Ex-Radical Talks of Education and Justice, Not Obama

[kskiska]

Over the last several months, as pundits and partisans have debated the significance of his relationship with Senator Barack Obama, William Ayers has avoided the limelight, steering clear of political commentary and public pronouncements.

But on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Ayers, 63, a founder of the 1960s-era radical group the Weather Underground, a former fugitive, former Chicago Citizen of the Year and current professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, appeared without fanfare at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, in Chelsea, to participate in a symposium on educational justice.

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On Sunday, after Mr. Ayers was introduced to an audience of about 50 people who had bought tickets to the event, the moderator, the WNYC radio host Leonard Lopate, asked, “Does this mean I can’t run for president?”

“It means you can win,” Mr. Ayers said in response.

(snip)

He urged one man in the audience, a principal of a South Bronx high school, to establish closer ties with parents in his school district. He praised students at a high school in Detroit who started a farm.

And he called upon educators to establish curriculums that help equip students to be active in society.

“In a democracy, we educate for citizenship,” he said. “Not for obedience of authority, but for participation.”

After the discussion, some audience members asked questions.

“What happened to the activism?” one woman asked. “What happened to the revolution?”

Mr. Ayers at first mentioned the realignment of 1994, in which Republicans took control of Congress, which some Republicans referred to as a revolution, and then went on to talk about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s uses of the term “revolution,” and saying that it would be futile to emulate political models from the 1960s and ’70s.

“Can we imagine another world?” he said.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/nyregion/27ayers.html