OMAHA - A kindergartner once asked William Ayers:

Why does a ball bounce?

Ayers - noted scholar, author, education advocate - was momentarily stumped.

And that wasn't the only question he heard: Why do some people have different-colored skin? Why is the sky blue?

Ayers may not have had all the answers, but he believes more citizens need to follow children's inquisitive leads.

"In a democracy, we search, we find, we investigate, we interrogate," Ayers said Saturday in Omaha.

Later he added: "Democracy is a culture, and it's a tone ... and, frankly, we're far from it."

Ayers, a former radical and now education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, was the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Academic Freedom Coalition of Nebraska.

The coalition pointedly invited Ayers after the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, citing security concerns, canceled an Ayers speech that was to have taken place a year ago today.

Ayers was a co-founder of the Weather Underground, a group that claimed responsibility for bombings of public buildings in protest of the Vietnam War. News of his invitation to UNL last fall sparked an immediate outcry, including criticism from the state's political leaders.

Several e-mails, phone messages and blog posts inspected by UNL security experts contained explicitly violent language. UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman has said he was acting in the best interest of the campus in disinviting Ayers.

But critics alleged a sacred value in academia had been breached.

"The academic freedom of those students and faculty (who invited Ayers) was violated," Dwayne Ball, president of the Academic Freedom Coalition, said before Ayers took the podium.

Ayers, speaking to a crowd of about 90, said he felt for the students and faculty who had wanted to hear his speech but lost the opportunity.

And he said the cancellation offered a lesson: "Small, noisy minorities often make things happen."

Ayers called on the University of Nebraska to re-invite him, saying he still wants to speak on campus and that a re-invitation would be "the only fair thing."

His remarks were warmly received inside, drawing head nods, jokes during lighter moments and, when he finished, a standing ovation.

The protesters lining the street outside the hotel were far less welcoming.

"It's wrong that he should be here," said Park Blaine, 58, a commercial electrician from Elkhorn.

Blaine carried a sign that read "Bill Ayers = Unrepentant Terrorist" and had his "protest dog," a Jack Russell terrier named Micki, in tow.

"I don't like where the country is going," he said.

Other signs read "Bill Ayers Still Hates America" and "Bill Ayers: Once a Terrorist, Always a Terrorist."

Bill Sole Sr., a 54-year-old industrial engineer from Omaha, said Ayers never should have been invited to Nebraska - not even by a privately funded group like the Academic Freedom Coalition.

"We're just American citizens that can tell the difference between right and wrong," Sole said of the protesters.

Ayers said he's been disinvited before and warned such cancellations have a chilling effect on academic freedom. Now, invitations to controversial speakers sometimes aren't made at all for fear of a backlash, he said.

He urged academic and political leaders to instead stand up for academic freedom. After all, he said, schools, both at the K-12 and postsecondary levels, play a key role in a democracy.

Young people must be taught to think for themselves, Ayers said, so society can enjoy a "robust, vital dialogue."

He hailed the election of President Barack Obama but speculated some in his audience likely were disappointed in how much progress the Obama administration has made in areas like health care or the war in Afghanistan.

Ayers urged his listeners to work for change from the ground up.

Yes, there's power in the White House, he said.

But there's also power in communities, in schools, in universities, he said.

"And it's that power that we're responsible for."

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.