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Kathy Boudin and the Dance of Death
Kathy Boudin was the most prominent political fugitive of her time. The Big Dance was the code name a group of young radicals gave to the planned armed robbery of $1,600,000 from a Brink's truck. The book is a moment-by-moment retelling of that robbery. It resulted in the killing of 2 police officers and a Brink's guard—and the capture of Kathy Boudin, who'd been in hiding over a decade, ever since she ran naked into the streets when a Weather Underground bomb factory exploded in the middle of New York City. The author reveals how and why a girl of the 1960s generation who had everything going for her, chose guns instead of flowers.
- GenresHistory
267 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1984
16 people want to read
About the author
Ellen Frankfort
9 booksEllen Frankfort was a women's rights activist, author on feminist issues, and a former columnist for The Village Voice. She was the author of five books, including Vaginal Politics, Rosie: The Investigation of a Wrongful Death, and The Voice: Life at The Village Voice.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 17, 2022
In her book, Ellen Frankfort attempts to tell the story of the trial and imprisonment of Kathy Boudin, a member of the Weather Underground who, in 1981, participated in the robbery of a Brink's armored car in New York that resulted in the murder of two police officers and one security guard. I consider Frankfort's attempt to be decidedly unsuccessful. She strays away from what she promises is the subject of her work and focuses on providing a scathing critique of the protest movement of the sixties as a whole.
As a writer of a non-fictional account of a historical event, the author should have concentrated on presenting correct information and analyzing it. Instead, she chooses to moralize, which immediately reveals her heavy rightist bias. She dives into exploring what went wrong with the sixties generation and in the process, obviously intentionally, commits a serious mistake of reasoning: she puts the whole protest movement under the same bracket as the student radicals. She argues that the Movement was nothing but a bunch of white men, rich kids, and militant African Americans who went on a sex, drug, and rock'n'roll rampage, wreaking havoc in the process. This argument demonstrates the author's lack of even the slightest understanding of the era that she is writing about.
It is true that the Weathermen and other student radicals had no definite goal and committed irrational acts of violence that tarnished the protest movement, alienated the American public, and provoked the American government to crack down on social and political activism. However, to equate the terrorists of the Weather Underground with the whole protest movement is to distort the facts to suit one's own biased views. Contrary to what Frankfort claims, the activism of the sixties and seventies was not a sudden abomination that was completely unrelated to events in the real world. It rose from the genuine desire of Americans to correct social and political evils such as racial inequality and imperialism. Had the people of America stayed silent in the face of the increasingly costly and tragic American involvement in the Vietnam conflict, more American soldiers would have been sent to Vietnam to kill and die, and more Vietnamese people would have been bombed and burned with napalm.
The Movement was a powerful catalyst for change, whose impact on America and its society cannot be diminished by the wrong actions of a group of student radicals like Kathy Boudin, who were at times foolish and misled into believing that chaotic violence is the answer to their country's problems. Yes, it had its Mark Rudd with his Weathermen, it had its ultra radical college students, who dreamed of overthrowing the democratic institutions of America and installing a socialist regime, but it also had Martin Luther King, the peaceful but determined SNCC, and effective methods of helping America improve.
Another thing that I did not like is that the way in which the author portrays some of the student activists hints at a personal hostility toward them. For instance, she writes of Boudin's friend and Weather Underground member, Bernadine Dohrn, who, together with Bill Ayers, assumed the guardianship of Kathy's son, Chesa: "Dohrn was the woman who, after Diana's death, moved in with Ayers, taking care of Kathy's child, Chesa, along with her own two young children." This was not precisely so. Diana is Diana Oughten, another member of the Weather Undeground, who was killed in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion in 1970. Frankfort's sentence suggests that heartless Dohrn moved in with her recently deceased friend's lover, but Dohrn actually assumed guardianship of Chesa and started living with Ayers thirteen years after Diana's death. The author should have at least tried to see beyond her bias, but she did not. She seems to intentionally discredit the activists of the New Left not only on a political, but also on a personal level. She should have instead discussed their methods of fighting for social change, which were morally wrong and ineffective.
KATHY BOUDIN AND THE DANCE OF DEATH is such a short account that it is surprising for me how much bias and incorrect information Frankfort has managed to include in it. This book is a waste of time. It does not shed light on Kathy Boudin and her case. It promotes false views of the protest movement of the sixties and seventies.
