A conversation with Weather Underground co-founder Mark Rudd on why he went underground for 7 years and has since renounced violence. A new documentary which tells the story of the militant antiwar group holds its premiere run in New York.

The invasion of Laos, the killing of four Kent State university students by the National Guard, the relentless violence of the Vietnam war — these were the U.S. government’s actions 30 years ago. And peaceful protest was not stopping it.

In 1969 one group decided to meet violence with violence.

They called themselves the Weather Underground.

A radical splinter group which broke off from the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weather Underground were convinced that only militant action could end racism, the war in Vietnam and the inequalities they felt inherent in a capitalist society.

They took responsibility for bombing two dozen public buildings, including the Pentagon, eventually landing on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

A new documentary, “The Weather Underground”, which tells the story of the militant antiwar group, held its premiere run in New York last night.

The group took its name from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, with the lyric, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

• Mark Rudd, former member of the Weather Underground
• Sam Green, filmmaker, “The Weather Underground,” a documentary that tells the story of the antiwar group.