What do you think?
Rate this book
A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience
In this elegant family history, journalist Thai Jones traces the past century of American radical politics through the extraordinary exploits of his own family. Born in the late 1970s to fugitive leaders of the Weather Underground and grandson of Communists, spiritual pacifists, and civil rights agitators, Jones grew up an heir to an American tradition of resistance. Yet rather than partake of it, he took it upon himself to document it. The result is a book of extraordinary reporting and narrative.
The dramatic saga of A Radical Line begins in 1913, when Jones's maternal grandmother was born, and ends in 1981, when a score of heavily armed government agents from the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force stormed into four-year-old Thai's home and took his parents away in handcuffs. In between, Jones takes us on a journey from the turn-of-the-century western frontier to the tenements of melting-pot Brooklyn, through the Great Depression, the era of McCarthyism, and the Age of Aquarius.
Jones's paternal grandfather, Albert Jones, committed himself to pacifism during the 1930s and refused to fight in World War II. The author's maternal grandfather, Arthur Stein, was a member of the Communist Party during the 1950s and refused to collaborate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. His maternal grandmother, Annie Stein, worked closely with civil rights legends Mary Church Terrell and Ella Baker to desegregate institutions in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
His father, Jeff Jones, joined the violent Weathermen and led hundreds of screaming hippies through the streets of Chicago to clash with police during the Days of Rage in 1969. Then Jeff Jones disappeared and spent the next eleven years eluding the FBI's massive manhunt. Thai Jones spent the first years of his life on the run with his parents.
Beyond the politics, this is the story of a family whose lives were filled with love honored and betrayed, tragic deaths, painful blunders, narrow escapes, and hope-filled births. There is the drama of a pacifist father who must reconcile with a bomb-throwing son and a Communist mother whose daughter refuses to accept the lessons she has learned in a life as an organizer. There are parents and children who can never meet or, when they do, must use the ruses and subterfuge of criminals to steal a hug and a hello.
Beautifully written and sweeping in its scope, A Radical Line is nothing less than a history of the twentieth century and of one American family who lived to shake it up.
The dramatic saga of A Radical Line begins in 1913, when Jones's maternal grandmother was born, and ends in 1981, when a score of heavily armed government agents from the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force stormed into four-year-old Thai's home and took his parents away in handcuffs. In between, Jones takes us on a journey from the turn-of-the-century western frontier to the tenements of melting-pot Brooklyn, through the Great Depression, the era of McCarthyism, and the Age of Aquarius.
Jones's paternal grandfather, Albert Jones, committed himself to pacifism during the 1930s and refused to fight in World War II. The author's maternal grandfather, Arthur Stein, was a member of the Communist Party during the 1950s and refused to collaborate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. His maternal grandmother, Annie Stein, worked closely with civil rights legends Mary Church Terrell and Ella Baker to desegregate institutions in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
His father, Jeff Jones, joined the violent Weathermen and led hundreds of screaming hippies through the streets of Chicago to clash with police during the Days of Rage in 1969. Then Jeff Jones disappeared and spent the next eleven years eluding the FBI's massive manhunt. Thai Jones spent the first years of his life on the run with his parents.
Beyond the politics, this is the story of a family whose lives were filled with love honored and betrayed, tragic deaths, painful blunders, narrow escapes, and hope-filled births. There is the drama of a pacifist father who must reconcile with a bomb-throwing son and a Communist mother whose daughter refuses to accept the lessons she has learned in a life as an organizer. There are parents and children who can never meet or, when they do, must use the ruses and subterfuge of criminals to steal a hug and a hello.
Beautifully written and sweeping in its scope, A Radical Line is nothing less than a history of the twentieth century and of one American family who lived to shake it up.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published October 5, 2004
1 person is currently reading
96 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 24, 2022
In his book, Thai Jones draws upon the experiences of his parents, Jeff Jones and Eleanor Raskin, who were both Weather Underground leaders, to tell the story of the Weathermen as seen through the perspective of an insider.
Thai was the eldest son of Jeff Jones, who joined SDS at the age of eighteen in 1965 after participating in the first International Days of Protest Against the Vietnam conflict and by 1970 had become a federal fugitive facing conspiracy and riot charges. Jeff was also one of the founding members of the Weather Underground and one of the two authors of Prairie Fire, a well-known statement of the Weathermen.
