AADL Talks To: Bill Ayers
Bill Ayers is a retired Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During his time in Ann Arbor during the 1960s, he served as director of Ann Arbor's experimental Children's Community School; Education Secretary for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); and co-founder of the militant Weather Underground organization, which originated in Ann Arbor in 1969 as a far left-wing revolutionary party.
Ayers traces the path of his political awakening from wide-eyed college freshman to seasoned student organizer and educator. He reflects on the tumultuous moral dilemma he and many activists faced as the Vietnam War raged on in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He discusses the factionalism within the SDS leadership that resulted in the formation of the Weather Underground; how the strands of student activism during this turbulent time were rooted in the moral agenda outlined by Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.; and his lifelong pedagogic commitment to education.
Albert Wheeler is Honored at Bethel AME Church, December 1993 Photographer: Michael A. Curlett
Year:
1993
Emma Wheeler is Honored at Bethel AME Church, December 1993 Photographer: Michael A. Curlett
Year:
1993
Albert and Emma Wheeler, December 1993 Photographer: Michael A. Curlett
Year:
1993
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Albert and Emma Wheeler Attend Special Service at Bethel AME Church, December 1993 Photographer: Michael A. Curlett
Year:
1993
Albert and Emma Wheeler are Celebrated at Bethel AME Church, December 1993 Photographer: Michael A. Curlett
Year:
1993
Wheeler Family
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AACHM Oral History: Mary McDade, Alma Wheeler Smith, and Nancy Cornelia Wheeler
Mary McDade was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1939, but grew up in Ann Arbor. Her parents Albert and Emma Wheeler were active in local politics and civil rights. As a college student, McDade helped found the University of Michigan chapter of the NAACP. She moved to Peoria, Illinois with her husband Joe Billy McDade in 1963. After raising four children, she built a career in law. McDade graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law and she has been a justice of the Illinois Appellate Court since 2000.
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Never One To Just Sit And Wait For Things To Happen
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David Rutledge Began Protesting Segregation as a Teenager, July 1983 Photographer: Larry E. Wright
Year:
1983