Mark Rudd
Encyclopedia
Mark William Rudd is a political organizer, mathematics instructor, and anti-war activist
, most well known for his involvement with the Weather Underground
. Rudd became a member of the Columbia University
chapter of Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) in 1963. By 1968, he had emerged as a leader for Columbia's SDS chapter. During the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt
, he served as spokesperson for dissident students protesting a variety of issues, most notably the Vietnam War
. As the war escalated, Mark Rudd worked with other youth movement leaders to take SDS in a more militant direction. When the general membership of SDS refused to go in a more violent and pro-Communist direction, Rudd together with some other prominent SDS members formed a radical, violence-oriented organization, referring to themselves collectively as "Weatherman" after the lyrics from a famous Bob Dylan
song
.
. He is the son of a former Army officer, Jacob S. Rudd (1909–1995), who sold real estate in Maplewood, New Jersey
. Mark's mother was Bertha Bass (1912–2009), who was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the year after her parents emigrated from Lithuania. Rudd had a brother: David R. Rudd (1939–2009), who became an attorney. Mark Rudd attended Columbia High School
in his hometown, and later Columbia University in New York.
Mark Rudd's website says that his commitment to “fighting U.S imperialism” was inspired by the revolutionary movement in Cuba, which at that time was in its ninth year. In 1968, Rudd and Bernardine Dohrn
and other leaders of SDS were invited to Cuba to meet with Cuban, Soviet, and North Vietnamese delegates. His experiences in Cuba strengthened Rudd’s anti-war and pro-Communist sentiments. Rudd had described the life of Cuba as “extremely humanistic” and he idealized Ernesto "Che" Guevara, referring to him as the “Heroic Guerilla.”
Once he returned from Cuba, Rudd was elected President of the Columbia chapter of SDS. In 1968, during his junior year, Mark Rudd was expelled from Columbia after a series of sit-ins and riots that disrupted campus life and attracted nationwide attention. These events culminated in the dramatic occupation of several campus buildings, including the Administration building, Low Memorial Library
, and which ended only after violent clashes between students and the New York Police Department. The Columbia protest
was not the first student revolt on an American campus, but as it occurred at a relatively conservative Ivy League school located just up the street from the headquarters of the nation's news media, it received considerable press coverage and drew many supporters. The protests produced the slogan “Create Two, Three, Many Columbias!” The Doonesbury
character Mark Slackmeyer
was inspired by Rudd.
(RYM), a faction of SDS, which advocated a more militant course of action while other factions within SDS were becoming concerned about Rudd's increasingly vocal calls for violent confrontation and hardline Communist sentiments. The 1969 SDS convention effectively splintered and ended the organization. Rudd and other former RYM members ultimately formed Weatherman, a self-proclaimed "organization of communist women and men." The new organization was intent on overthrowing the government through violent actions. Spreading communism was a priority for the members of Weather, as when Rudd told other members of SDS, “ Don’t be timid about telling people we’re Communist. Don’t deny it, be proud of it.”
. 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.
and was increasingly frustrated over his lifestyle which included working in manual labor jobs beneath his education and his inability to see his family. Due to FBI abuses against Vietnam protestors and others during the COINTELPRO program, Rudd could not be convicted of many of the crimes alleged in the original government complaint against him that led to his fugitive status. He received a small fine and ultimately spent less than one year in jail for all his crimes. His first public appearance was on campus, where he spoke to a crowd of hundreds of admiring students. He was not the firebrand the crowd expected, but he did participate in a march around the campus after the speech.
. During his time there he became an instructor of mathematics
at Central New Mexico Community College
(Then known as the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, or TVI for short). At the time he was hired and during his early employment at the college his years as a student radical and Federal fugitive were almost unknown to his students and other faculty members who seldom asked if he was “that” Mark Rudd. Most of these individuals were of a different generation and the name “Mark Rudd” had ceased to be a household word and he regarded this lack of critical attention with some disdain.
In 1990 he published a memoir called “Truth and Consequences: The Education of Mark Rudd” which detailed his life with SDS, the Columbia University riots, and his time as a fugitive. The book was not a commercial success and has been criticized by other Weather Underground members as being too apologetic. Many of his contemporaries, including activist Tom Hayden, have concluded that Rudd helped destroy SDS by his violent and Communist affiliations and in the end his involvement in the anti-Vietnam war movement was more negative than positive.
Rudd was interviewed in the 2002 documentary, "The Weather Underground," in which he stated that although the group's motivations, to end the Vietnam War and to oppose US imperialism, were justified, the violent actions performed in pursuit of those beliefs were questionable. He was the only former Weather member featured in the film that regretted his involvement in the group.
