After the election with Bill Ayers and Frank Meeink
A 60s revolutionary and a former neo-Nazi skinhead weigh in on the future of white supremacy, activism, and American politics.
I’ve been in touch with Bill Ayers and Frank Meeink, two Black Lives Matter allies with radically different backgrounds, sporadically over the past five months. During that time, we’ve discussed all sorts of topics, from protests against police brutality to the 2020 election to the history of white supremacy in the United States. Now that Inauguration Day has come and gone, I thought I’d share a few of their takes, influenced by their rich and varied personal histories, on what happens next. First, though, some background on each of the activists:
Bill Ayers
Bill grew up in an affluent family in Chicago and graduated from high school in 1963. Then, he started college at the University of Michigan, where he says “the world exploded around me.” He immediately immersed himself in the growing Civil Rights Movement, both locally and nationally, and in other left-wing causes of the era. He is most known for his activism against the Vietnam War — in the late 60s, he helped spearhead the Weather Underground, a militant and controversial organization whose mission was to create a revolutionary party and overthrow American imperialism.
Bill attributes his life-long commitment to activism to something Paul Potter, once the head of the national student organization Students for a Democratic Society, said during a teach-in Bill helped organize as a college student — “You have to find a way to not let your life make a mockery of your values.” Since his work in the 1960s and 70s, Bill has focused mostly on change within Chicago public schools. He was a professor for many years at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he taught social justice, educational reform, and narrative and interpretive research, among other subjects, within urban, elementary-level classrooms. He now hosts a podcast covering these issues, Under the Tree: A Seminar on Freedom with Bill Ayers.
Frank Meeink
Frank grew up in a poor neighborhood of South Philadelphia in the 1980s. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mom remarried a man who abused Frank and eventually kicked him out of the house. At that point, Frank moved in with his biological dad, an alcoholic who was largely absent as a parent — Frank barely managed to graduate from middle school after getting Ds and cutting the last month of classes. He spent the following summer with his extended family in Lancaster County, a rural part of Pennsylvania. While living there, he shared a room with his 15-year-old cousin who introduced him to the Neo-Nazi skinhead movement. Over the following two years, Frank became a leading member of the movement. At age 17, he was sentenced to three years in an Illinois prison. During his time there, he socialized in large part with Black and Latino inmates, causing him to question his white supremacist ideology.
After Frank was released, he gradually disassociated himself from the Neo-Nazi skinhead movement. Since then, he has spoken regularly for the Anti-Defamation League and in interviews for various media outlets. He also founded a program called Harmony for Hockey, which sought to address racial and class differences among children and adolescents through sports. Since then, Frank has dedicated most of his career to coaching youth hockey. Most recently, he moved to Los Angeles, where he participated daily in the Black Lives Matter protests that intensified last summer. In September, he testified in Congress against former neo-Nazi allies about white supremacy within U.S. police departments. Since then, he has continued with his activism and begun studying torah — he uses spirituality as a tool for personal reconciliation and is considering a conversion to Judaism in the future.
The following Q+A is taken from multiple conversations, which have been combined, condensed, and edited.
First off, what was significant about Trump’s presidency? How will our society be different moving forward?
Bill:
What we saw in the Trump administration had all the elements of fascism. There were some institutional obstacles to fascism, but that doesn’t mean that a more competent fascist couldn’t show up and stir the same populist white supremacist pot with a different result. What we [also] saw with Trump was the large racist base in this country, which is always there. The last time I saw it mobilize was with [Governor] George Wallace [of Alabama] in 1968, and it didn’t get nearly this far. Suddenly, [these past four years], we had that base not only organized and mobilized and talking to each other, [but] the core of that pot, of the so-called right-wing populist base, was indeed fascist. When you have the Boogaloo Boys and the Proud Boys and all these people, this is fascism at the heart of a large, white supremacist movement. So this is worrisome — not only did it get mobilized, [learn to] to communicate with itself, and organize better, but it was living in the West Wing of the White House. That’s a terrifying reality that we have to face.
Frank:
I’ve kept saying “Look, we need to really look at this guy [because] he’s really pushing the buttons of these groups that I once belonged to.” I’ve been saying it for years on MSNBC and CNN. And they say, “Yeah, he kinda is.” And I’m like, “No, he is.” I think Trump almost had to happen after Obama, because Obama was this president who was very dignified and who got health care for everybody, you know, who did great things. And then the anger and the ignorance of our country stepped up, kind of behind our back — we were asleep in a way. Everyone thought Hillary had it. And then [there’s] this mass growing, mostly white. And it’s mostly about people who watch Fox News, who are full of fear, just like I [once] was.
What are your thoughts on the 2020 election? What do you think the outcome means for the future of activism and of white supremacy?
Bill:
I’ve always kind of thought the elections are not the most important thing. The thing I care about is the mass movement and organizations of the oppressed because I think that’s where change comes from. If you take a simple glance at history, you can see that Lyndon Johnson, a cracker from Texas, passed the most far-reaching civil rights legislation since reconstruction. He didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart or the brilliance of his mind. He did it because there was fire from below. I think progressives spend too much time looking at the sites of power we have no control over — the White House, Congress, and those institutions — instead of the institutions we have absolute power in — schools, neighborhoods, unions.
This election, I felt differently. Why? Because I think we needed to build the United Front against fascism. An election is never a destination, it’s a door. You walk through the door, and then the question is, what terrain do you want to organize on? I think it was very important to unite against Trump because we couldn’t live [with him] another four years. We elect a target of our organizing, and Biden’s a better target. For me, the question isn’t to figure out what our critique of Biden or Harris is (and I have plenty). The trick is to build a mass movement which is irresistible. [For instance], if we want healthcare as a human right, we have to build a movement that SAYS healthcare is a human right. We already have a majority of public opinion about that, [so] let’s build a movement that insists on it. And then Biden will give it to us.
I think that social movements are largely overlooked by many, many people. But I think the energy of the people who’ve been driving the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, those people understand these things very, very well, and they’re not going back to sleep. Rousseau said, “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.” I think that’s true, so I always try to convince myself, my students, my friends, that we should be interested in politics. And I don’t mean politics in the electoral sense, I mean it in the broader sense of participating and broadening the space of public participation in a public square. And you build the public square inch by inch, row by row.
Frank:
So many Black people have said, “We just want democracy, and we want it for all of us.” [The election] was amazing. I always say enough good people are going to stand up, [that] humanity is going to build up inside of us, and [that] when something crazy like Trump’s presidency happens, it’s going to erupt. And it did — the good people in this country were like “No fucking way. We don’t care how many crazies you got on your side. We don’t care how many, you know, fanatics. America doesn’t want to go this way.” We’re not finished, but I think it is such a huge victory.
I’m hoping that Trump’s supporters are like, “Wait a minute, why are we following this guy?” Right now, he’s waking up a lot of extremists. I’m talking about the people that were like me, that would have done anything for that movement, and anything for their ego. He’s woken a lot of them up, and it’s gonna be harder to put back sleep. I’m [worried] that there’s going to be a round of terrorism in the next year, in this country, because they’re so sore loser-ish. They see that the country is changing, and they don’t like it. If I’m a white supremacist, I believe I’m superior to you because of the color of my skin. I didn’t go out and achieve a degree. I didn’t do anything to become part of this white supremacist movement — I just had this thing that was given to me. We’ll always have that, you know, but hopefully, the Trumpers are gonna look back on this and [see] that they were on the wrong side of history.
What are your thoughts on the insurrection at the Capitol two weeks ago?
Bill:
I think it’s important that we call by its true name — a white supremacist insurrection in an attempt to stop an election. The president of the United States, his oldest son, his personal attorney, they all said the same thing — “Go to the Capitol, don’t let them get away with the election that just happened.” So Donald Trump has lost two elections, by something like 10 million votes, and yet a small minority, tiny minority of organized fascist, white supremacist troops mobilized under the direction and invitation of the president of the United States in order to stop the procedure that would allow the election to be certified. I don’t think you can call it anything except an attempted coup.
One should always remember, [though], that in the United States, which acts as if it’s some kind of paragon of democracy, overthrowing governments is the name of the game, that’s what they do. They’ve done it from time immemorial. Not only that, but governments have been overthrown again and again INSIDE the United States. When there was a multiracial democracy that had been elected in North Carolina, during Reconstruction to run that state, a mob just like the one we saw on Wednesday showed up and killed a bunch of people, burned homes and businesses down, and retook the government. So the idea that everything we’re witnessing is brand new? Nope. This is, in many ways, the norm. The norm is white supremacy.
I do appreciate everybody standing up and pushing back against this, and I don’t think the crisis has unfolded far enough for us to know where it’s gonna land. But I [also] think it’s an extraordinary and important thing to understand that a group of white supremacists planned to stop the formal procedure of an election and [were] encouraged and mobilized by the President.
Frank
I mean, they’re traitors. They’re traitors to our country. I study history, and to see that people are falling for nationalism and an idol… it’s Germany. It is absolutely Germany and Italy, and all the places that fall under the crazy dictatorships. Right now, it’s white America finally realizing that it’s not going to be the majority and having a nervous breakdown. It feels almost that this [was] their final stand now that we know that the country is going to go hopefully more progressive.
We’ve got to remember that this isn’t Trump, per se. It’s Fox News. I’ve been screaming about Fox News for years, ever since I studied the Rwanda uprising. There was a thing in Rwanda called “hate radio,” and it was one of the biggest things that motivated that war. It was a radio station that played non-stop speakers about how the Tutsis were cockroaches — “They’re coming to take our jobs, they’re doing this…” And Fox news IS that, that’s why Fox News does all the name-calling all the time. They give people bad nicknames. They’re like bullies on a playground. And it’s this whole bully mentality that has come upon us.
I’ve [also] been watching OAN a lot because they’re a little bit more dangerous, and so is Newsmax. They keep saying things that we need to look at. They keep saying things like “Rise up, patriots.” “It’s time for us to make our stand, patriots.” We need to take back our country, patriots.” I mean, they’re constantly beating the fucking war drum.
The best thing I could say about what happened two days ago is that it might have turned the country more against Trump and Trumpism. I think that there’s people who have been sitting on the fence that said, “Whoa, that’s our Capitol building,” like, “you did this.” I think that what happened at the Capitol really put a sting into the momentum of people that wanted to start the Civil War [because] they saw the fucking Yahoos that they’re fucking running around with.
Is there any way we can reconcile with those in the nation who voted for Trump, especially when it comes to racial issues?
Bill:
I don’t buy the narrative national narrative that this is the most divided we’ve ever been. The electorate broke 50–50, kind of, but that’s the electorate, and there were a lot of reasons that people voted. There’s always been a base for white supremacy — it’s deeply embedded in this country. And yet it’s not in the interest of most white people to be white supremacists. That’s it. That means there’s an opening for organizing if we can show people that actually their self-interest is in uniting with the broad majority of people. Let’s, as white people who are organizers, reach out and find a language that can unite people.
I [also] don’t buy that everyone who voted for Trump was a fascist or a hopelessly backward idiot. I organized in Cleveland in 1965, 66, and 67. We had two projects—one on the east side called the east side community union where I lived that was all African-American, [and] one on the west side, mostly Appalachian. We united around issues of importance to both of us. And that’s not impossible to do. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Let’s take something as simple as “Do you want your kids to get a decent education?” or “Do you want to have access to health care?” or “Do you want to feel safe in your home?” All those are things everybody wants. So can’t we — those of us who are on the left — find a language and a policy initiative that can build that kind of unity? I think we must, and I think we can.
Frank:
We have to remember that Donald Trump has really captured people’s fears and their ignorance. When I talk to Trump supporters, I basically berate them and tell them the facts and the truth and common sense. And they’re like “you’re right, you’re right.” And then it takes like two days, and I’ll see them on Facebook writing the same dumb shit again because they went back to that circle. What we can do is immerse people in the groups that they hate. 10 years ago, I took this neo-Nazi kid, the head of the neo-Nazis in Michigan, to a Black church, and I took him to go hang out with a couple of Black dudes I knew that used to be gang members and now were community activists. I immersed him in that fucking shit, [but] I had to get him away from his friends.
Not all those people over there are extremists, and they’re not all bad people. A lot of my family members [are Trump supporters], and they just don’t see the ugliness through the forest of what they have seen and helped create. So we need to be kind and patient with them as much as possible. I think a lot of things are going to be revealed in the next year that are gonna be so helpful towards our cause of saying [that] humanity stood up for a reason. [Trump’s supporters] want to look back on how great America was post-World War II, because that’s the Great America everyone’s talking about, when everyone came home and the country was flourishing, and we were building homes in the suburbs — not allowing Black people in them — that’s the American image that they keep thinking about. And what we’re saying is, “That’s not good. That’s not the America that we want. We want an America that’s continuously evolving and growing and giving everyone a chance to get that suburban dream.
The right-wing activists should be on our side for [Black Lives Matter]. They are all about the Constitution, but only when the Constitution is for them. The Constitution is for all of us, and the Bill of Rights is for all of us. The police are treading on [our rights], so why don’t [they] stand with us? We know that they hate the federal government, they hate big government, but they don’t mind when cops beat the shit out of Black people. If we could switch this argument and make it to where they’re standing for a constitutional issue with all of us, we might be able to unite our country.
As someone who’s been in the game for a while, do you have any advice for young activists today?
Bill:
I have no advice for them. I take advice from them, and I think that’s the way it has to be. But what my advice to myself and my advice as a teacher over decades has been is that there’s a simple rhythm to being a moral person, to being a good citizen, and being an activist is the same rhythm. The rhythm is this:
First, open your eyes, see the world as it is. And that’s something you have to do again and again, every day, multiple times a day. How do you make moral judgments if you have your eyes tightly closed? If you’re living in a prison of a single good idea, you can’t.
If you open your eyes, that leads to number two — you pay attention, and then you are astonished at everything you see before you — astonished at the unnecessary suffering people visit upon one another, about the unnecessary structures that are oppressing and exploiting us. But you’re also astonished at the beauty and the ecstasy everywhere — love, joy, sex, music, theater.
Number three, you do something, and number four, you rethink.[You] try again and again and again, [and you can’t be hopeless]. One of the weapons of the strong is to create in society a sense of cynicism and hopelessness. I’ll give you an example. We had half a million people on the Mall in Washington D.C. opposing the war in Vietnam one weekend. Soldiers were throwing their medals at Congress, people were burning the American flag, and people were camping out. It was 500,000 people. And in the New York Times the next day, the headline was, “President Nixon: ‘I didn’t know they were there’.” Right. He knew we were there. It’s important to say, “I don’t know that you’re there,” and that that is a metaphor for what they tell us every fucking day — I don’t hear you, I don’t see you. Cynicism says to you, “your actions don’t matter.” We escalate our attempts to be seen, but that’s not the only answer. The answer is to convince people that it’s a trick, that cynicism is not wisdom. Cynicism is just cynicism.
Frank:
If you’re going to become an activist, it can’t be about you. You have to be standing up for others. When your heart is really into it, and you’re standing up for others, then you will be victorious. But you’ll [also] be doing the right work. That’s all I can say. It’s the most rewarding life I’ve ever lived, standing up for others.
Bill Ayers currently resides in Chicago with his wife, Bernardine Dohrn. His podcast is available on Apple and on Spotify.
Frank Meeink has chosen not to disclose his location due to safety concerns stemming from his testimony in front of Congress. He can be found on Twitter @FrankieMeeink.
