“many of the radicals were far older than college aged”
In this story all of them were college age, all were McCains generation the authoress (the raped one), the black guy, Bill Ayers, even his wife Bernardine Dohrn. The little brother was young enough that he may have been born in 1946.
this was 4 years before the Weathermen were founded
just google all the famous radicals from the 1960s and their ages at their peak and you will see they were mostly late 20s or even early 30s Pied Pipers leading gullible college kids
let’s take Woodstock ...the zenith of the yippie-hippie movement as benchmark
even Horowitz...born 1939, aged 30 in 1969
Abbie Hoffman...born 1936.....aged 33 in 1969
Jerry Rubin.....born 1938, aged 31 in 1969
Mark Rudd.....actually the age of a college senior in 1969
Leonard Weinglass....born 1933, aged 36 in 1969
Tom Hayden.....born 1939, aged 30 in 1969
Ayers, born 1944 was 25 when he founded the WU...past college undergrad age and then some
Wavy Gravy, born 1936...aged 33 at Woodstock
David Crosby, .....born 1941, aged 28 at Woodstock
Paul Krassner....born 1933, aged 36 at Woodstock
Phil Ochs, born 1941, aged 28 at Woodstock
note how few of these notables were even Boomers although Boomers (myself a fairly late boomer) get all the blame for that silliness
I thought folks 28-40m were old when I was in college.
You read the writings of some of those guys and the candor is that it was about the Punani and the Dope first....
and so forth