(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Zayd Ayers Dohrn had a fairly typical Chicago upbringing: He was a Cubs batboy, his favorite pizza place is Lou Malnati's, and he loved to attend concerts.
But every now and then, he would be reminded that his parents had a notorious past.
Ayers Dohrn is the son of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, members of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground.
He said he spent his earliest years on the run, moving to different locations under different names.
His life slowed down after his mother turned herself in to the FBI in 1980; she served a seven-month prison sentence.
After she was released from prison, the family moved to Hyde Park. The elder Ayers became a professor of education at UIC, and Dohrn was an adjunct professor at the Northwestern University School of Law.
"Suddenly, we went from being on the run; to being in jail; to being on the run; to me visiting her in jail and then suddenly she's coaching my Little League baseball team in Hyde Park," Ayers Dohrn said.
They were respected members of the community with well-known friends like a state senator named Barack Obama. Bill Ayers was honored by Mayor Richard M. Daley for his work on public school reform.
But Ayers Dohrn said his mother's radical past would show up in unexpected places.
"Once when I was in high school I went to a Rage Against the Machine concert and one of the T-shirts they were selling had her mugshot on it," he said.
Zayd Ayers Dohrn explores his parents' radical roots, and how they became an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign in "Mother Country Radicals," a podcast that is now available on the Audacy app.
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