Today Rudd lives in western New Mexico on his ranch near the Continental Divide. Rudd maintains a website called MarkRudd.com where he frequently posts essays and other writings, including his opinions on contemporary issues, and a personal appearance schedule. He travels around the country in support of the newly reborn Students for a Democratic Society. Rudd, along with Brian Kelly of Pace SDS, have helped establish ties between the new SDS and the Kent State University movement. He recently published another book on his time with SDS and The Weathermen called “Underground: My Life with the SDS and the Weathermen” which was published by Harper Collins in 2009 and is more a personal memoir on his life and times rather than a political statement as was his first book.
Documentary filmmaker Sam Green
made a 2008 short entitled "Clear Glasses", which focuses on a pair of glasses Rudd sent him.
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
, most well known for his involvement with the Weather Underground
Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
. Rudd became a member of the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
chapter of Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS) in 1963. By 1968, he had emerged as a leader for Columbia's SDS chapter. During the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt
Columbia University protests of 1968
The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United...
, he served as spokesperson for dissident students protesting a variety of issues, most notably the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. As the war escalated, Mark Rudd worked with other youth movement leaders to take SDS in a more militant direction. When the general membership of SDS refused to go in a more violent and pro-Communist direction, Rudd together with some other prominent SDS members formed a radical, violence-oriented organization, referring to themselves collectively as "Weatherman" after the lyrics from a famous Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
song
Subterranean Homesick Blues
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 as a single on Columbia Records, catalogue 43242. It appeared 19 days later as the lead track to the album Bringing It All Back Home. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also...
.
Youth
Rudd was born in Irvington, New JerseyIrvington, New Jersey
Irvington is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township had a total population of 53,926, a decline of 11.2% from the 60,695 residents enumerated in the 2000 Census.-Geography:...
. He is the son of a former Army officer, Jacob S. Rudd (1909–1995), who sold real estate in Maplewood, New Jersey
Maplewood, New Jersey
Maplewood is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 23,867.-History:...
. Mark's mother was Bertha Bass (1912–2009), who was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the year after her parents emigrated from Lithuania. Rudd had a brother: David R. Rudd (1939–2009), who became an attorney. Mark Rudd attended Columbia High School
Columbia High School (New Jersey)
Columbia High School is a four-year comprehensive regional public high school located at 17 Parker Avenue in Maplewood, New Jersey, which serves students in grades nine through twelve within the South Orange-Maplewood School District, which includes Maplewood and South Orange Townships...
in his hometown, and later Columbia University in New York.
Campus activism
Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the American anti-Vietnam War radical organization, Weather Underground. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the immediate past Director of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center...
and other leaders of SDS were invited to Cuba to meet with Cuban, Soviet, and North Vietnamese delegates. His experiences in Cuba strengthened Rudd’s anti-war and pro-Communist sentiments. Rudd had described the life of Cuba as “extremely humanistic” and he idealized Ernesto "Che" Guevara, referring to him as the “Heroic Guerilla.”
Once he returned from Cuba, Rudd was elected President of the Columbia chapter of SDS. In 1968, during his junior year, Mark Rudd was expelled from Columbia after a series of sit-ins and riots that disrupted campus life and attracted nationwide attention. These events culminated in the dramatic occupation of several campus buildings, including the Administration building, Low Memorial Library
Low Memorial Library
The Low Memorial Library is the administrative center of Columbia University. Built in 1895 by University President Seth Low in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low, and financed with $1 million of Low's own money due to the recalcitrance of university alumni, it is the focal point and most...
, and which ended only after violent clashes between students and the New York Police Department. The Columbia protest
Columbia University protests of 1968
The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United...
was not the first student revolt on an American campus, but as it occurred at a relatively conservative Ivy League school located just up the street from the headquarters of the nation's news media, it received considerable press coverage and drew many supporters. The protests produced the slogan “Create Two, Three, Many Columbias!” The Doonesbury
Doonesbury
Doonesbury is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college...
character Mark Slackmeyer
Mark Slackmeyer
Mark Sheldon Slackmeyer is a character in the comic strip Doonesbury. Mark starts out as a radical at Walden College, and leads several peace rallies . The character was initially modeled after Mark Rudd, then in the news as a leader of Columbia University's student protests of 1968...
was inspired by Rudd.
Revolutionary Youth Movement and Weather Underground
In 1969, as SDS membership grew rapidly, members' views concerning both goals and methods began to diverge widely. Rudd felt that SDS was not doing enough to protest the war in Vietnam. He was a leader of the Revolutionary Youth MovementRevolutionary Youth Movement
The Revolutionary Youth Movement was the section of Students for a Democratic Society that opposed the Worker Student Alliance of the Progressive Labor Party...
