The Underground
By 1970, thanks to the influx of deserters and draft dodgers, the underground had taken on a decidedly left-wing flavor. An armed robber who escaped from a Midwestern prison that year was startled to find how Movement sympathizers had transformed life on the run. Sitting in New York’s Washington Square, he sang their praises to a New York Times reporter:
The Movement people are fabulous. They have a real underground that takes care of you. No matter where I went they made sure I had something to eat, they introduced me to others, they made me feel safe. . . . I’ve only been here three weeks now, but I feel completely different from all the other times I’ve been on the run. It’s not a hassle like it was alone. I’m part of a community. The underground is much bigger than you’d think. It’s all around. I could go from place to place for weeks and there’d always be a place I could stay and people to take care of me. . . . Whether you call us criminals or radicals, we’ve all been [screwed] by society, we’re all on the lam together.
