Bill Ayers talked about his life and work. Mr. Ayers was joined later in the program by his wife and collaborator Bernardine Dohrn. They both responded to telephone calls and to questions from the audience in the University Center Loop Room at the 2009 Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest.A video clip was shown of Bill Ayers giving a tour of his office at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
William C. Ayers, a distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is also the founder of both the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society. He was a leader in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War in the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. His books include: The Good Preschool Teacher: Six Teachers Reflect on Their Lives (1989); To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher (1993); A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (1997); Fugitive Days: A Memoir (2001); On the Side of the Child: Summerhill Revisited (2003); Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom (2004); and Teaching the Personal and the Political: Essays on Hope and Justice (2004). His latest book, co-authored with with his wife Bernardine Dohrn, is Race Course: Against White Supremacy (Third World Press; February 28, 2009). Professor Dohrn joined the discussion during the last hour of the program. She is the director of the Children and Family Law Justice Center and a clinical associate professor of law at Northwestern University. She had previously collaborated with her husband on other works.