Feminist, activist and author Nancy Kurshan introduced her newest book, a memoir titled “Levitating the Pentagon,” in a discussion with retired University of Chicago professor Bill Ayers, an important figure in the radical movements of the 1960s and ’70s.
The conversation took place April 9 at the Pilsen Community Bookshop from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Kurshan, who lives in California, described Chicago as a place “I think I left half my heart in” because of her work with the Youth International Party (YIP) based in the city.
Kurshan called herself a “Red diaper baby,” a term used to describe children of people in the Communist movement during the Cold War era. When Kurshan grew up, she continued to be part of left-wing politics. She helped found YIP in 1967, becoming a “Yippie,” as the group’s members were known.
Kurshan’s memoir recounts her journey as an activist during the Vietnam War and her experience battling the U.S. government. “It’s a story that’s already been told, mostly by men,” she said, reading from her memoir. “Now it’s my turn.”
Kurshan ran in left-wing radical circles that included Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, who was in the audience at the reading. Ayers and Dohrn helped co-found the radical activist group Weather Underground in the mid 1960s. Kurshan wrote admiringly of Dohrn, calling her “politically determined,” a “good listener” and a “good questioner.”
Kurshan further shared that Dohrn inspired her daughter’s name. She chose the name Rosa Kurshan-Emmer after Rosa Parks and Rosa Luxemburg,
while also nodding to Dohrn’s nom de guerre, which was Rose.
In October 1967, Dohrn was among the 250,000 activists who took part in a protest at the Pentagon in response to then-President Lyndon B. Johnson’s military expansion in Vietnam. Kurshan and her then-boyfriend Jerry Rubin, described by Ayers as “the clown prince of the left,” were among the counterculture figures who helped organize the event, a satirical attempt to levitate the Pentagon by 300 feet.
“Thousands of people came to levitate the Pentagon. What an insane idea, and how much fun it was,” Dohrn said in an interview after the reading.
Another stunt mentioned in the interview between Kurshan and Ayers was pulled by YIP in 1968 when group members released a pig named “Pigasus the Immortal” into a press conference and nominated it for president.
“Why have half a hog when you can have a whole hog?” Kurshan said.
Kurshan also recalled when the House of Un-American Activities Committee targeted Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Dave Dellinger, Tom Haden and Rennie Davis for organizing anti-Vietnam War protests in the Chicago 8 Conspiracy Trial of 1969.
A group of female activists responded by founding the Women’s International
Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH). Kurshan was part of the group, alongside Rozz Payne, Sharon Krebs, and Robin Morgan. “How can they have a witch hunt without a witch?” Kurshan asked.
Today, Kurshan continues to organize and protest, while attempting to inspire
the next generation to make change.
“What Nancy has done, she’s captured a sense of what it was like to be a young person four decades ago, to see a world that was unjust and out-of-balance, and filled with war, and filled with racism, and to decide to take a stand against it,” Ayers said.
