Mark Rudd - Years Underground

Years Underground

Rudd and other members of Weatherman participated in an SDS National Action on October 8 - 11, 1969, an event which became known as the Days of Rage. Charges filed against demonstrators following this action threatened the movement and its supporters. Despite much press attention, the Days of Rage did not spark a Communist led revolutionary movement as predicted and fellow revolutionaries, like Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers, condemned the action as counterproductive and amateurish. Rudd, along with other prominent members of Weather, went underground in March 1970 following the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, an incident in which three members of the organization died when an explosive device, intended for a servicemen's ball, detonated prematurely. Among the dead were Terry Robbins, Diana Oughton, and Ted Gold, who was Rudd’s friend and partner in RYM and the Columbia sit-ins. Weatherman had already come to the attention of the FBI, but this explosion caused the members of Weatherman to take further precautions and to engage in more clandestine operations and according to some Weatherman members like Bill Ayers, build an underground revolutionary movement. After the townhouse explosion, the government actively sought to apprehend Mark Rudd and twelve other members of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO). For seven years Rudd lived underground, although he was disengaged from the WUO for most of that time.