Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson

Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson (born in 1945) (known as Cathy) was a member of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground. She came to the attention of the police after she was seen running barefoot down West 11th Street in Greenwich Village, New York, shortly after a townhouse was destroyed by explosions on March 6, 1970 at 11:55 a.m. It was later discovered that the townhouse belonged to James Platt Wilkerson, and that members of the Weatherman had been constructing bombs in the basement of the brownstone, intended to be used in an attack on a soldiers' dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Wilkerson avoided capture for 10 years by hiding under an assumed name. She turned herself in to police in 1980.

Early years

Wilkerson was the daughter of James Platt Wilkerson, a radio station owner from the Midwest. He owned the brownstone townhouse at 18 West 11th Street. She attended Swarthmore College and graduated in 1966.

Other Involvements

In 1967, Wilkerson was employed in the national office of the Students for a Democratic Society. Shortly after her graduation from college, she traveled to Cuba to witness the Cuban Revolution first hand. She was also very active in civil rights and the women’s movement. [1]

Chicago

At the time of the townhouse explosion, Wilkerson was free on $40,000 bail on charges of attacking a Chicago policeman with a four-foot club during the "Days of Rage".

Explosion

On the morning of March 6, 1970, in the subbasement of 18 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village, there was an explosion in the townhouse owned by Wilkerson’s father, killing three. At the time of the explosion, Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin successfully fled the building and immediately went underground. They became wanted on the F.B.I. ten most wanted list. They avoided capture for ten years. The brownstone was being used by the Weather Underground to make explosive devices that were to be used at a dance at the Fort Dix, New Jersey. That evening, a man's body was found in the basement of the brownstone, and a short time later, a woman's torso was discovered on the first floor. Police also found several handbags with personal identifications that were stolen from college students over the previous few months. Late that same night, police discovered at least 60 sticks of dynamite, a live military antitank shell, blasting caps and several large metal pipes packed solid with explosives and nails as shrapnel.

Three members of the WUO were killed in the townhouse explosion. Theodore Gold, who was 23 years old and a leader of a student strike at Columbia University in 1968. Another former college student,Diana Oughton, was also unfortunately killed from the explosion.Seven days later, the police located another member of the Weathermen, Terry Robbins. [2] Cathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin stayed overnight at her parents' house a few blocks away on St. Luke's Place before they both disappeared. [3] Her father, who owned both houses, was on vacation in the Caribbean. [4] She was charged, in absentia with illegal possession of dynamite and criminally negligent homicide and eluded capture for 10 years.

Arrest

She resurfaced in 1980, was tried and convicted, and served a brief prison sentence.

Later years

Wilkerson has worked in New York City Public Schools training teachers for the last 20 years, and wrote a book about her experience in the Weather Underground, Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times As a Weatherman [5] An interview with her stated that she was very personable, unassuming, and quite direct. Her sophisticated, but blunt style is very appealing. [6]. When “Cathy Wilkerson” is invited to classes to talk about the left radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s period, there are always those in the audience who seem to be looking for some kind of psychological flaw in the members of these movements.

Flying Close to the Sun

Wilkerson’s narrative is about the times of the Weather Underground that "relates a trajectory not very different from most middle-class and wealthy members of the U.S. radical movements." It is the story of hopes dashed by elected leaders preaching democracy, frustration with supposedly democratic channels that do more to prolong war and racism than end those ills and the growing awareness of the power of the people. It is the story of the moral dissonance created on realizing your family’s financial well being depends on other families misery. [7] It is also the story of Cathy Wilkerson, a young girl from a well off family from the U.S. that develops a political conscience.It is a personal look at how one's political growth is part of one's political development; how the development of a moral standard can drive one to accept and commit actions that seem contradictory to that conscience. The Pacific Free Press called the book exciting and reflective. "The discussions of her internal, emotional, and intellectual conflicts complement the descriptions of the political discussions within the movement." It examines how the personal becomes intertwined with the political. [8] The book also examines the absence of the women’s voices; the incompetence and the egos; the hundreds of bombs detonated in protest, which caused little loss of life but were also ineffective in revolution.The book took six years to write.

References

Patterson, J. (2007) The Guardian: The Guardian on the Weather Underground. Retrieved July 4, 2003 from http: // www. Upstate films. Org/ weather / guardian. Html.

Jacobs, R. (2007) For the sake of a future. Retrieved October 16, 2007 from: http: // www. Zmag .org / content show article. Cfm? Item Id =145052l

Jacobs, R. (2007) Standing Up and Taking the Heat. Retrieved October 19, 2007 from http // www. Pacific free press. Com./content./view/1762/z/.

Good, T. (2007). Next left notes: Let the people decide. Retrieved October 10, 2007 from http : // Antiauthoritarian. Net / nln / ?p =353

Wilkerson, C. Flying Close to the Sun Signed. Retrieved November15th 2007 from http: // www. Powers. com / bibliography.

Further reading

• New York Times; March 5, 2000; The street seemed destined to remain a kind of sanctuary, until just before noon on March 6, 1970, when the house next door, at 18 West 11th Street, exploded. ... Young radicals from the Weathermen were making bombs to destroy property, beginning with the main library at Columbia University. Three bomb makers, Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins, were killed. Two others, Kathy Boudin and Cathlyn Wilkerson, escaped and remained fugitives for more than a decade. The first was the daughter of the civil liberties lawyer Leonard Boudin, the second the daughter of James P. Wilkerson, the owner of the house at No. 18. During the years since, I have thought about the explosion often: every March on the anniversary, and on other occasions; when Cathy Wilkerson resurfaced in 1980 and was tried and convicted, and served a brief prison sentence ...
• Time (magazine); Monday, July 21, 1980 Defended. Weatherwoman surrenders. When she disappeared, fleeing from the explosion-shattered wreckage of a Manhattan town house, Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson was so perfect a symbol of the times as to be almost a macabre caricature. The date was March 6, 1970, and American society was torn by the tensions generated by the Viet Nam War and the preceding decade's civil rights agitation. Middle-class and wealthy youths were burning draft cards and marching in the streets shouting hate at the Establishment that had nurtured them. A few went beyond revolutionary rhetoric to amateur terrorism, and among them was Cathy Wilkerson. ...
• Time (magazine); Monday, March 23, 1970; House on 11th Street. New York's West 11th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is a gracious, tree-shaded reminder of the Greenwich Village of Henry James. A community of successful artists, writers and businessmen, it is lined with stately town houses like the four-story dwelling at No. 18, which until last week looked much the same as when it was built in 1845. There was a formal garden in back where few sounds louder than the tinkling of teacups were ever heard. The owner of the Federal-style $250,000 house, Businessman James Platt Wilkerson, had furnished the interior Georgian style. The rooms were filled with art and rare antiques, including a 1790 square piano. Wilkerson was especially proud of his paneled library, called the Bird Room because it housed a collection of wood, metal and china birds. It was a site for refined, elegant living. ...

External links

• Crime library
• History Matters interview
• Book review by Cathy Wilkerson
• An interview with Cathy Wilkerson on The Marketplace of Ideas