As is typical of narratives by Weathermen, the author's account discusses the Greenwich Townhouse explosion. According to Thai, the Fort Dix operation, which resulted in the explosion, was planned only by the leaders of the Manhattan collective, especially Terry Robbins. He writes that while Jeff Jones in California was creating a network of safe houses, the autonomous Manhattan collective had developed “a different agenda.” Motivated by a desire to prove themselves the most revolutionary and “heaviest” of the collectives, they planned a huge bombing of the dance at Fort Dix. The author underscores that dozens of young military couples might have been maimed and killed and accepts the view that the collective, which was fanatical and competitive, had acted on its own. With this version of the story, Thai confirms the image of the Weathermen that other student radicals have tried to promote.
However, the words of John Jacobs, the head of the New York collectives in early 1970, point to a different conclusion: that the Fort Dix attack was not a rogue operation. Each cell of the Weather Underground that was committed to armed action would assemble a list of targets, which was transmitted through couriers up to the Weather Bureau. Bureau leaders discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each target, and approved or disapproved. Difficulties in creating secure communications meant that some collectives might not know what others were doing, but the Weather Bureau knew what everyone was doing. Furthermore, one of the survivors of the Greenwich Townhouse explosion, Cathy Wilkerson, criticized Weatherman Bill Ayers for calling Terry Robbins a madman. She wrote in her review of Ayers's memoir: “Everyone in [the] Weather leadership argued very convincingly for far more drastic steps than symbolic attacks.” The leadership, she insisted, wanted a fighting force that could do real material damage. For her, the Townhouse Collective’s project was the result not of Terry Robbins’s personal militancy, but of the reckless statements anf policies of the Weather Underground's leadership.
As expected, both Thai's father in his writings and Thai, whose account relies on the information that he had access to because of his father, support the view that the Weather Underground actually was not a domestic terrorist movement and that it was only the Greenwich incident that had almost turned it into one. This is not true. Both before and after the explosion, the radicals encouraged and engaged in violence. In February 1971, they put a bomb in the Capitol as a direct response to President Nixon's invasion of Laos. They detonated an explosive in the offices of the California prison system to protest the murder of black revolutionary George Jackson. These are just a few of their actions. Despite their claims, the Weather Underground actually became more violent as it found itself isolated underground.
RADICAL LINE tries to cast the Weathermen in a more favorable light than they deserve. Another significant drawback is that Thai's account is written like a novel – it is focused on what is going on in a particular character's head and does not present the bigger picture. This book will be of interest to those who want to learn about Jeff Jones, but it requires the reader to have knowledge of the protest movement and the Weather Underground.
Thai was the eldest son of Jeff Jones, who joined SDS at the age of eighteen in 1965 after participating in the first International Days of Protest Against the Vietnam conflict and by 1970 had become a federal fugitive facing conspiracy and riot charges. Jeff was also one of the founding members of the Weather Underground and one of the two authors of Prairie Fire, a well-known statement of the Weathermen.
As is typical of narratives by Weathermen, the author's account discusses the Greenwich Townhouse explosion. According to Thai, the Fort Dix operation, which resulted in the explosion, was planned only by the leaders of the Manhattan collective, especially Terry Robbins. He writes that while Jeff Jones in California was creating a network of safe houses, the autonomous Manhattan collective had developed “a different agenda.” Motivated by a desire to prove themselves the most revolutionary and “heaviest” of the collectives, they planned a huge bombing of the dance at Fort Dix. The author underscores that dozens of young military couples might have been maimed and killed and accepts the view that the collective, which was fanatical and competitive, had acted on its own. With this version of the story, Thai confirms the image of the Weathermen that other student radicals have tried to promote.
However, the words of John Jacobs, the head of the New York collectives in early 1970, point to a different conclusion: that the Fort Dix attack was not a rogue operation. Each cell of the Weather Underground that was committed to armed action would assemble a list of targets, which was transmitted through couriers up to the Weather Bureau. Bureau leaders discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each target, and approved or disapproved. Difficulties in creating secure communications meant that some collectives might not know what others were doing, but the Weather Bureau knew what everyone was doing. Furthermore, one of the survivors of the Greenwich Townhouse explosion, Cathy Wilkerson, criticized Weatherman Bill Ayers for calling Terry Robbins a madman. She wrote in her review of Ayers's memoir: “Everyone in [the] Weather leadership argued very convincingly for far more drastic steps than symbolic attacks.” The leadership, she insisted, wanted a fighting force that could do real material damage. For her, the Townhouse Collective’s project was the result not of Terry Robbins’s personal militancy, but of the reckless statements anf policies of the Weather Underground's leadership.
