Lerner, a closeted gay man active with the Weather Underground, tells a gripping story and reveals his authentic remorse.
Jonathan Lerner, author of Swords in the Hands of Children, is Thorne Dreyer‘s guest on Rag Radio, Friday, Sept. 15, 2-3 p.m. (CT) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin and streamed live here.
- Also see “ Blowing themselves up: Revisiting the Weather Underground” by Jonah Raskin on The Rag Blog.
[Swords in the Hands of Children: Reflections of an American Revolutionary by Jonathan Lerner (December 5, 2017: OR Books); Hardcover; 224 pp.]
The words “fear” and “frightened” pepper gay writer Jonathan Lerner’s intriguing account of how he, a young idealist with sincere interest in the 1960s political movements for civil rights and peace, became a committed member of the violence-prone Weather Underground Organization.
With an interest during his late teenage years in a possible career as an actor, and already aware of his homosexual desire, the closeted Lerner held back, noting “the ubiquitous and openness of gay people in theater frightened me.” A few pages later, recounting his experience at a major anti-war march on the Pentagon in October of 1968 where there was confrontation between demonstrators and police in riot gear, he mentions his “fear of… those swinging truncheons.” Once immersed himself as a soldier in the Weather Underground, whose leaders and their politics turned autocratic and cruel, Lerner becomes fearful of his comrades.
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