Gilbert received a grant of clemency from Governor Andrew Cuomo on August 23, 2021, reducing his minimum term from 75 years to 40, thereby making him eligible for conditional release.[4] He was granted parole on October 26, 2021,[5] and released on November 4, 2021.[6]
Early life and education
Gilbert grew up in a Jewish family in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He was an Explorer Scout, and his father was Post Leader, of a South Brookline Explorer Post. Inspired in his teens by the Greensboro sit-ins and other events of the Civil Rights Movement, he joined the Congress of Racial Equality at age seventeen. He entered Columbia College of Columbia University in 1962.[7] In March 1965, Gilbert founded the Independent Committee on Vietnam (ICV) at Columbia. Later, in the same year, he co-founded the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) which merged with ICV in the Fall of 1966, even though there was already an SDS chapter established at Columbia, formed in the early 1960s. The SDS chapter founded by Gilbert became renowned.[8]
He traveled regularly to Harlem while working as a tutor, and saw Malcolm X speak at Barnard College in February 1965, experiences he describes as formative. Gilbert was one of the attendees at the Flint War Council known to the FBI.[9]
Career
After graduating from Columbia University in June 1966,[10] Gilbert spent most of his days and evenings during the fall of 1967 downtown, attending graduate school at the New School for Social Research, building an SDS chapter there, or attending meetings at the New York SDS Regional Office. In addition, Gilbert spent his spare time studying Karl Marx's Das Kapital and writing New Left theoretical papers on imperialism and U.S. domestic consumption, consumerism and "the new working-class". At Columbia, the SDS expanded during the Spring 1967 term. Gilbert returned to the Columbia campus to offer a "radical education counter-course" for Columbia SDS freshmen and sophomores in a lounge in Ferris Booth Hall.[citation needed]
Known by the late 1960s primarily as a young theorist, publishing articles in New Left Notes and other movement publications, he went on to play an organizing role in the April–May 1968 Columbia student strike. On April 4, 1968, Gilbert was arrested for the first time, after joining a disturbance where 6 officers were engaged in a physical altercation with a protester. Gilbert's charge was assaulting a police officer. Gilbert maintained that the officer scraped his hand when he tried to hit Gilbert in the head with his baton. His lawyer advised him to take a plea bargain, and Gilbert pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was fined $50.[11]
During the Columbia strike, which began on April 23, 1968, Gilbert served as part of the strike team. Having good relations with some of the faculty, he was called on to be a negotiator. At the time of the strike he was still a graduate student at the New School for Social Research.[12] In October 1969, he headed a Weather Underground collective in Denver and was arrested twice. The first arrest occurred while he was passing out leaflets in front of a community college and his comrades were inside setting off a smoke bomb. The second arrest led to a charge of "assault with a deadly weapon" after arresting officers found a rock in his pocket.[13]
Weather Underground
In 1969, SDS split into different ideological factions and the Weathermen emerged, its purpose being to promote armed struggle among young white Americans in support of the Black Panthers and other militant groups, and also to oppose the war in Vietnam by means of activities intended to "Bring the War Home". Gilbert joined this group in 1969 with his friend Ted Gold, who died in the March 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, along with fellow Weather members Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins. The group became clandestine, and the organization was renamed the Weather Underground. When Weather went underground, members often used money they already had or which they received from their family to fund their efforts. Gilbert cashed in his Israel bonds and half of that money went to supporting Weather and the other half was put into the Black Panther bail fund.[14]
Gilbert joined the Bay Area collective, [clarification needed] living in a San Francisco apartment. He and another member were working on one of the group's cars in spring of 1971 when they were approached by two men in suits claiming to be real-estate agents. The men asked a few questions and then left. Gilbert suspected that these men were actually FBI agents looking for information. After several group meetings, they decided to reduce their radical activities for a while.[15]
As support for the group began to wane, the pace of their activities slowed, and some members of the Weather Underground resurfaced in late 1976 and early 1977. Gilbert resurfaced briefly in Denver, Colorado, between 1977 and 1979. He had helped organize a Weather collective there in October 1969. Before surfacing, he managed to get his criminal charges dropped, so he did not face any potential legal penalties. Gilbert, however, did not believe it was in the best interests of the movement for him to resurface.[16] Most Weather members were not prosecuted and did not serve time in prison, despite having been sought by the police for years; police misconduct led to the dropping of many charges (see: COINTELPRO). Still, Gilbert opted to continue his life underground. Gilbert and his then-partner, Kathy Boudin, remained active in the Weather Underground, even following the birth of their son, Chesa Boudin, in August 1980.[17]
In the late 1970s or early 1980s Gilbert and other white activists joined the RATF (Revolutionary Armed Task Force), an alliance of white revolutionaries with, and under the leadership of, the RATF unit of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). On October 20, 1981, the RATF and related May 19th Communist Organization participated, along with several members of the BLA, in an armed robbery of a Brink's armored car at the Nanuet Mall, near Nyack, New York.[17]
