Origins In 1974, the
Weather Underground released the book
Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-imperialism. Since the Weather Underground was engaged in illegal bombings and its leaders were fugitives, it required help from aboveground supporters to distribute the book; participants in this work included
Van Lydegraf and
Jennifer Dohrn. Over 40,000 copies were distributed. Discussion groups were created to discuss the issues that arose from the book. This above ground organizing is how the Prairie Fire Distribution Committee was created, which in 1975 became the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. The book's preparation was a 12-month process. It was written collaboratively and adopted as the collective statement of the Weather Underground.
Mark Rudd stated that the book "was an attempt to influence the movement that we had abandoned back in 1969. It tried to reach many thousands of New Leftist and former New Leftists by saying "'Don't despair, we're all part of the same thing'". Bill Ayers explains that
Prairie Fire "was an attempt to sum up our thinking since the 'Weatherman' paper and especially since the townhouse. Through it we hoped to consolidate our political organization and to forge unity with progressive activist". Ayers is referring to the 1970
Greenwich Village townhouse explosion which killed 3 members of Weatherman,
Diana Oughton,
Theodore Gold, and
Terry Robbins.
Subsequent history Much of the work of Prairie Fire focused on international solidarity. Since 1977, PFOC produced the journal
Breakthrough. Fireworks Graphics Collective, a Bay area printing collective, was their graphic production wing. Fireworks produced posters for international solidarity movements, women's liberation movements, LGBT issues, release of political prisoners, and more. In 1979, the victory of the
Sandinistas in
Nicaragua and the
FMLN-led "people's war" in
El Salvador put the ideals of a just society at the center of attention. In the 1980s, a large solidarity movement developed in the U.S. in response to America's military intervention in Central America. Prairie Fire Organizing Committee actively participated in these efforts. In 1980, the U.S. government arrested eleven Puerto Rican members of the
Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN, the Armed Forces of National Liberation) who were committing acts of terrorism to gain independence for Puerto Rico. Prairie Fire worked as allies with the Puerto Rican independent movement to demand the release of these prisoners. Since 1984 Prairie Fire has been active in the annual
International Women's Day celebration that is held on March 8 in Chicago. Members participate in marches and programs based around the event. In the 1990s, Prairie Fire joined WAC, the
Women's Action Coalition, to take direct action against sexism by fighting for women's rights to their bodies and access to women's clinics. In 1996, Prairie Fire initiated the Not On The Guest List Coalition which organized a demonstration at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It was a demonstration that focused its attention on
capital punishment in the United States, racism and classism within the criminal justice system, and for the release of
political prisoners held within the U.S. prisons. Prairie Fire has also worked to
oppose the 2003 Iraq War, and on other societal issues in the US and abroad. == Works ==