As expected, both Thai's father in his writings and Thai, whose account relies on the information that he had access to because of his father, support the view that the Weather Underground actually was not a domestic terrorist movement and that it was only the Greenwich incident that had almost turned it into one. This is not true. Both before and after the explosion, the radicals encouraged and engaged in violence. In February 1971, they put a bomb in the Capitol as a direct response to President Nixon's invasion of Laos. They detonated an explosive in the offices of the California prison system to protest the murder of black revolutionary George Jackson. These are just a few of their actions. Despite their claims, the Weather Underground actually became more violent as it found itself isolated underground.
RADICAL LINE tries to cast the Weathermen in a more favorable light than they deserve. Another significant drawback is that Thai's account is written like a novel – it is focused on what is going on in a particular character's head and does not present the bigger picture. This book will be of interest to those who want to learn about Jeff Jones, but it requires the reader to have knowledge of the protest movement and the Weather Underground.
April 3, 2013
For those who lived through the 1960s and 1970s and were politically active in some fashion (the slogan then was "there's no such thing as apolitical"), the promise and potential of that period is hard to reconcile with what actually carried forward without some profound sense of sadness. Thai Jones, son of Weather Underground activists, and grandson of political radicals on both sides of his family, is in a unique position to tell that story. He does so brilliantly and descriptively, so that even those who remained convinced that the Weather Underground was an adventurist, wrongheaded, and destructive faction of The Movement will see the humanity and the commitment that motivated its players. Setting the story of the 1960s/70s within the larger frame of American radicalism, Jones gives us portraits that even the most cynical among us will have to take seriously, with compassion and even admiration.
December 27, 2025
Thai Jones traces his family history back through 3-4 generations, but this multigenerational saga never feels self-indulgent, because this family tree sits right at the center of U.S. radical politics.
Jones's parents were leading members of the Weather Underground Organization, an armed group that emerged out of Students for a Democratic Society and declared war on the U.S. government in 1970. The author was born while his parents were in hiding — the FBI stormed their apartment when he was just four years old.
The parents' stories only make sense in light of their own upbringing, so the book looks at grandparents and great grandparents too. One of Jones's grandfathers was a Quaker pacifist who refused to serve in World War II. One of his grandmothers was a Jewish communist organizer in New York City. It's fascinating to see how radical traditions develop over several generations.
While bourgeois society condemns the Weather Underground's "violence," Jones reminds us that on the core issue — the Vietnam War — they were right and the U.S. government was wrong. This doesn't justify the Weather Underground's strategy or tactics — but it's the imperialists who owe us a historical reckoning.
Reading this in Germany, I was struck that so many leading Weathermen were given probation and allowed to reintegrate in society, as lawyers and professors, while members of similar groups here were thrown in prison and tortured for decades. I have never been a fan of the guerrilla strategy, but I can nonetheless admire different people who dedicated their lives to the fight against capitalism.
Jones's parents were leading members of the Weather Underground Organization, an armed group that emerged out of Students for a Democratic Society and declared war on the U.S. government in 1970. The author was born while his parents were in hiding — the FBI stormed their apartment when he was just four years old.
The parents' stories only make sense in light of their own upbringing, so the book looks at grandparents and great grandparents too. One of Jones's grandfathers was a Quaker pacifist who refused to serve in World War II. One of his grandmothers was a Jewish communist organizer in New York City. It's fascinating to see how radical traditions develop over several generations.
While bourgeois society condemns the Weather Underground's "violence," Jones reminds us that on the core issue — the Vietnam War — they were right and the U.S. government was wrong. This doesn't justify the Weather Underground's strategy or tactics — but it's the imperialists who owe us a historical reckoning.
Reading this in Germany, I was struck that so many leading Weathermen were given probation and allowed to reintegrate in society, as lawyers and professors, while members of similar groups here were thrown in prison and tortured for decades. I have never been a fan of the guerrilla strategy, but I can nonetheless admire different people who dedicated their lives to the fight against capitalism.