While Gilbert and Boudin acted as the getaway vehicle driver and lookout in a waiting U-Haul truck in a nearby parking lot, armed BLA members took another vehicle to the mall, where a Brink's truck was making a delivery. They confronted the guards, and a shootout ensued, wounding guard Joe Trombino after he fired one shot, and killing his co-worker, Peter Paige.[18] The robbers then took $1.6 million in cash and raced to transfer this into the waiting U-Haul. The truck was soon stopped by a police roadblock.[citation needed]
Two police officers, Waverly L. Brown and Edward J. O'Grady, were killed in the shootout. Gilbert fled the area with other RATF and BLA members but was caught by police that day. He was convicted and sentenced in 1983 to 75 years for three counts of felony murder.[citation needed]
On August 23, 2021, his last day in office, Governor Andrew Cuomo granted Gilbert clemency in the form of a partial sentence commutation. The commutation of Gilbert's minimum sentence from 75 years to the 40 years he served by October 2021 did not constitute a pardon or reduce the sentence to time served but did make Gilbert eligible to appear before the state's parole board.[20] The board announced on October 26, 2021, that it had granted Gilbert parole, effective in November 2021.[5] Gilbert was released on November 4, 2021.[6]
Writings
David Gilbert co-wrote the pamphlet U.S. Imperialism with David Loud.[21] The pamphlet was used across the country as a study guide by SDSers. Gilbert co-wrote an article entitled "Praxis and the New Left". It appeared in the first issue of Praxis on February 13, 1967. The article, co-written with Bob Gottlieb and Gerry Tenney, was part of a longer position paper called the "Port Authority Statement".[22][23]
There is a mini-biography on David Gilbert on page 312 of the book Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity, by Dan Berger.[24]
In an article published in the Columbia Daily Spectator on April 2, 1983, Bob Feldman wrote: "Beyond Brinks: David Gilbert Talks About the Robbery, the Underground, the Struggle".[25]
Gilbert was one of a small group that edited and rewrote Bill Ayers' initial draft of Prairie Fire.[26] Explaining the book's purpose, Gilbert said, "We needed something to re-mobilize us, we needed to have an organization to fight imperialism."[27]
Gilbert's political memoir, Love And Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground and Beyond was published in 2012 by PM Press.[28]
The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organized as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) national leadership. Officially known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) beginning in 1970, the group's express political goal was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government, which WUO believed to be imperialist.
Kathy Boudin was an American radical leftist who served 23 years in prison for felony murder based on her role in the 1981 Brink's robbery. Boudin was a founding member of the militant Weather Underground organization, which engaged in bombings of government buildings to express opposition to U.S. foreign policy and racism. The 1981 robbery resulted in the killing of two Nyack, New York, police officers and one security guard, and serious injury to another security guard; Boudin was arrested attempting to flee after the getaway vehicle she occupied was stopped by police. She was released on parole in 2003. After earning a doctorate, Boudin became an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground Marxist-Leninist, black-nationalist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981. Composed of former Black Panthers (BPP) and Republic of New Afrika (RNA) members who served above ground before going underground, the organization's program was one of war against the United States government, and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States." The BLA carried out a series of bombings, killings of police officers and drug dealers, robberies, and prison breaks.
Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a retired American law professor and a former leader of the far-left militant organization Weather Underground in the United States. As a leader of the Weather Underground in the early 1970s, Dohrn was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list for several years. She remained a fugitive, even though she was removed from the list. After coming out of hiding in 1980, Dohrn pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of aggravated battery and bail jumping.
The May 19th Communist Organization was a US-based far-left revolutionary group formed by members of the Weather Underground Organization. The group was originally known as the New York chapter of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC), an organization devoted to promoting the causes of the Weather Underground legally, as part of the Prairie Fire Manifesto's change in Weather Underground Organization strategy, which demanded both aboveground mass movements and clandestine organizations. The role of the clandestine organization would be to build the "consciousness of action" and prepare the way for the development of a people's militia. Concurrently, the role of the mass movement, the above-ground Prairie Fire Collective, would include the support for and the encouragement of armed action. Such an alliance would, according to Weather, "help create the 'sea' for the guerrillas to swim in." The M19CO name was derived from the birthdays of Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X. The May 19 Communist Organization was active from 1978 to 1985. M19CO was a combination of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground. It also included members of the Black Panthers, White Panthers, and the Republic of New Afrika (RNA).
Mark William Rudd is an American political organizer, mathematics instructor, anti-war activist and counterculture icon who was involved with the Weather Underground in the 1960s.
