The Struggle Within.Mass Movements in the US by Dan Berger

Author:Dan Berger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781604869552
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2014-11-23T08:00:00+00:00

Arrested at a storage unit where they had been keeping explosives, Blunk and Rosenberg were tried on charges of weapons and explosives possession and given an unprecedented sentence of fifty-eight years. (By comparison, Michael Donald Bray, who in the 1980s was active in the far-right “Army of God,” served less than four years for bombing ten occupied abortion clinics and offices of the ACLU.) Berkman was jailed for a year in 1982 for resisting a grand jury; a doctor, he went underground rather than face trial on charges of providing medical care to Marilyn Buck while she was underground. He was ultimately convicted of possession of weapons, explosives and false IDs, as well as bail jumping, and sentenced to twelve years. Evans received thirty-five years for illegally obtaining handguns and false IDs, and for harboring Buck. Whitehorn, held for more than two years in “preventive detention,” was convicted of possession of false IDs and contempt of court.

Besides facing individual charges emanating from the circumstances of their arrest, the six were subsequently indicted together as part of what became known as the Resistance Conspiracy case. They were charged with “conspiracy to oppose, protest, and change the policies and practices of the U.S. government in domestic and international matters by violent and illegal means.” On top of the lengthy sentences most of them were already serving, this conspiracy charge covered many of the bombings claimed by the Armed Resistance Unit and Red Guerrilla Resistance. In 1990, to secure a faster release for Berkman, who was being denied adequate medical care for a life-threatening recurrence of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Buck, Evans, and Whitehorn pleaded guilty to various charges, including the Capitol bombing; conspiracy charges against Berkman, Blunk, and Rosenberg were dropped. Berkman was released on parole in 1992. His health improved upon release, and he worked as an AIDS doctor and activist, cofounding the Global AIDS Project, Health GAP, an international organization that greatly expanded access to life-saving HIV medications. His cancer returned, however, and he passed away in 2009.

Whitehorn, sentenced to twenty additional years, served a total of fourteen years (counting her earlier jail time) and was released in 1999, jumping back into the AIDS movement and working to free political prisoners. Blunk was released on parole in 1996. A campaign pressuring Bill Clinton to pardon Leonard Peltier and other political prisoners before Clinton left office did not win Peltier’s release, though he did grant clemency to Evans and Rosenberg; they were released on his last day in office in 2001.

Buck, meanwhile, was the subject of several trials in the 1980s. In addition to the ten years she received in the Resistance Conspiracy case, she was already serving time from previous trials relating to the Brink’s robbery and Assata Shakur’s escape. All told, Buck was sentenced to eighty years in prison. She was, however, granted parole and given a date for release. Before it could happen, though, Buck developed an aggressive form of uterine cancer in prison. She was granted compassionate release and embraced by a wide community of friends, family, and comrades.

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