November 30, 2008
oooh, another book i really liked! thai jones is the child of eleanor stein & jeff jones, two members of the weather underground. less a memoir than his own family history, he goes all the way back to the early 1900s when his grandmother was born & charts his family's history of political involvement, culminating in 1981 when the FBI busted into his house when he was four years old & arrested his parents. i have a weird fascination with family histories in general, maybe because i really don't know a whole hell of a lot about my own family. & i am especially intrigued by political family histories, because they chart the political developments of an entire country--or a world, in some cases--over a specific period of time & show in the longer view how people are actors within their own lifetimes if they remain cognizant of & engaged in the political context of their lives. everything from labor activism to communist blacklisting to the civil rights movement to anti-war stuff to the spanish civil war--pretty much the radical history of the twentieth century is captured here (some events/causes looming a bit larger than others). i should read this again. it was great. & yeah, obviously it touches on weather underground stuff, because his parents were in it & conceived him & gave birth to him while living as fugitives, but the book serves more to contextualize their political consciences & portray their actions within a greater framework of political awareness than it serves as, like, salacious weather underground intrigue or whatever.
January 30, 2009
Good summary of the development of the Left in America through following the author's family. His father is Jeff Jones, one of the main leaders of the Weather Underground, his mother was in the WU as well, and partipated in the student occupation of Columbia, while his maternal grandparents were in the CP & the labor movement in the 20s & 30s, his maternal grandmother was in the movement to desegregate lunch counter in DC in the 40s (I didn't even know there was a desegregation movement that early on!), his paternal grandfather was a pacifist in the 30s, a conscientious objector sent to a labor camp during WWII, & his maternal grandfather was interrogated by the House of Unamerican Activities in the 50s. He's not blinded to his own family's mistakes--he criticizes the excesses and shortcomings of the American Communist Party, the SDS & the Weather Underground quite freely. He also adds another fascinating narrative by summarizing decades of declassified FBI files on his family. The only thing I could have wished for is some description of the author's own modern activism, to give the book more continuity.
It makes me wish there were more of these kinds of families, so leftist thought and action could be more of a tradition rather than a rebellion. Maybe *I* wish I was born into one of these kinds of families...
It makes me wish there were more of these kinds of families, so leftist thought and action could be more of a tradition rather than a rebellion. Maybe *I* wish I was born into one of these kinds of families...
September 6, 2011
This book about the families of Jeff Jones and Eleanor Stein, founders of the Weathermen and Weather Underground was recommended to me by a mutual friend of mine and Jeff's. Even more amazing, his bodyguard when he had to go underground was a classmate of Richard's at Williams!
This was very interesting reading and a good history lesson to boot! Jeff Jones was finally kicked out of the Weathermen when he refused to hurt people. It was his idea to bomb only symbols of American imperialism, and only with enough forewarning so that no one would get hurt. I had no idea how many different factions there were of this group but it was Jeff Jones and a few friends who were responsible for breaking Timothy Leary out of prison!! Later Timothy Leary was one of the radicals who denounced Jones.
Recommended for anyone living in those tumultuous times and wanting to get a good background lesson in the radical players.
This was very interesting reading and a good history lesson to boot! Jeff Jones was finally kicked out of the Weathermen when he refused to hurt people. It was his idea to bomb only symbols of American imperialism, and only with enough forewarning so that no one would get hurt. I had no idea how many different factions there were of this group but it was Jeff Jones and a few friends who were responsible for breaking Timothy Leary out of prison!! Later Timothy Leary was one of the radicals who denounced Jones.
Recommended for anyone living in those tumultuous times and wanting to get a good background lesson in the radical players.
May 17, 2009
Jeff Jones and Eleanor Raskin were 2 of the most involved members of the Weather Underground. Both of their families had a long history of involvement in radical activities. This is the story of their family as told by their son, who was just 4 years old when the FBI came and took mommy and daddy, who had been underground and on the run for years. He had never known their real names until then, or even his own. Now he knows the whole story of where he came from, and it's a highly entertaining story, written in vivid detail.
July 4, 2008
Thai Jones was 4 year old when his parents, two members of the Weather Underground were arrested during a raid on their Bronx apartment. Jones writes a beautiful memoir tracing his family's history in radical organizing and subversive tactics, from his grandparents involvement from the New Deal to McCarthyism and his parents involvement and leadership with SDS and the Weather Underground.
May 29, 2007
Nice examination of 2 generations of US radicals.
May 31, 2008
Amazing story! Cute author too.
June 30, 2012
Beautifully written first book, part family memoir, part cultural, political history. Written by Jjonah's first cousin about his parents & grandparents, former radicals. Fun read.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews