 fellow SDS member Colin Nieberger's university trial was to be held on campus, 2,000 supporters came to support the rally and approximately 700 of them marched to the Music and Speech building where Nieberger's trial was being conducted. The passage from author Dan Berger's book ''Outlaws of America'' describes how Robbins and a few other SDS members "moved past an army of athletes and policemen to successfully disrupt a university hearing on disciplinary and student-power issues." After an hour of struggle the trials were canceled and Robbins was ultimately given credit for being the leader of the first student rebellions at Kent State. Robbins was arrested for his involvement during the demonstrations and was sentenced to serve a three-month prison term for his actions. In December 1969, Robbins served six weeks of his three-month jail sentence in a Cleveland area prison.


Weathermen (1969)

In a special edition of the ''New Left Notes'' for the upcoming 1969 SDS National Convention, Robbins and ten other SDS members had created a manifesto for students to become revolutionaries. Taking inspiration from Bob Dylan's track ''Subterranean Homesick Blues'', Robbins had played with the meanings of the line "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" which later became the title for the Weathermen's founding statement for their organization and developed the Weathermen Organization's identity. In response to the resignation of Mike Klonsky (National Secretary for SDS in 1968–1969 and RYM leader) and his opposition to the Weather's theoretical paper and their dismissal of the white working class as "hopelessly reactionary," both Robbins and Mark Rudd challenged Klonsky's approach by insisting that the first and most urgent obligation of whites was to fight in support of the peoples of the world who were "rising up against them" and that they needed to create movements that fight, not just talk about fighting. "The aggressiveness, seriousness, and toughness of militant struggle will attract vast numbers of working class youth." Being one of the people in charge of the organizing and planning the national action for the organization, Robbins was based in
Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
. During one of his visits to the local collectives and attending one of their meetings he had responded to a comment of a female SDS member in a very offensive tone. Some female members, including Chicago SDS/Weathermen
Cathy Wilkerson Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson (born January 14, 1945), known as Cathy Wilkerson, is an American far-left radical who was a member of the 1970s radical group called the Weather Underground Organization (WUO). She came to the attention of the police wh ...
, challenged him and accused Robbins of being sexist and disrespectful of a woman's opinion. After a scuffle had broken out, Robbins and the women sat down to try and resolve their issues. In the end Robbins and the women agreed to disagree. A kinship between Wilkerson and Robbins began to develop, which eventually led to an intimate relationship.


"Days of Rage" (1969)

In the publicity of the upcoming ''"Call for National Action"'' Robbins and Ayers decided to bomb one of Chicago's historical monuments located at Haymarket Square, the exact place where they were to gather the next day. On October 6, two days before the Days of Rage demonstration, Robbins and Ayers set off a dynamite bomb that toppled the bronze policeman statue.Ayers (2001) pg. 176 The mayor called the act as an "attack on all the citizens of Chicago, called for law and order, and appealed to the youth." This message offered a portent to the gathering members of SDS. During the chaos of the Chicago demonstrations Robbins got hold of a tear gas tank and threw it back at one of the police officers.


New York collective (1969–1970)

After the Chicago demonstration a few members of the Weathermen began developing a secret New York collective. Robbins joined with John Jacobs, a Columbia graduate and former Progressive Labor Party member; Ted Gold, a Columbia SDS chapter leader; Kathy Boudin, a fellow member of the Cleveland ERAP; Cathy Wilkerson; and Diana Oughton. After securing a New York City safe house, the collective was able to conspire on their next plan of actions. After the fire bombs set to ignite at Judge Murtagh's house, the judge who oversaw the
Panther 21 The Panther 21 is a group of twenty-one Black Panther Party, Black Panther members who were arrested and accused of planned coordinated bombing and long-range rifle attacks on two police stations and an education office in New York City in 1969, ...
indictment, failed, Robbins presented the group with the idea of using dynamite, a more predictable form of ammunition. Robbins was an English major and poet and not very proficient in the makings of electricity and dynamite. He believed it was his job to learn how it worked and was able to obtain a basic circuit design to detonate the dynamite on a timer. According to the accounts in Wilkerson's memoir, after Robbins had explained the step-by-step procedure he studied, which gave exact details on how to connect the electrical timing device, another member raised the issue of a safety switch. Being a novice bomb maker, Robbins decided to take the responsibility of building the circuits on his own. Robbins had decided that the basement was the safest place to make the bombs and moved all equipment there.


The explosion

The morning of March 6, 1970, while finishing up preparations to bomb the Non-Commissioned Officers Dance at
Fort Dix Fort Dix, the common name for the Army Support Activity (ASA) located at Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst, is a United States Army post. It is located south-southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. Fort Dix is under the jurisdiction of the Air Fo ...
, Robbins and two other New York Collective members,
Diana Oughton Diana Oughton (January 26, 1942 – March 6, 1970) was an American member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn ...
and Ted Gold, blew themselves up in the explosion of a New York City townhouse. (Gold was not in the basement at the time; he had just returned from the
Strand Bookstore The Strand Bookstore is an independent bookstore located at 828 Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway, at the corner of East 12th Street (Manhattan), 12th Street in the East Village, Manhattan, East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, tw ...
). The explosion originated from the basement floor of the townhouse at 18 West 11th, in which Robbins and Oughton had been working. Other members deduced that Robbins' inexperience in the art of bomb making led him to mistakenly cross wires and set off a premature detonation. The remains of the bodies found in the basement were almost unidentifiable; the police were able to identify the remains of
Diana Oughton Diana Oughton (January 26, 1942 – March 6, 1970) was an American member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn ...
by a fragment of her thumb. Ted Gold's body was found outside, crushed under the townhouse's framework. It was only with the issuance of the first official
Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, or simply Weatherman, the group was organized as a f ...
Organization (WUO) communiqué, weeks after the explosion, that Terry Robbins was identified as the last victim. Shortly after the explosion, Weathermen leaders placed John Jacobs on indefinite leave from the WUO because he was the main advocate of Robbins' aggressive actions.Flanagan, Terry Robbins was convinced that extreme acts of destruction were the way for the organization to move into a revolution. He was seen as the main source of the Weathermen's aggressive tendencies; as friend
Bill Ayers William Charles Ayers (; born December 26, 1944) is an American retired professor and former militant organizer. In 1969, Ayers co-founded the far-left militant organization the Weather Underground, a revolutionary group that sought to overthr ...
once said, "his extremism was an impulse in all of us." Because of the explosion, the Weathermen claimed to try not to hurt people:


Notes


References

* Ayers, Bill. ''Fugitive Days''. Beacon Press: Boston, Massachusetts, 2001. * Berger, Dan. ''Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity''. AK Press: *Oakland, California, 2006. * Filler, Louis. ''Vanguard and Followers: Youth in American Tradition''. Transaction Publishers: Edison NJ, 1995. * Flanagan, Brian. https://web.archive.org/web/20060214202459/http://antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/archive/brian_flanagan.html * Goldman, Andrew. ''A Charred Madeleine'; The Weathermen's Blast on West 11th Street Still Resounds''. New York Times: New York, New York, March 26, 2000. * Jacobs, Ron. ''The Way The Wind Blew''. Verso: New York, New York, 1997. * Robbins, Terry and Meisel, Lisa. ''The War At Kent State''. Document, 1968. * Varon, Jeremy. ''Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence In the Sixties and Seventies''. University of California Press: Berkeley, California, 2004. * Wilkerson, Cathy. ''Flying Too Close To The Sun''. Seven Stories Press: New York, New York, 2007. * Wilkerson Cathy. Book Review:''Fugitive Days''. Z Magazine, Dec. 2001. https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20070807020415/http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/dec01wilkerson.htm.


External links

* Cleveland Economic Research and Action Program. http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt4k4003k7/?&query=&brand=oac. * ''The War at Kent State''. http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/4may70/box107/107f3p17.html * *https://web.archive.org/web/20101001160109/http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/weather/weatherman_document.txt * http://www.sds-1960s.org/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Robbins, Terry 1947 births 1970 deaths American communists Jewish American activists Members of the Weather Underground COINTELPRO targets Deaths by improvised explosive device in the United States 20th-century American Jews Kent State University people Kenyon College alumni New Left