Song Binbin

Song Binbin (Chinese: 宋彬彬; pinyin: Sòng Bīnbīn; born 1949), also known as Song Yaowu (Chinese: 宋要武), was a senior leader in the Chinese Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. She is known for beating her deputy principal to death with wooden sticks, along with other students.

Binbin was born in 1949^[1] the "daughter of Song Renqiong, one of China’s founding leaders known as the Eight Immortals, was in 1966 a senior leader among the leftist Red Guards at her girls’ school in Beijing. The Red Guard worked to overthrow China’s institutional frameworks to demonstrate their devotion to Mao."^[2] Binbin led a rebellion at Experimental High School which was attached to Beijing Normal University, in Beijing, China. Newspapers reported she took part in the beating of the deputy principal, Bian Zhongyun, to death in August 1966 with a wooden stick.^[3] Bian was the first teacher killed in the Cultural Revolution, and her slaying led to further killings by the Red Guards, and eventually over one million of the Guards gathered in Tiananmen Square, where Binbin famously pinned a red band on Mao Zedong's arm. The scene was captured in a famous photograph. "After the Cultural Revolution, Ms. Song went to the United States to study and completed a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection...In 2003, she moved back to China."^[4] She has since apologized for the actions of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.^[5]

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