Bill Zimmerman (activist)

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Bill Zimmerman
Bill Zimmerman.jpg
BornDecember 26, 1940
Chicago IL
NationalityAmerican
Other namesWilliam B. Zimmerman
Alma materUniversity of Chicago
OccupationPolitical Consultant
Years active1976-2016
Known forPolitical campaign manager, media consultant, anti-war activist.

Bill Zimmerman is an American political consultant and author who was an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War.

Life[]

Bill Zimmerman worked briefly for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi in 1963,[1][2] then joined the civil rights and antiwar movements while being trained as a research scientist at the University of Chicago.[3] He received a Ph.D. in 1967 and taught at Brooklyn College (1967-69) and the University of Chicago (1970-71).[4]

Zimmerman left academia when he learned that his research might have military applications.[4] He was a full-time antiwar activist from 1971 to 1975.[3][4]  In 1976, he managed Tom Hayden’s unsuccessful campaign for a US Senate seat in California.[5] [6] He founded two national political consulting firms, Zimmerman, Galanty, Fiman & Dixon (1981-1988)[7] and Zimmerman & Markman (1991-2016).[8] Both served Democratic candidates and progressive ballot initiatives.

Political activism[]

While a student at the University of Chicago, Zimmerman marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and joined antiwar demonstrations, including the seizure of the university’s administration building in 1966.[2][4]

At Brooklyn College, he sat in to block US Navy recruiters,[9] helped lead a student/faculty strike,[10] organized students and faculty for the March on the Pentagon,[4] and worked for open admissions for Black and Puerto Rican students.[11]

Leaving science to protest weapons research,[8] Zimmerman helped form Science for the People, a national organization of scientists that questioned the military and commercial applications of new knowledge.[12] He led militant protests at the annual conventions of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago in 1970[13] and in Philadelphia in 1971.[14]

Zimmerman was a coordinator of the 1971 Mayday protests in Washington DC.[2] Later in 1971 and throughout 1972, he built Boston-based Medical Aid for Indochina into a national antiwar organization and became its executive director.[2][3]

Zimmerman went to North Vietnam in May 1972 to film civilian bomb damage, producing the documentary Village By Village,[15][16] part of which was broadcast by CBS News on Sixty Minutes.[17] Following the bombing of Hanoi's Bach Mai Hospital,[18] Zimmerman led the US effort to rebuild the facility.[19]

When armed American Indian Movement protesters took over Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in early 1973, and FBI and US Marshals laid siege to the village,[20] Zimmerman organized an airborne food drop. [21] Three airplanes flying in formation, with Zimmerman piloting the lead aircraft, parachuted 1,500 pounds of food into the village.[2][6]

In 1974, Zimmerman joined Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda in Santa Monica to help lead the Indochina Peace Campaign, a national organization lobbying Congress to cut off military funding for the government of South Vietnam.[2][6] Military appropriations were reduced in 1974 and 1975, and the war in Vietnam ended.[2]

In Santa Monica in 1974, Zimmerman partnered with radial civil rights attorney, Joan Andersson, to assist Black Panther co-founder, Huey Newton, then a fugitive, flee to Cuba where he was safe from extradition.[6] The collaboration led to their long-lasting marriage.[6][2]

In 1981, Zimmerman and Andersson recruited actor Ed Asner, producer Bert Schneider, and other celebrities to join Medical Aid for El Salvador (MAES), an organization that worked to prevent US military intervention and assist civilians injured in areas controlled by the revolutionaries.[22][23]

Political consulting[]

Bill Zimmerman managed Tom Hayden's campaign for US Senate in the 1976 California Democratic primary,[5] then formed the political media group, Loudspeaker, with TV director, Sid Galanty, and TV time buyer, Jack Fiman.[24]

Zimmerman, Galanty & Fiman (ZGF), a political consulting firm, was founded in 1981.[7]

In 1988, Zimmerman disbanded the firm and shifted to ballot initiatives.[25] He first managed California Proposition 103 to reduce and regulate auto insurance rates. It won with a $2 million budget against $80 million spent by the insurance industry,[25] the most expensive campaign in California history.[26] The National Insurance Consumer Organization estimated savings to ratepayers of over $1 billion per year.[27]

In 1991, Bill Zimmerman and Pacy Markman formed a new political consulting firm, Zimmerman & Markman (Z&M).[8]

Between 1996 and 2000, Zimmerman ran most of the drug reform campaigns sponsored by George Soros and his colleagues.[28]

Books[]

  • Zimmerman, Bill (2012). Troublemaker: A Memoir from the Front Lines of the Sixties. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-307-73950-6.
  • Zimmerman, Bill (1998). Is Marijuana The Right Medicine For You? New Canaan CT: Keats Publishing. ISBN 0-87983 906-6.
  • Zimmerman, Bill (1976). Airlift to Wounded Knee. Chicago: Swallow Press. ISBN 0-8040-0691-1

Articles[]

References[]

  1. ^ Lyon, Danny (January 10, 2018). "Memories of Mississippi". The New York Review of Books.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Talbot, David (2021). By the light of burning dreams : the triumphs and tragedies of the second American revolution. Margaret Talbot, Arthur Allen (First ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-06-282039-6. OCLC 1242946482.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c "ZELIG OF THE LEFT: BILL ZIMMERMAN with Lawrence Weschler" .brooklynrail.org. Retrieved 2017-10-28. "In his vividly engaging memoir of his activist life during the ’60s and ’70s, Troublemaker, published by Doubleday earlier this year...Bill Zimmerman casts himself as a virtual Zelig of the Left, showing up improbably in all sorts of amazing places..."
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Gitlin, Todd (February 14, 2012). "Actions". The New Republic.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Hayden, Tom (1988). Reunion: A Memoir. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-56533-9.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Brownstein, Ronald (2021). Rock me on the water : 1974 : the year Los Angeles transformed movies, music, television, and politics (First ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-06-289921-7. OCLC 1153060118.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Mitchell, John L. (October 23, 1983). "Firm Specializes in Messages of the Political Left -- Also Tapes Fonda". Los Angeles Times.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c Barabak, Mark Z. (July 21, 2005). "MoveOn's Brains Aim Straight for Heart". Los Angeles Times.
  9. ^ Bigart, Homer (October 21, 1967). "Protest Ties Up Brooklyn Campus". New York Times.
  10. ^ Hofman, Paul (October 24, 1967). "Brooklyn Students Reject Compromise". New York Times.
  11. ^ Meyers, Bart (December 13, 1974). "Justice Will Die Without Activism". Brooklyn College Kingsman.
  12. ^ Mankin, Eric (May 13–19, 1983). "Smart Media From The Left". L.A. Weekly.CS1 maint: date format (link)
  13. ^ Wilford, John Noble (December 30, 1970). "Knitting Needle Thrust Interrupts One Dissident". New York Times.
  14. ^ Wilford, John Noble (December 28, 1971). "Humphrey Urges Halt In Bombing". New York Times.
  15. ^ "[Village by Village, A Report on the Bombing of North Vietnam] | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2021-06-27.
  16. ^ "Village by Village: A Report on the Bombing of North Vietnam" (1972), retrieved 2021-06-27
  17. ^ Witherspoon, Wendy (April 26, 2011). "Author Spotlight: Bill Zimmerman". Los Angeles Magazine.
  18. ^ "Largest Hospital in Hanoi Reported Damaged in Raid". New York Times. December 23, 1972.
  19. ^ "Talk of the Town: White Blossom". The New Yorker. February 10, 1973.
  20. ^ Waldron, Martin (March 27, 1973). "U.S. Marshal Shot At Wounded Knee". New York Times.
  21. ^ Oliphant, Thomas P. (April 18, 1973). "Surprise airlift drops food to Wounded Knee holdouts". The Boston Globe.
  22. ^ Oney, Steve (July 1984). "Stars Over Central America". California Magazine: 74–78, 120.
  23. ^ York, The New School 66 West 12th Street New; Ny 10011. "Flying Seminar: OWS meets Bill Zimmerman – Picture Gallery". Transregional Center for Democratic Studies. Retrieved 2021-06-27.
  24. ^ Hendrix, Kathleen (January 10, 1980). "A Loudspeaker for Leftist Causes, Ad Agency at Grassroots". Los Angeles Times.
  25. ^ Jump up to: a b Greengard, Samuel (September 1989). "This Man is Revolting". Los Angeles Magazine.
  26. ^ Reich, Kenneth (November 10, 1988). "Nine Suits Challenge Auto Rate Rollbacks". Los Angeles Times.
  27. ^ National Insurance Consumer Organization, Report: A Consumer Triumph--Proposition 103 Revisited, 1992.
  28. ^ Bank, David (May 30, 2001). "Soros, Two Rich Allies, Fund a Growing War On the War on Drugs". The Wall Street Journal.

External links[]

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