Judith Alice Clark, known as Judy Clark, is a US far-left radical activist, formerly a member of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization (M19). Her mother was the researcher Ruth Clark. In 1967, she took up studies at the University of Chicago, where she joined Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later co-founded the Weather Underground, participating in the Days of Rage. She went underground, was arrested and briefly incarcerated; afterwards she lived in New York City, co-founding M19. In the early 1980s, M19 linked with the Black Liberation Army (BLA) as The Family in order to carry out bank robberies to support revolutionary struggle. Clark was arrested driving a getaway car after the October 1981 Brink's robbery in Nanuet, New York, in which a security guard and two Nyack, New York police officers were shot and killed.
Kuwasi Balagoon, born Donald Weems, was an American political activist, anarchist and member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. Radicalised by race riots in his home state of Maryland growing up, as well as by his experiences while serving in the US Army, Weems became the black nationalist known as Kuwasi Balagoon in New York City in the late 1960s. First becoming involved in local Afrocentric organisations in Harlem, Balagoon would move on to become involved in the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party, which quickly saw him charged and arrested for criminal behaviour. Balagoon was initially part of the Panther 21 case, in which 21 panthers were accused of planning to bomb several locations in New York City, but although the Panther 21 were later acquitted, Balagoon's case was separated off and he was convicted of a New Jersey bank robbery.
The 1981 Brink's robbery was an armed robbery and three related murders committed on October 20, 1981, by several Black Liberation Army members and four former members of the Weather Underground, who were at the time associated with the May 19th Communist Organization. The plan called for the BLA members – including Kuwasi Balagoon, Sekou Odinga, Mtayari Sundiata, Samuel Brown and Mutulu Shakur – to carry out the robbery, with the M19CO members – David Gilbert, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck – to serve as getaway drivers in switchcars.
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson, known as Cathy Wilkerson, is an American far-left radical who was a member of the 1970s radical group called the Weather Underground Organization (WUO). She came to the attention of the police when she was leaving the townhouse belonging to her father after it was destroyed by an explosion on March 6, 1970. Members of WUO had been constructing a nail bomb in the basement of the building, intending to use it in an attack on a non-commissioned officers dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey that night. Wilkerson, already free on bail for her involvement in the Chicago "Days of Rage" riots, avoided capture for 10 years. She surrendered in 1980 and pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of dynamite. She was sentenced to up to three years in prison and served 11 months.
Linda Sue Evans is an American radical leftist, who was convicted in connection with violent and deadly militant activities committed as part of her goal to free African-Americans from white oppression. Evans was sentenced in 1987 to 40 years in prison for using false identification to buy firearms and for harboring a fugitive in the 1981 Brinks armored truck robbery, in which two police officers and a guard were killed, and Black Liberation Army members were wounded. In a second case, she was sentenced in 1990 to five years in prison for conspiracy and malicious destruction in connection with eight bombings including the 1983 United States Senate bombing. Her sentence was commuted in 2001 by President Bill Clinton because of its extraordinary length.
Laura Jane Whitehorn is an American activist who participated in the 1983 United States Senate bombing and was imprisoned for 14 years in federal prison. In the 1960s, she organized and participated in civil rights and anti-war movements.
Brian Flanagan is an American former militant and activist who was a member of the radical left organizations Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).
John Gregory Jacobs was an American student and anti-war activist in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was a leader in both Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman group, and an advocate of the use of violent force to overthrow the government of the United States. A fugitive since 1970, he died of melanoma in 1997.
Susan Lisa Rosenberg is an American activist, writer, advocate for social justice and prisoners' rights. From the late 1970s into the mid-1980s, Rosenberg was active in the far-left terrorist May 19th Communist Organization ("M19CO") which, according to a contemporaneous FBI report, "openly advocate[d] the overthrow of the U.S. Government through armed struggle and the use of violence". M19CO provided support to an offshoot of the Black Liberation Army, including in armored truck robberies, and later engaged in bombings of government buildings, including the 1983 Capitol bombing.
William Charles Ayers is an American retired professor and former militant organizer. In 1969, Ayers co-founded the far-left militant organization the Weather Underground, a revolutionary group that sought to overthrow what they viewed as American imperialism. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Weather Underground conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings in opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The bombings caused no fatalities, except for three members killed when one of the group's devices accidentally exploded. The FBI described the Weather Underground as a domestic terrorist group. Ayers was hunted as a fugitive for several years, until charges were dropped due to illegal actions by the FBI agents pursuing him and others.
Robert Roth was an active member in the anti-war, anti-racism and anti-imperialism movements of the 1960s and 70s, and key member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) political movement in the Columbia University Chapter in New York, where he eventually presided. Later, as a member of the Weatherman/Weather Underground Organization he used militant tactics to oppose the Vietnam War and racism. After the war ended, Roth surfaced from his underground status and has been involved in a variety of social causes to this day.
Eleanor E. Raskin was a member of the Weathermen. She is currently an adjunct instructor at Albany Law School. She was an administrative law judge at the New York State Public Service Commission.
Chesa Boudin is an American lawyer who served as the 29th District Attorney of San Francisco from January 8, 2020, to July 8, 2022. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
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