David Gilbert
Encyclopedia
David Gilbert is an American radical leftist organizer and activist who is currently imprisoned at Auburn Correctional Facility. Gilbert was a founding member of Columbia University
Students for a Democratic Society
and member of the Weather Underground Organization. After about ten years underground, he was arrested in October 1981, along with members of the Black Liberation Army
and other radicals including Kathy Boudin
, his partner and mother of Chesa Boudin
. The details of his arrest are included in the entry on Kathy Boudin in the section entitled "1981 Brinks Robbery." He and she both participated in that robbery and were sent to prison for their part in the resulting murders of Nyack police officers Waverly Brown and Edward O'Grady and Brinks guard Peter Paige. (In 2004 the US Post Office in Nyack was renamed in honor of the slain men.)
, a suburb of Boston
. 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 University in 1962. In March 1965 Gilbert founded the Independent Committee on Vietnam (ICV) at Columbia University. Later, in the same year, he co-founded the Columbia University Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society which merged with ICV in the Fall of 1966 even though there was already a chapter set in place that was formed in the early sixties. The SDS chapter founded by Gilbert became renowned. Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS). 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 known attendees, by the FBI, at the Flint War Council
. Gilbert, Kathy Boudin and Judith Alice Clark formed the May 19 Communist Organization.
After graduating from Columbia University in June 1966, Gilbert spent most of his days and evenings during the fall of 1967 downtown attending grad school at the New School, building an SDS chapter there or attending meetings at the New York SDS Regional Office. In addition, Gilbert spent his spare-time studying Marx's Das Kapital book and writing New Left theoretical papers on imperialism and U.S. domestic consumption, consumerism and "the new working-class." As Columbia SDS grew 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. 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 had his first arrest after walking into a police riot where 6 officers were beating a kid. He could not just stand there and allow it to continue so police turned on him. His charge was assaulting a police officer(apparently the cop scraped his hand when he tried to hit Gilbert in the head with his baton). His lawyer advised him to take a plea bargain because going to trial would mean the word of six officers against his.He plea bargained for being guilty of disorderly conduct and was fined $50. During the Columbia strike, which began on April 23, 1968, as part of the strike team and since he was in good relations with some of the faculty, Gilbert was called in to be a negotiator. At the time of the strike he was a graduate student at the New School for Social Research. In October 1969, he headed up a Weather collective in Denver and was arrested twice. The first arrest was for when he was passing out leaflets at a mall and his comrades were inside setting off a smoke bomb. The second arrest was when he was charged with "assault with a deadly weapon" after arresting officers found a rock in his pocket.
, who later died in the March 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion
, along with fellow Weather members, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins. The group became a clandestine operation, and the organization was renamed the Weather Underground. When Weather went underground, members often used money they already had or 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.
David Gilbert became a part of the Bay Area collective and they were living in a San Francisco apartment. He and another member were out working on another group's car in Spring of 1971 when they were approached by two men in suits claiming to be real estate agents. The 'suits' asked a few questions and then left, alerting Gilbert that there might be a problem. He suspected that these men were actually FBI agents looking for information. After several meetings within the group, they decided to stay put for awhile. After more suspicious men started inquiring into the activities of other members, they decided to travel north. They holed up in a motel in Portland on a rainy night and watched television. Although not on the group's coordinating committee (the Weather Bureau), Gilbert did act as a regional leader, spending at least some of these years in Colorado. The Weather Underground committed several small bombings directed towards governmental and business property and buildings. As support for the group began to wane on the left, the pace of actions lessened and some members of the Weather Underground resurfaced in late 1976 and early 1977. Gilbert resurfaced briefly in Denver, Colorado between 1977 and 1979. Denver is where he helped organize a Weather collective in October 1969. Before surfacing, he managed to get his criminal charges dropped so he did not face any legal penalties. Gilbert, however, did not think it was in the best interest of the movement for him to resurface. Most Weather members were not prosecuted or did not serve time in prison despite having been sought by the police for years; police misconduct was the cause of many charges eventually being thrown out of court (see: COINTELPRO
). Gilbert opted to continue his life underground. Gilbert and his partner, Kathy Boudin
, remained active even following the birth of their son, Chesa Boudin
, in August 1980.
(BLA). On October 20, 1981, the RATF participated along with several members of the BLA in an attempt to rob a Brinks armored car at the Nanuet Mall, near Nyack, New York. While Gilbert and Boudin waited in a U-Haul truck in a nearby parking lot, armed BLA members took another vehicle to the mall, where a Brinks truck was making a delivery. They confronted the guards and a shoot out ensued, wounding guard Joe Trombino after he let off one shot (wounds he survived, although he died decades later on September 11th) and killing his co-worker, Peter Paige. The robbers then took $1.6 million in cash and sped off to transfer into the waiting U-Haul. The truck was soon stopped by a police roadblock. Gilbert and Boudin surrendered but when the officers tried to search the back of the vehicle BLA members emerged shooting. Two police officers, Waverly L. Brown and Edward J. O'Grady, died in the shootout. Gilbert fled the scene with other RATF and BLA members but was caught by police that day. He was tried, and sentenced in 1983 to 75 years for three counts of felony murder
. His extremely long sentence for participating in this action (especially when compared to Kathy Boudin
, whose guilty plea earned her 20-years-to-life, from which she was paroled on 20 August 2003 and released 17 September 2003) may be due to his decision not to participate in his trial, not recognizing the authority of the state to try him. Gilbert has admitted that his participating in the Brinks robbery was wrong and apologized for his role in the "tragic loss of life" on that day. He does not deny his role in the robbery and subsequent murders.
and AIDS
in the Auburn Correctional Facility in 1987, and a similar, more successful project in Great Meadows Prison in Comstock
following his transfer there. He has published book reviews and essays in a number of small/independent newspapers and journals, some of which were collected into the anthology No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner (Abraham Guillen Press) in 2004. He has also published longer single pieces on the topics of misleading AIDS conspiracy theories and white working class political consciousness. The 2003 documentary The Weather Underground
featured interview segments with Gilbert, raising his profile beyond those in the small political prisoner support network who have been following his progress since his incarceration. The DVD release of The Weather Underground features a longer interview with Gilbert as a bonus feature.
Gilbert has served time in numerous upstate New York prisons, and is currently incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility
in Dannemora, New York. He is not eligible for parole until October 13, 2056.
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 which was written by Gilbert, Bob Gottlieb, and Gerry Tenney was part of a longer position paper called the "Port Authority Statement"
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" written by Dan Berger.
In an article found in the Columbia Daily-Spectator on April 2, 1983 Bob Feldman wrote "Beyond Brinks: David Gilbert Talks About the Robbery, the Underground, the Struggle"
The initial draft of Prairie Fire was written by Bill Ayers
and Gilbert was part of a small group who took part in the editing and rewriting of Prairie Fire.
In response to Prairie Fire's purpose Gilbert said, "We needed something to re-mobilize us, we needed to have an organization to fight imperialism."
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
and member of the Weather Underground Organization. After about ten years underground, he was arrested in October 1981, along with members of the Black Liberation Army
Black Liberation Army
The Black Liberation Army was an underground, black nationalist-Marxist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981...
and other radicals including Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin is a former American radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of three people. She later became a public health expert while in prison...
, his partner and mother of Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin is an American progressive writer and lecturer, focused on Latin American issues. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Yale Law School in 2011.-Early Life and Family:...
. The details of his arrest are included in the entry on Kathy Boudin in the section entitled "1981 Brinks Robbery." He and she both participated in that robbery and were sent to prison for their part in the resulting murders of Nyack police officers Waverly Brown and Edward O'Grady and Brinks guard Peter Paige. (In 2004 the US Post Office in Nyack was renamed in honor of the slain men.)
Activism and influences
David Gilbert grew up in a Jewish family in Brookline, MassachusettsBrookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, which borders on the cities of Boston and Newton. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 58,732.-Etymology:...
, a suburb of Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. Inspired in his teens by the Greensboro sit-ins
Greensboro sit-ins
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests which led to the Woolworth's department store chain reversing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States....
and other events of the Civil Rights Movement
African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...
, he joined the Congress of Racial Equality
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
at age seventeen. He entered Columbia University in 1962. In March 1965 Gilbert founded the Independent Committee on Vietnam (ICV) at Columbia University. Later, in the same year, he co-founded the Columbia University Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society which merged with ICV in the Fall of 1966 even though there was already a chapter set in place that was formed in the early sixties. The SDS chapter founded by Gilbert became renowned. Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS). He traveled regularly to Harlem while working as a tutor, and saw Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
speak at Barnard College in February 1965, experiences he describes as formative. Gilbert was one of the known attendees, by the FBI, at the Flint War Council
Flint War Council
The Flint War Council was a series of meetings of the Weather Underground Organization and associates in Flint, Michigan, that took place from 27–31 December 1969 . During these meetings, the decisions were made for the WUO to go underground, to "engage in guerilla warfare against the U.S...
. Gilbert, Kathy Boudin and Judith Alice Clark formed the May 19 Communist Organization.
After graduating from Columbia University in June 1966, Gilbert spent most of his days and evenings during the fall of 1967 downtown attending grad school at the New School, building an SDS chapter there or attending meetings at the New York SDS Regional Office. In addition, Gilbert spent his spare-time studying Marx's Das Kapital book and writing New Left theoretical papers on imperialism and U.S. domestic consumption, consumerism and "the new working-class." As Columbia SDS grew 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. 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 had his first arrest after walking into a police riot where 6 officers were beating a kid. He could not just stand there and allow it to continue so police turned on him. His charge was assaulting a police officer(apparently the cop scraped his hand when he tried to hit Gilbert in the head with his baton). His lawyer advised him to take a plea bargain because going to trial would mean the word of six officers against his.He plea bargained for being guilty of disorderly conduct and was fined $50. During the Columbia strike, which began on April 23, 1968, as part of the strike team and since he was in good relations with some of the faculty, Gilbert was called in to be a negotiator. At the time of the strike he was a graduate student at the New School for Social Research. In October 1969, he headed up a Weather collective in Denver and was arrested twice. The first arrest was for when he was passing out leaflets at a mall and his comrades were inside setting off a smoke bomb. The second arrest was when he was charged with "assault with a deadly weapon" after arresting officers found a rock in his pocket.
Weather Underground
In 1969 SDS split into different ideological factions and Weatherman emerged, its purpose being to build up armed struggle amidst young white Americans in support of the Black Panthers and other militant groups and also oppose the war in Vietnam via activities intended to "Bring the War Home". Gilbert joined this group in 1969 with his friend, Ted GoldTed Gold
Theodore "Ted" Gold was a member of Weatherman.-Early years and education:Gold was a red diaper baby. He was the son of Hyman Gold, a prominent Jewish physician and a mathematics instructor at Columbia University who had both been part of the Old Left. His mother was a statistician who taught at...
, who later died in the March 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion
Greenwich Village townhouse explosion
The Greenwich Village townhouse explosion was the premature detonation of a bomb as it was being assembled by members of the American radical left group, Weatherman – later renamed the Weather Underground – in the basement of a townhouse at 18 West 11th Street between Fifth Avenue and...
, along with fellow Weather members, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins. The group became a clandestine operation, and the organization was renamed the Weather Underground. When Weather went underground, members often used money they already had or 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.
David Gilbert became a part of the Bay Area collective and they were living in a San Francisco apartment. He and another member were out working on another group's car in Spring of 1971 when they were approached by two men in suits claiming to be real estate agents. The 'suits' asked a few questions and then left, alerting Gilbert that there might be a problem. He suspected that these men were actually FBI agents looking for information. After several meetings within the group, they decided to stay put for awhile. After more suspicious men started inquiring into the activities of other members, they decided to travel north. They holed up in a motel in Portland on a rainy night and watched television. Although not on the group's coordinating committee (the Weather Bureau), Gilbert did act as a regional leader, spending at least some of these years in Colorado. The Weather Underground committed several small bombings directed towards governmental and business property and buildings. As support for the group began to wane on the left, the pace of actions lessened and some members of the Weather Underground resurfaced in late 1976 and early 1977. Gilbert resurfaced briefly in Denver, Colorado between 1977 and 1979. Denver is where he helped organize a Weather collective in October 1969. Before surfacing, he managed to get his criminal charges dropped so he did not face any legal penalties. Gilbert, however, did not think it was in the best interest of the movement for him to resurface. Most Weather members were not prosecuted or did not serve time in prison despite having been sought by the police for years; police misconduct was the cause of many charges eventually being thrown out of court (see: COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
). Gilbert opted to continue his life underground. Gilbert and his partner, Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin is a former American radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of three people. She later became a public health expert while in prison...
, remained active even following the birth of their son, Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin is an American progressive writer and lecturer, focused on Latin American issues. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Yale Law School in 2011.-Early Life and Family:...
, in August 1980.
Brinks robbery
In the late 1970s or early 1980s Gilbert and other white activists took the name RATF (Revolutionary Armed Task Force), declaring their solidarity with the Black Liberation ArmyBlack Liberation Army
The Black Liberation Army was an underground, black nationalist-Marxist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981...
