Mother Country Radicals

Zayd Dohrn was born underground - his parents were radicals and counter-culture outlaws, on the run from the FBI. Now Zayd takes us back to the 1970s, when his parents and their young friends in the Weather Underground Organization declared war on the United States government. They brawled with riot cops on the streets of Chicago, bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, broke comrades out of prison, and teamed up with Black militant groups to rob banks, fight racism - and help build a revolution.

Latest Episodes

Introducing: Campus Files

College holds a mythic place in American culture, but behind the polished campus tours and glossy brochures lies a far more complicated reality. Each episode of Campus Files uncovers a new story that rocked a college or university. Consider this your unofficial campus tour.

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Introducing Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD

The police tell us they are here to protect us. But what if their original purpose was something else altogether? Peabody Award-winning host Chenjerai Kumanyika takes listeners on a journey to uncover the hidden history of the largest police force in the world – from its roots in slavery, to rival police gangs battling across the city, to everyday people who resisted every step of the way. As our society debates where policing is going, Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD explores where the police came from.

From Wondery, Crooked Media and PushBlack.

Follow Empire City wherever you get your podcasts and listen to the second episode, available now. You can listen ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts.

lnk.to/EmpireCity

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Introducing: Search Engine

No question too big, no question too small. On Search Engine, host PJ Vogt answers the kinds of questions you might ask the internet when you can't sleep. If you find the world bewildering, but also sometimes enjoy being bewildered by it, Search Engine is here for you.

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Introducing Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto

Chapter 1: Bug’s Plan. It’s 2014. Adelanto is a bankrupt city in the California desert known for its massive detention centers and not much else. Then, a stranger comes to town with a wild idea to make Adelanto great again: Become the first city in Southern California to legalize commercial weed cultivation. Subscribe to Dreamtown to hear episode two right now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Introducing Stiffed: Good Girls Walk Into a Porn Manager

New York City, 1973. Bob Guccione, founder of the men’s magazine Penthouse, is about to drop his latest project, and it’s not quite what anyone is expecting. Enter Viva, an erotic magazine for women published by a porn king but staffed by – drumroll – a bunch of feminist writers and editors. Viva features groundbreaking full-frontal male nudes, writing by feminist icons like Betty Friedan, and profiles of literary legends like Maya Angelou. Its cover stars include Bianca Jagger and Shelley Duvall. Anna Wintour is even Viva’s fashion editor at one point. But what is originally conceived as a high-end, progressive, sexual utopia for women… doesn’t quite turn out that way. This is the first episode of Stiffed, an eight-part series from Crooked Media and iHeart Media. If you like what you hear, you can listen and follow Stiffed wherever you get your podcasts.

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Bonus: Radical Family Histories (A Crossover with I Was Never There)

Zayd sits down with his mom, Bernardine Dohrn, along with Jamie and Karen Zelermyer of Wonder Media Network’s I Was Never There to look back at the process of making a show so deeply rooted in personal family history. Jamie and Zayd interview their mothers to learn how they felt reliving their radical pasts and what it was like to make a podcast with their children. And in a time that feels so similar politically to the turbulent decades Karen and Bernardine lived through - how do they find hope?

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Chapter 10: Inheritance

Zayd connects to other children of the underground. Out of the shards of the radical movements of the 1970s, a new generation fights to build a better future.

For more of the story, check out:

Chesa Boudin, Letters from Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out (2005)
Patrisse Cullors & asha bandel, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (2018)

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Chapter 9: Revolutionary Suicide

Former members of the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army carry out one last action together, with deadly consequences that reverberate across generations.

For more of the story, check out:

Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography (1987)
Dhoruba bin Wahad, Assata Shakur & Mumia Abu-Jamal, Still Black, Still Strong (1993)
Dan Berger, Outlaws of America: the Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (2005)

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Chapter 8: Hard Times

The end of the Vietnam War means the end of the Weather Underground. Zayd’s parents and their radical comrades, still on the run from the FBI, plan a different kind of future.

For more of the story, check out:

Emile de Antonio, Underground (1976)

Mona Rocha, The Weatherwomen: Militant Feminists of the Weather Underground (2020)

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Chapter 7: The Belly of the Beast, Part II

The Weather Underground Organization and the Black Liberation Army go to war with the United States government.

For more of the story, check out:

The BLA, Black Liberation Army Papers (1963-1998)

Sekou Odinga, Dhoruba Bin Wahad & Jamal Joseph, Look for Me in the Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st Century Revolutions (2017)

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