As a writer of a non-fictional account of a historical event, the author should have concentrated on presenting correct information and analyzing it. Instead, she chooses to moralize, which immediately reveals her heavy rightist bias. She dives into exploring what went wrong with the sixties generation and in the process, obviously intentionally, commits a serious mistake of reasoning: she puts the whole protest movement under the same bracket as the student radicals. She argues that the Movement was nothing but a bunch of white men, rich kids, and militant African Americans who went on a sex, drug, and rock'n'roll rampage, wreaking havoc in the process. This argument demonstrates the author's lack of even the slightest understanding of the era that she is writing about.
It is true that the Weathermen and other student radicals had no definite goal and committed irrational acts of violence that tarnished the protest movement, alienated the American public, and provoked the American government to crack down on social and political activism. However, to equate the terrorists of the Weather Underground with the whole protest movement is to distort the facts to suit one's own biased views. Contrary to what Frankfort claims, the activism of the sixties and seventies was not a sudden abomination that was completely unrelated to events in the real world. It rose from the genuine desire of Americans to correct social and political evils such as racial inequality and imperialism. Had the people of America stayed silent in the face of the increasingly costly and tragic American involvement in the Vietnam conflict, more American soldiers would have been sent to Vietnam to kill and die, and more Vietnamese people would have been bombed and burned with napalm.
The Movement was a powerful catalyst for change, whose impact on America and its society cannot be diminished by the wrong actions of a group of student radicals like Kathy Boudin, who were at times foolish and misled into believing that chaotic violence is the answer to their country's problems. Yes, it had its Mark Rudd with his Weathermen, it had its ultra radical college students, who dreamed of overthrowing the democratic institutions of America and installing a socialist regime, but it also had Martin Luther King, the peaceful but determined SNCC, and effective methods of helping America improve.
Another thing that I did not like is that the way in which the author portrays some of the student activists hints at a personal hostility toward them. For instance, she writes of Boudin's friend and Weather Underground member, Bernadine Dohrn, who, together with Bill Ayers, assumed the guardianship of Kathy's son, Chesa: "Dohrn was the woman who, after Diana's death, moved in with Ayers, taking care of Kathy's child, Chesa, along with her own two young children." This was not precisely so. Diana is Diana Oughten, another member of the Weather Undeground, who was killed in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion in 1970. Frankfort's sentence suggests that heartless Dohrn moved in with her recently deceased friend's lover, but Dohrn actually assumed guardianship of Chesa and started living with Ayers thirteen years after Diana's death. The author should have at least tried to see beyond her bias, but she did not. She seems to intentionally discredit the activists of the New Left not only on a political, but also on a personal level. She should have instead discussed their methods of fighting for social change, which were morally wrong and ineffective.
KATHY BOUDIN AND THE DANCE OF DEATH is such a short account that it is surprising for me how much bias and incorrect information Frankfort has managed to include in it. This book is a waste of time. It does not shed light on Kathy Boudin and her case. It promotes false views of the protest movement of the sixties and seventies.
February 10, 2021
It took me a long time to pick this one off. There is some very good information and even some names I wasn't previously aware of.
Also, the interview with the girlfriend of Waverly Brown provided a little, uncorroborated, information that helps set the tone.
The author seems to be a militant-feminist friendly, but not unwilling to lay bare the hypocrisy of the Boudin's and the wealthy, white 'radicals' who often came out unscathed by the whole, 'quaint little adventure'.
Boudin herself allowed a co-defendant to go completely unrepresented during the initial phases of the prosecution and famously tried to cast blame at the very moment the Brinks fiasco came down.
Also, the interview with the girlfriend of Waverly Brown provided a little, uncorroborated, information that helps set the tone.
The author seems to be a militant-feminist friendly, but not unwilling to lay bare the hypocrisy of the Boudin's and the wealthy, white 'radicals' who often came out unscathed by the whole, 'quaint little adventure'.
Boudin herself allowed a co-defendant to go completely unrepresented during the initial phases of the prosecution and famously tried to cast blame at the very moment the Brinks fiasco came down.
November 4, 2023
An interesting look into the life of a young woman who chose to take part in the Brinks robbery.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews