Mark Rudd

Passions

Vocation

American political activist, a founding member of the controversial Weathermen, a radical leftist group that was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List in 1970. A member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1968 he organized a sit-in at Columbia University to protest political policies of the times, including racism and the VietNam War. The Weathermen evolved out of the SDS in 1969 to incite revolution. In March 1970 as members were working on bombs with which to make their statements of political activism, three members of the group were killed. The FBI uncovered their plot to bomb a military base in New Jersey and the Columbia University Library, and the Weathermen,including Rudd, went underground. Although Rudd says he became disenchanted with the violent wing of the group, his loyalty to his friends kept him in the group and underground. He emerged in 1977 and was given two years of probation. In 1980 he landed a job as an instructor of math in a community college in New Mexico. He retired from teaching in 2007 but continued his non-violent activism. In March 2009 he published his memoir "Underground." Link to Wikipedia biography