Brian Flanagan
Encyclopedia
Brian Flanagan is a former member of the American radical left
organizations Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO)
.
From early on Flanagan felt the pull of militancy. He recalls, "I know that from a fairly early age, 11 or 12, I had really come to admire Fidel Castro
. When he stood up to the United States, I thought that was a great thing".
in New York, where he was a member of Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS). Flanagan studied philosophy and economics at Columbia where he was a C student. Whatever passions academics failed to arouse, however, the rising opposition to the Vietnam War supplied. "That was the turning point for me," he says. "Being in New York, being at Columbia during the Vietnam War, you could not be oblivious to what was going on. People were lining up on one side or the other. And so I took my stand." Flanagan was one of the members that helped seize the mathematics building on the Columbia University campus. The 1968 Columbia Student Revolt
involved students shutting down the campus by seizing buildings to attract attention for their cause. SDS confronted the university's involvement with the Institute for Defense Analysis, who provided research the military used in Vietnam, and the university gym located in Harlem
, which would not benefit the African-American neighborhood population. In 1969, Flanagan joined Weatherman, a radical splinter group of the SDS, later known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO)
.
called the Days of Rage
. The rally was staged in opposition to the Vietnam War
, and its slogan was "Bring the War Home". Members gathered at Grant Park
to listen to speeches by SDS leaders about Che Guevara
and the world revolution. The rally turned to the streets of Chicago, where participants vandalized businesses, smashed car windows and blew up a statue of a policeman known as the Haymarket statue. During the rally, Flanagan had a physical encounter with then 35-year-old lawyer Richard Elrod that left Elrod with a broken neck and partially paralyzed from the neck down. Both men report different testimonials of what transpired that day. Flanagan stood trial for "attempted murder, aggravated battery, felonious mob action, and resisting arrest" and was acquitted on all charges. Michael Rollins, a reporter for WCFL
who was interviewing Elrod just before Elrod broke away to chase Flanagan, supported Flanagan's description of what happened. Although he told his story to the police and the state's attorney's office, he was never called before the grand jury. Richard Hinchion, 43, an insulating contractor from Munster, Indiana
was another eyewitness supporting that version.
, Terry Robbins
, and Ted Gold
, members of Weatherman died in a Greenwich Village
townhouse explosion when a nail bomb detonated after members purchased two 50-pound cases of dynamite. It was explained later that the bombs were to be detonated at a non-commissioned officers' dance at [Fort Dix]. In an interview, Flanagan suggested that he helped one Weatherman member, Kathy Boudin
, who later served 22 years in prison for felony murder and robbery, flee New York City after police investigations placed her in the townhouse during the time of the explosion. Following the townhouse deaths, many members of Weatherman went into hiding, forming Weather Underground Organization, said to be responsible for a series of bombings of US state and federal buildings between 1970 and 1975.
In the documentary film The Weather Underground
, Flanagan admits to participating in Weather's bombings during the 1970s. During a memorable moment in the film, Flanagan states, "When you feel you have right on your side, you can do some horrific things". After resurfacing from the underground, Flanagan joined Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, the above-ground wing of Weather Underground Organization. Like many members of the Weather Underground Organization, Flanagan was never jailed for his involvement due to the illegal evidence-gathering tactics of the FBI's COINTELPRO
program.
, exiled Black Panther Party
leader. While in Algeria, Flanagan also met with Jennifer Dohrn, the sister of Bernardine Dohrn
, along with Steward Albert and Jerry Rubin
, two members of the Yippies.
circuit and worked as a carpenter and bartender. In 1996 he won $23,000 as a contestant on the television game show Jeopardy!
Flanagan continued his interest in trivia
, hosting a weekly trivia contest at his bar, the Night Café in Manhattan, which he ran for fifteen years. Forced out of the space due to increased rent, the Night Cafe closed in September 2007.
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
organizations Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO)
Weather Underground (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
.
Early life
Brian Flanagan was born on October 20, 1946 and raised in Manhattan, New York. His father was an advertising executive and his mother a teacher, stockbroker and antique dealer. Flanagan was introduced to politics by his parents who supported Illinois Democratic governor Adlai E. Stevenson, an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956.From early on Flanagan felt the pull of militancy. He recalls, "I know that from a fairly early age, 11 or 12, I had really come to admire Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
. When he stood up to the United States, I thought that was a great thing".
Columbia University
During the 1960s, Flanagan attended Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York, where he was a member of Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS). Flanagan studied philosophy and economics at Columbia where he was a C student. Whatever passions academics failed to arouse, however, the rising opposition to the Vietnam War supplied. "That was the turning point for me," he says. "Being in New York, being at Columbia during the Vietnam War, you could not be oblivious to what was going on. People were lining up on one side or the other. And so I took my stand." Flanagan was one of the members that helped seize the mathematics building on the Columbia University campus. The 1968 Columbia Student Revolt
Columbia University protests of 1968
The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United...
involved students shutting down the campus by seizing buildings to attract attention for their cause. SDS confronted the university's involvement with the Institute for Defense Analysis, who provided research the military used in Vietnam, and the university gym located in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, which would not benefit the African-American neighborhood population. In 1969, Flanagan joined Weatherman, a radical splinter group of the SDS, later known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO)
Weather Underground (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
.
Days of Rage
On October 8, 1969, Weatherman staged its first act of public aggression, at a rally in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
called the Days of Rage
Days of Rage
The Days of Rage demonstrations were a series of direct actions taken over a course of three days in October 1969 in Chicago organized by the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society...
. The rally was staged in opposition to the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, and its slogan was "Bring the War Home". Members gathered at Grant Park
Grant Park
Grant Park may refer to:Parks*Grant Park , Georgia, USA*Grant Park , Illinois, USA*Grant Park , Oregon, USACommunities*Grant Park, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, a neighborhood*Grant Park, Illinois, USA, a village...
to listen to speeches by SDS leaders about Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
and the world revolution. The rally turned to the streets of Chicago, where participants vandalized businesses, smashed car windows and blew up a statue of a policeman known as the Haymarket statue. During the rally, Flanagan had a physical encounter with then 35-year-old lawyer Richard Elrod that left Elrod with a broken neck and partially paralyzed from the neck down. Both men report different testimonials of what transpired that day. Flanagan stood trial for "attempted murder, aggravated battery, felonious mob action, and resisting arrest" and was acquitted on all charges. Michael Rollins, a reporter for WCFL
WCFL
WCFL may refer to:* WCFL , a radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, United States, which held the call sign WCFL from June 1926 to May 1987* WCFL-FM , a radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois from 1948 to January 1950....
who was interviewing Elrod just before Elrod broke away to chase Flanagan, supported Flanagan's description of what happened. Although he told his story to the police and the state's attorney's office, he was never called before the grand jury. Richard Hinchion, 43, an insulating contractor from Munster, Indiana
Munster, Indiana
Munster is a town located in North Township, Lake County, in Northwest Indiana in the United States. This bedroom community lies in the Chicago metropolitan area, approximately southeast of the Chicago Loop, and shares municipal boundaries with Hammond to the north, Highland to the east, Dyer and...
was another eyewitness supporting that version.
Weather Underground Organization
On March 6, 1970, Diana OughtonDiana Oughton
Diana Oughton was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weatherman. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. After graduation, Oughton went to Guatemala with the VISA program to teach the young and older...
, Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins was a U.S. leftist radical activist. A key member of the Students for a Democratic Society Ohio chapter, he led Kent State into its first militant student uprising in 1968. Robbins was credited for drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues which later...
, and Ted Gold
Ted Gold
Theodore "Ted" Gold was a member of Weatherman.-Early years and education:Gold was a red diaper baby. He was the son of Hyman Gold, a prominent Jewish physician and a mathematics instructor at Columbia University who had both been part of the Old Left. His mother was a statistician who taught at...
, members of Weatherman died in a Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
townhouse explosion when a nail bomb detonated after members purchased two 50-pound cases of dynamite. It was explained later that the bombs were to be detonated at a non-commissioned officers' dance at [Fort Dix]. In an interview, Flanagan suggested that he helped one Weatherman member, Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin is a former American radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of three people. She later became a public health expert while in prison...
, who later served 22 years in prison for felony murder and robbery, flee New York City after police investigations placed her in the townhouse during the time of the explosion. Following the townhouse deaths, many members of Weatherman went into hiding, forming Weather Underground Organization, said to be responsible for a series of bombings of US state and federal buildings between 1970 and 1975.
In the documentary film The Weather Underground
The Weather Underground
The Weather Underground is a 2002 documentary film based on the rise and fall of the American radical organization The Weathermen. Using much archive footage from the time as well as interviews with the Weathermen today, the film constructs a linear narrative of the militant organization.The film,...
, Flanagan admits to participating in Weather's bombings during the 1970s. During a memorable moment in the film, Flanagan states, "When you feel you have right on your side, you can do some horrific things". After resurfacing from the underground, Flanagan joined Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, the above-ground wing of Weather Underground Organization. Like many members of the Weather Underground Organization, Flanagan was never jailed for his involvement due to the illegal evidence-gathering tactics of the FBI's COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
program.
Foreign Travel
The FBI surveillance files on Weatherman reported that on October 20, 1970 Flanagan was in Algeria meeting with Eldridge CleaverEldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer...
, exiled Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
leader. While in Algeria, Flanagan also met with Jennifer Dohrn, the sister of Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the American anti-Vietnam War radical organization, Weather Underground. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the immediate past Director of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center...
, along with Steward Albert and Jerry Rubin
Jerry Rubin
Jerry Rubin was an American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman.-Early life:...
, two members of the Yippies.
Post-Weathermen life
In the 1990s, Flanagan played pool on a professional billiardsBilliards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
circuit and worked as a carpenter and bartender. In 1996 he won $23,000 as a contestant on the television game show Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
Flanagan continued his interest in trivia
Trivia
The trivia are the three lower Artes Liberales, i.e. grammar, rhetoric and logic. These were the topics of basic education, foundational to the quadrivia of higher education, and hence the material of basic education, of interest only to undergraduates...
, hosting a weekly trivia contest at his bar, the Night Café in Manhattan, which he ran for fifteen years. Forced out of the space due to increased rent, the Night Cafe closed in September 2007.