Weather Underground

Abstract

The Weather Underground, or Weathermen as they were initially known, was an organization of extremist members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who became the most violent, vocal, and instrumental groups of 1960s youth culture. Taking their name from Bob Dylan's lyric “You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” from the song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” the group argued that Weathermen, as a group, were a necessity in order to show people which way the wind actually blew. This would begin a plural movement of Weathermen that grew out of a weakening solidarity within SDS and later splintered from the organization to form their own faction in pursuit of an extreme-left position aimed at bringing the war in Vietnam to an end.