(RYM), a faction of SDS, which advocated a more militant course of action while other factions within SDS were becoming concerned about Rudd's increasingly vocal calls for violent confrontation and hardline Communist sentiments. The 1969 SDS convention effectively splintered and ended the organization. Rudd and other former RYM members ultimately formed Weatherman, a self-proclaimed "organization of communist women and men." The new organization was intent on overthrowing the government through violent actions. Spreading communism was a priority for the members of Weather, as when Rudd told other members of SDS, “ Don’t be timid about telling people we’re Communist. Don’t deny it, be proud of it.”
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 RageDays of Rage
The Days of Rage demonstrations were a series of direct actions taken over a course of three days in October 1969 in Chicago organized by the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society...
. 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
Greenwich Village townhouse explosion
The Greenwich Village townhouse explosion was the premature detonation of a bomb as it was being assembled by members of the American radical left group, Weatherman – later renamed the Weather Underground – in the basement of a townhouse at 18 West 11th Street between Fifth Avenue and...
, 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
Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins was a U.S. leftist radical activist. A key member of the Students for a Democratic Society Ohio chapter, he led Kent State into its first militant student uprising in 1968. Robbins was credited for drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues which later...
, Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weatherman. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. After graduation, Oughton went to Guatemala with the VISA program to teach the young and older...
, and Ted Gold
Ted Gold
Theodore "Ted" Gold was a member of Weatherman.-Early years and education:Gold was a red diaper baby. He was the son of Hyman Gold, a prominent Jewish physician and a mathematics instructor at Columbia University who had both been part of the Old Left. His mother was a statistician who taught at...
, 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.
Reappearance
On October 13, 1977, Rudd turned himself in to authorities, tired of life as a fugitive. He had been living and working under an assumed name just a few miles from the Columbia campus in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
and was increasingly frustrated over his lifestyle which included working in manual labor jobs beneath his education and his inability to see his family. Due to FBI abuses against Vietnam protestors and others during the COINTELPRO program, Rudd could not be convicted of many of the crimes alleged in the original government complaint against him that led to his fugitive status. He received a small fine and ultimately spent less than one year in jail for all his crimes. His first public appearance was on campus, where he spoke to a crowd of hundreds of admiring students. He was not the firebrand the crowd expected, but he did participate in a march around the campus after the speech.
Later developments
In the summer of 1978, Mark and his then-girlfriend, Sue LeGrand, moved to Albuquerque, New MexicoNew Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. During his time there he became an instructor of mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
at Central New Mexico Community College
Central New Mexico Community College
Central New Mexico Community College , formerly Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, is the community college for metropolitan Albuquerque, New Mexico....
(Then known as the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, or TVI for short). At the time he was hired and during his early employment at the college his years as a student radical and Federal fugitive were almost unknown to his students and other faculty members who seldom asked if he was “that” Mark Rudd. Most of these individuals were of a different generation and the name “Mark Rudd” had ceased to be a household word and he regarded this lack of critical attention with some disdain.
In 1990 he published a memoir called “Truth and Consequences: The Education of Mark Rudd” which detailed his life with SDS, the Columbia University riots, and his time as a fugitive. The book was not a commercial success and has been criticized by other Weather Underground members as being too apologetic. Many of his contemporaries, including activist Tom Hayden, have concluded that Rudd helped destroy SDS by his violent and Communist affiliations and in the end his involvement in the anti-Vietnam war movement was more negative than positive.
Rudd was interviewed in the 2002 documentary, "The Weather Underground," in which he stated that although the group's motivations, to end the Vietnam War and to oppose US imperialism, were justified, the violent actions performed in pursuit of those beliefs were questionable. He was the only former Weather member featured in the film that regretted his involvement in the group.
Today Rudd lives in western New Mexico on his ranch near the Continental Divide. Rudd maintains a website called MarkRudd.com where he frequently posts essays and other writings, including his opinions on contemporary issues, and a personal appearance schedule. He travels around the country in support of the newly reborn Students for a Democratic Society. Rudd, along with Brian Kelly of Pace SDS, have helped establish ties between the new SDS and the Kent State University movement. He recently published another book on his time with SDS and The Weathermen called “Underground: My Life with the SDS and the Weathermen” which was published by Harper Collins in 2009 and is more a personal memoir on his life and times rather than a political statement as was his first book.
Documentary filmmaker Sam Green
Sam Green
Sam Green is a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker. His film, The Weather Underground, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2004, broadcast nationally on PBS, and included in the Whitney Biennial.- Life :...
made a 2008 short entitled "Clear Glasses", which focuses on a pair of glasses Rudd sent him.
Works
- Mark Rudd, Truth and Consequences: The Education of Mark Rudd, Grove Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0802112699
- Mark Rudd, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen, William Morrow, 2009, ISBN 978-0061472756
External links
- Mark Rudd's website
- Essay by Mark Rudd
- Mark Rudd Emerges from the Underground by Stephanie Lee, New York Press, March 24, 2009
- Former Radical Talks Choices and Mistakes by Annette John-Hall, Philadelphia Inquirer, May 11, 2009