(BLA). On October 20, 1981, the RATF participated along with several members of the BLA in an attempt to rob a Brinks armored car at the Nanuet Mall, near Nyack, New York. While Gilbert and Boudin waited in a U-Haul truck in a nearby parking lot, armed BLA members took another vehicle to the mall, where a Brinks truck was making a delivery. They confronted the guards and a shoot out ensued, wounding guard Joe Trombino after he let off one shot (wounds he survived, although he died decades later on September 11th) and killing his co-worker, Peter Paige. The robbers then took $1.6 million in cash and sped off to transfer into the waiting U-Haul. The truck was soon stopped by a police roadblock. Gilbert and Boudin surrendered but when the officers tried to search the back of the vehicle BLA members emerged shooting. Two police officers, Waverly L. Brown and Edward J. O'Grady, died in the shootout. Gilbert fled the scene with other RATF and BLA members but was caught by police that day. He was tried, and sentenced in 1983 to 75 years for three counts of felony murder
Felony murder
The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder in two ways. First, when an offender kills accidentally or without specific intent to kill in the course of an applicable felony, what might have been manslaughter is escalated to murder...
. His extremely long sentence for participating in this action (especially when compared to Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin is a former American radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of three people. She later became a public health expert while in prison...
, whose guilty plea earned her 20-years-to-life, from which she was paroled on 20 August 2003 and released 17 September 2003) may be due to his decision not to participate in his trial, not recognizing the authority of the state to try him. Gilbert has admitted that his participating in the Brinks robbery was wrong and apologized for his role in the "tragic loss of life" on that day. He does not deny his role in the robbery and subsequent murders.
Imprisonment
Gilbert co-founded an inmate peer education program on HIVHIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
and AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
in the Auburn Correctional Facility in 1987, and a similar, more successful project in Great Meadows Prison in Comstock
Fort Ann (town), New York
Fort Ann is a town in Washington County, New York, United States. It is part of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town population was 6,417 at the 2000 census...
following his transfer there. He has published book reviews and essays in a number of small/independent newspapers and journals, some of which were collected into the anthology No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner (Abraham Guillen Press) in 2004. He has also published longer single pieces on the topics of misleading AIDS conspiracy theories and white working class political consciousness. The 2003 documentary The Weather Underground
The Weather Underground
The Weather Underground is a 2002 documentary film based on the rise and fall of the American radical organization The Weathermen. Using much archive footage from the time as well as interviews with the Weathermen today, the film constructs a linear narrative of the militant organization.The film,...
featured interview segments with Gilbert, raising his profile beyond those in the small political prisoner support network who have been following his progress since his incarceration. The DVD release of The Weather Underground features a longer interview with Gilbert as a bonus feature.
Gilbert has served time in numerous upstate New York prisons, and is currently incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility
Clinton Correctional Facility
Clinton Correctional Facility is a New York State Department of Correctional Services state prison for men located in the Village of Dannemora, New York. The prison itself is sometimes colloquially referred to as Dannemora, although its actual name is derived from its location in Clinton County,...
in Dannemora, New York. He is not eligible for parole until October 13, 2056.
Contributions
David Gilbert co-wrote the pamphlet U.S. Imperialism with David Loud. 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 which was written by Gilbert, Bob Gottlieb, and Gerry Tenney was part of a longer position paper called the "Port Authority Statement"
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" written by Dan Berger.
In an article found in the Columbia Daily-Spectator on April 2, 1983 Bob Feldman wrote "Beyond Brinks: David Gilbert Talks About the Robbery, the Underground, the Struggle"
The initial draft of Prairie Fire was written by Bill Ayers
Bill Ayers
William Charles "Bill" Ayers is an American elementary education theorist and a former leader in the movement that opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He is known for his 1960s activism as well as his current work in education reform, curriculum, and instruction...
and Gilbert was part of a small group who took part in the editing and rewriting of Prairie Fire.
In response to Prairie Fire's purpose Gilbert said, "We needed something to re-mobilize us, we needed to have an organization to fight imperialism."
See also
- Weather Underground Organization
- May 19th Communist Organization
- List of Weatherman actions
External links
- Writings by David Gilbert from the Kersplebedeb web site
- An interview from 1985, in which Gilbert discusses the Brinks robbery and his trial. From the site Informations sur des prisonnier(e)s politiques.
- The official site of the documentary The Weather Underground, directed by Sam Green.
- NY State Department of Correctional Services file
- Gilbert is an advisor and collaborator of the annual Certain Days Free Political Prisoners Calendar.